by Ava Miles
“Not sure. Run like hell? Marry her the same night? Emotion has a way of informing a decision in the moment. Caitlyn, you need to be careful here. Beau is going through something. Remember how Jace the Jerk turned out?”
“Better than you.”
“Then I’ll keep quiet. Look, you know how Quinn works, so to prevent ulcers, let me recommend getting a contract in place as quickly as possible,” Flynn said, heaviness in his voice. “Think of it as a business appetizer.”
“Funny.” She gripped the windowsill. “Thanks, Flynn. For talking this through and for being my brother.”
“Ah… Now I might just make a return trip to see you and pull your hair.”
“Jerk!” She said it half-heartedly. He hadn’t pulled her hair in years and usually only did it in good fun. “I need to draw up this NDA and then dress for my date. Beau went shopping for it.”
“Really? That’s big for a guy. Sorry if that sounds sexist.”
She didn’t mention Beau had torn all his serviceable clothes. Would he have gone shopping if he’d had something suitable to wear? A new thought twisted her gut—Jace the Jerk hadn’t liked her for her. He’d taken her shopping for clothes because he hadn’t thought her clothes suitable or sexy. She hadn’t realized until the boob job offer that nothing about her had been suitable to him. He’d had a Pygmalion complex. God, she wasn’t treating Beau the same way, was she? Now that he’d told her everything, she could see why he was torn up. She had faith that he’d find his way back to the truth at the core of him.
“You get a pass on that comment. Now I really have to go. Where are you, anyway?”
“Bologna,” he said, “having dinner later with a beautiful Italian model who’s in between major fashion shoots.”
“Italy. You and J.T. Well, have fun.”
“You have fun and be smart. Love ya.”
“Love ya too,” she said, ending the call.
Then she got out her laptop and hand-tailored the nondisclosure agreement. Usually she’d have legal draw it up, but she had a good template to work with and knew how to massage it. Pleased with the language, she printed it out and set it aside. She’d ask him to sign tomorrow. Keep things separate. At peace with her decision, she changed into an emerald green cotton dress with an asymmetrical neckline that fell to mid-calf. Still comfortable but a little dressier. When she looked in the mirror, she felt sexy, truly sexy for the first time in a long while—since before Jace the Jerk.
When she came down the stairs for her date, her heart in her throat with nerves, she heard the rumble of conversation in the main room and followed it. Beau stood next to her aunt, a glass of sparkling rosé in his hand.
Holy mother of God. He looked…beautiful in a plum-colored jacket, white shirt open at the collar, and dark gray trousers. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. And he even had a pocket square! The dove gray fabric was a touch lighter than his trousers, and his shoes… My God, were those Italian? Her study finally landed on his face, and she detected a very sexy air of confidence.
He was transformed.
Someone cleared their throat, and she glanced away to see Uncle Arthur walking toward her.
“Don’t you look a sight for these old eyes,” he said, kissing her cheek. “I wish your great-grandfather were here to see you. Grandpa Emmits would be so proud.”
Her eyes watered. “Oh, you dear man. You’re going to make my mascara run.”
“Then stop wearing it,” he teased. “Come on. Beau seems to have found something decent to wear, hasn’t he?”
“I’d say,” she murmured as her uncle took her elbow. “Good evening, everybody.”
Her aunt kissed her cheek. “You look lovely, dear. That dress is fabulous. Paris?”
“Milan,” she said absently, her gaze locking with Beau’s. “You…look incredible. I’ve seen some makeovers, but you look like a guest on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
He’d changed so much a ripple of anxiety went through her belly. Although she was happy he’d found confidence, it struck her that the man she’d met in his office was barely discernible in this handsome, well-dressed man before her. For Beau, she was happy, and even for herself—but what did this mean for her perfume? This suit-wearing man didn’t resemble the earnest singer she’d known women would listen to about her perfume. The thought made her feel awful, and her heart clenched.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” Aunt Clara said. “He had Hargreaves to help, and a lovely French couple who owns a quaint shop nearby.”
“I left more of Old Beau in the village,” Beau said, kissing her cheek sweetly. “Did you know I’d never worn a full suit and tie except when I was singing at funerals for money? Until today, I sure as hell had never worn Italian shoes. But I’m finding I really like this new facet of myself. Sometimes country only gets a man so far.”
She went with honesty since he valued it. “But I still need that Beau Masters for my perfume,” she said, infusing her voice with a teasing tone although she didn’t feel like laughing. “You’ll still bring him out sometimes, right?”
He only shrugged.
Shrugged? She couldn’t breathe suddenly. She wasn’t sure what to do.
This beautifully dressed man looked like he should be selling cigars, not perfume.
Aunt Clara put a drink in her hand. “Have some bubbles, dear.”
She was thinking a whiskey might need to come next. Suddenly it no longer felt like that NDA could wait. She needed something from him. Some assurance that this would work out as they’d discussed. Oh, how she hated feeling this insecure.
“Thank you,” she said to her aunt, trying to smile. “Beau, can we speak privately for a moment?”
“Of course,” he said, his gaze sharp on her face.
Her aunt and uncle shared a look. “Arthur and I will go find another bottle,” Aunt Clara said.
After they’d left, she faced him. “I know the timing isn’t great, but we need to talk about a little business item. I understand your feelings on signing the contract right now, but I’d like you to sign a nondisclosure agreement. After all, you are staying here and participating in our planning sessions.”
His blue-gray eyes blinked, and then his mouth snapped shut. “You’re bringing this up now? Before our date?”
She made herself nod. “Our legal department is by the book, and as the head of this project, I need to follow protocol.” She put her glass down on a side table. “I got some pressure about the contract today, and while I want to honor your feelings on that score, I need to give my team something.”
“Of course. I didn’t think about putting you in a bad position. If I could sign the contract right now, I would, but it’s still a little premature on my end.”
She wanted to ask why, but before she could decide how to phrase it, he said, “I’m happy to sign an NDA. My reticence was only because you caught me off guard.” Setting his glass next to hers, he shrugged. “I figured our first date was a reason for celebration.”
She wanted to curse. “It is, but I can’t wait any longer. This isn’t the first time I’ve been pressed, but I didn’t want to bother you with it before. I have the document for you to sign.”
His gaze lingered on her for a moment. “I’ll look it over now if you’d like,” he said at last. “We can get this out of the way before we leave.”
Her belly tightened. Would they be able to put the tension this was causing aside?
“Claude is picking us up at a quarter after seven so we can make our reservation.”
It was closing in on seven now, she knew. “I’ll be right back.”
She dashed upstairs, grabbed the paper and a Merriam pen, and ran back down. Breathless, she returned to find her aunt and uncle gazing quizzically in her direction. The new bottle of wine sat on the round table in the entryway, unopened. No one spoke, but Beau excused himself with a polite nod and crossed toward her. She made herself hand him the NDA.
From the corner of her eye, she saw he
r aunt and uncle quietly leave the room.
He set the document on the round table, right across from that bottle they should be drinking to celebrate their date, and he braced his hands on the wood, reading it. His finger traced the lines, and with each pass of his finger from left to right, she could detect a new feeling growing between them: caution. His shoulders were braced, and hers were up to her ears.
“I usually don’t handle this sort of thing, but everything seems worded okay,” he said.
Right. His mother did. Likely his lawyer too. For a moment, she regretted putting him on the spot, but better that she do so now than risk Quinn showing up to steamroll everything.
Beau extended his hand out, not looking at her, and it took her a moment to realize he was waiting for the pen in her hand. She thrust it out, and he grabbed it. The scratching sound of the pen against the paper grated on her nerves, as terrible as nails on a chalkboard. When he drew up and thrust the signed NDA back, his gaze was direct.
“Are you sure you still want to go on our date?”
His words made her heart pound. “Of course. That’s not what this is about. I need you to understand that.”
He looked off, tapping his thigh. “Right now it feels like you don’t trust me completely, and that feels downright rotten. Especially after everything we’ve shared.”
She clenched her fists. “It feels rotten to me too, but this venture is the first one I get to lead as a Merriam, and there’s a certain order to how we do things. I’ve bypassed some of those steps, trusting everything’s going to fall into place. Because I know you.” Or think I do. “Not everyone I work with and for understands that. So please don’t put this on me. If it were up to me, we’d have had the contract signed and legalized when I first met you.”
The tapping on his trousers wasn’t near as fast as her heart rate, but still she felt its vibration. “I’d like to sign the contract, but I just can’t yet. I told you that from the beginning.”
“Yes, you did, and until today, I hadn’t thought about asking for an NDA in lieu of the contract. Honestly, I didn’t expect you to come here so soon. Beau, I know the timing looks bad, but these things are normally covered in the contract.”
“Yet I keep coming back to trust. If you don’t trust me, maybe we should call this off. I mean, I’ve trusted you with some deeply personal things about myself, and I didn’t make you sign anything. Do you have any idea what kind of fodder that would be for the media given who I am?”
That he would remind her of his celebrity status only made the gap between them widen. Business. Pleasure. She could almost hear Quinn’s voice reminding her they didn’t mix.
She inhaled jaggedly, searching for the right word. “I know you trusted me with something very personal, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. But that’s personal, and this is business. I want to trust you completely, but even you have to admit you’re in the midst of a great transition. Beau, seeing you today, you look ready for a photoshoot for GQ, not Southern Living.”
“Why can’t I be on both magazine covers?” He closed the distance between them, his head inches from her face. “Why can’t Beau Masters like wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt with his favorite boots and this kind of get-up?”
She went with honesty. “I don’t know. Currently, it’s not your image.”
“Then my image needs changing. My roots need plucking. So let’s circle back to the original question here. Do you still want to go out to dinner with me? And don’t say yes unless you plan on kissing me like you did in the kitchen the other day because that’s how I want this to go. This ain’t no dinner for friends or business associates. This is for one man and one woman who fancy each other because dammit, Caitlyn Merriam, I fancy the hell out of you.”
His drawl had gotten thicker, his voice louder. She stood trembling in her three-inch heels.
The loud bleating of a goat trickled through the air, forlorn and questing.
“Beau, that damn goat is back, crying for you,” her uncle shouted from the other room. “You’d better take care of it before you and Caitlyn leave. I will not listen to that sad call while I’m eating dinner. It will give me indigestion.”
“Yes, sir,” Beau called out. “Excuse me a moment.”
She followed slowly as he strode out the back, her mind a jumble of confusing thoughts. What was she really afraid of here?
A loud bleating reached her ears followed by some slow-drawl cursing. Beau Masters wore Italian shoes now and cursed. He even drank pink champagne. What had happened to the sweet, simple Beau she’d dreamed about, the one she’d wanted to help her sell her perfume?
Her feet carried her to the French doors. Beau had sunk down onto his knee in front of Chou-Chou, talking to the goat, rubbing him under those flappy little ears. The sight could have been in a movie, what with the fields of lavender behind them. A handsome man petting a goat, at home in a stylish European wardrobe.
It wasn’t the scene she wanted for her new perfume. The businesswoman questioned whether it could make her perfume a success.
But did she still want the man? Was she interested enough in him to discover where all this change was leading? Time to move forward or bail, she realized.
The goat lowered its small head and butted Beau in the chest. He laughed, falling back onto his new gray trousers. He pushed Chou-Chou’s head away from him playfully, but the moment brought clarity. A month ago, her tough-as-nails brother, Trevor, had been chased by a lovesick alpaca. Now, Trev could be a lot of things, but he’d never been an animal lover. And yet he’d become one, and not just with the alpaca lovingly called Buttercup. He’d embraced his new wife’s cat and dog with equal aplomb. He’d changed, right before her eyes.
But not the core of him. He’d…
What was the word she was looking for? He’d expanded.
Perhaps that’s what Beau was doing right before her eyes.
He stood, laughing, brushing the seat of his trousers off as if he didn’t care that the baby goat had just gotten an expensive pair of pants dirty. The decision was easy, ultimately, the truth as clear in her mind as crystal.
She wanted him, the man.
Opening the French door, she started walking toward him. He looked over, and his laughter faded. In his blue eyes, she could see he expected her decision and was bracing himself for the possibility she might say no. He tucked his hands in his pockets, strolling to meet her halfway.
“I’d still like to go,” she said, the hot breeze making her skin feel even tighter. “Do I need to apologize for earlier?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I was in the wrong too. Let’s set it aside. Claude should be arriving any time now.”
They walked companionably back toward the house, her aunt and uncle standing at the open French doors. Aunt Clara had topped off their champagne glasses, but they sat untouched in their hands.
“You know,” Beau said, his drawl as spicy as the lavender, “I’d told myself I wanted us both to have the most romantic night of our lives tonight.”
She felt her heart melt. “That’s a tall order.” But not surprising from the man who’d kissed her gently and walked her back to the house, hand in hand, after telling her about one of the worst discoveries of his life.
He took his hands out of his pockets and framed her face. “Someone at my label today asked if I’d come up with one of my signature love songs for the new album, and I thought of you. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I would call it. Now I know.”
She held her breath. This was the man she knew, the one her heart tripped for.
“‘Sunshine in Her Eyes,’” he said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I think it might be the best song I’m ever going to write.”
Whoa! What did a girl say to that? “Thank you, but you’ll still need to leave your goat at home tonight.” Ibrahim’s comment about her using humor in serious moments came to mind. She was doing it again.
“A goat wouldn’t add romance?” He laugh
ed, the sound loud and free. “Come on, honey. Our carriage awaits.”
She reached for his hand, Chou-Chou calling for him sadly as they walked off. Waving to her aunt and uncle, she gathered her crazy emotions together.
She wanted this night to be the most romantic of their lives as much as he did.
* * *
“Clara, dear,” Arthur said, watching the young couple walk off in the fading sunlight, “our romantic moment got interrupted by that darn goat.” First, that crazy alpaca in Ireland and now this… “Next time we visit a Merriam, I am asking up front about farm animals.”
She socked him in the arm, like she often did. “Oh, stop. At least it’s cute. And the interruption was timely, it seems. Whatever Beau was signing seemed to cause a whole bunch of tension between them.”
“Business papers, I imagine,” Arthur said. “Trouble always comes when you mix love and money.”
Picking up her champagne, she flounced—that was a good word for it—onto the leather sofa. He took his time sitting. Some people slid off Italian leather and ended up on the floor.
“I don’t think we have much to worry about,” Clara said. “They clearly like each other. I haven’t seen that kind of a makeover in a man since George Michael went from being straight to out of the closet.”
“I don’t know who this George Michael fellow is, but after looking into Beau Masters more online, I can tell you one thing: whatever is troubling Beau isn’t public yet.” He’d spent the morning looking up everything he could about the singer. “A transformation like this is motivated by something. I mean, yesterday he looked like somebody from Beverly Hillbillies and today he could have been on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”
“And you don’t know who George Michael is? Oh, Arthur.” She lifted one of her legs on the sofa, the better to tantalize him. Until they’d reconnected, he hadn’t thought a woman her age could have such great legs.
“Well, who is he?” If he didn’t ask, she’d just pester him.
“He’s deceased, but he was a British singer. Quite the hottie in his ‘Faith’ days, let me tell you. The original bad boy in leather surrounded by models like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell.”