Chapter 30 (1/2)

“My room? You’re expecting me to move in?” she squeaks in disbelief.

Okay. Maybe I should have left this until later.

“Not full-time,” I reassure her. “Just, say, Friday evening through Sunday. We have to talk about all that. Negotiate. If you want to do this.”

“I’ll sleep here?”

“Yes.”

“Not with you.”

“No. I told you, I don’t sleep with anyone, except you when you’re stupefied with drink.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“My room is downstairs. Come, you must be hungry.”

“Weirdly, I seem to have lost my appetite,” she declares, with her familiar stubborn expression.

“You must eat, Anastasia.”

Her eating habits will be one of the first issues I’ll work on if she agrees to be mine…that, and her fidgeting.

Stop getting ahead of yourself, Grey!

“I’m fully aware that this is a dark path I’m leading you down, Anastasia, which is why I really want you to think about this.”

She follows me downstairs into the living room once more. “You must have some questions. You’ve signed your NDA; you can ask me anything you want and I’ll answer.”

If this is going to work, she’s going to have to communicate. In the kitchen I open the fridge and find a large plate of cheese and some grapes. Gail wasn’t expecting me to have company, and this is not enough…I wonder if I should order some takeout. Or perhaps take her out?

Like a date.

Another date.

I don’t want to raise expectations like that.

I don’t do dates.

Only with her…

The thought is irritating. There’s a fresh baguette in the bread basket. Bread and cheese will have to do. Besides, she says she’s not hungry.

“Sit.” I point to one of the barstools and Ana sits down and gives me a level gaze.

“You mentioned paperwork,” she says.

“Yes.”

“What paperwork?”

“Well, apart from the NDA, a contract saying what we will and won’t do. I need to know your limits, and you need to know mine. This is consensual, Anastasia.”

“And if I don’t want to do this?”

Shit.

“That’s fine,” I lie.

“But we won’t have any sort of relationship?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“This is the only sort of relationship I’m interested in.”

“Why?”

“It’s the way I am.”

“How did you become this way?”

“Why is anyone the way they are? That’s kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese? Mrs. Jones—my housekeeper—has left this for a late supper.” I place the plate in front of her.

“What are your rules that I have to follow?”

“I have them written down. We’ll go through them once we’ve eaten.”