The Pleasure Contract by Caitlin Crews (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

down rabbit holes even if it was a Saturday had naturally pared down her friend group.

The only person she spoke to with any degree of honesty about her relationship with Lachlan was Indy, but Indy herself was less available as the summer wore on.

And maybe that, too, was a gift.

Because Lachlan wanted to renegotiate their terms and Bristol still didn’t quite know what to make of it. How could she have discussed something she couldn’t understand herself?

Not what he’d asked. She understood that perfectly. But how she felt about the possibility of making that shift.

“I want less job and more girlfriend,” Lachlan had told her that night in Spain.

“Am I not doing it right?” Bristol had asked, possibly sounding more vulnerable than she’d wanted to, but what was she supposed to do? She still felt split wide open and entirely too raw. There were words she could have used to describe what happened between them in that bed that night, but she didn’t dare. That was one more thing to tuck away in that hollow space inside to look at later. Like maybe in November. She’d remembered herself and cleared her throat. “All you have to do is tell me what you want, Lachlan, and I’ll do it. That’s what we agreed.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, Bristol.” His hands had still been bracketing her face. He had still been lodged so deep within her she’d been tempted to imagine that was where he belonged. “I don’t want that. I want a real person.”

“I don’t think you do.” She’d felt a surge of something like panic but had tamped it down as best she could—then had offered him a smile. “Or you wouldn’t have convened a panel to find one.”

“The panel was meant to find me some filler,” Lachlan said, his eyes so blue she’d been certain he could see every last hint of the panic she’d been trying to hide. “But you’re not filler, Bristol. I want more of you.”

That hollow place beneath her breastbone had felt sharp and jagged then.

“That’s not what I signed up for.”

“I want to know what’s going on here,” he’d said, gruffly. He’d tapped his finger gently against her temple, still looking at her with that intensity that had made her think that she might burst into flame after all. Some part of her had wanted nothing more. “I don’t need you to agree with everything I say. I don’t need you to hide away your every feeling from me.”

And the part of her that might have welcomed that noted that he hadn’t been promising to offer her the same in return.

“I thought the entire purpose of this was to hide my feelings from you,” she’d said instead of pointing that out. “So you wouldn’t have to deal with them when what you really want is sex.”

“Maybe it will get messy,” Lachlan had acknowledged. “But maybe that’s okay.”

Bristol had rolled away from him then, because when he touched her she lost her train of thought. Possibly also her mind.

“Not for me,” she’d said, and had left him there to head into the shower.

They had spent a few more days on the island but Lachlan hadn’t brought up renegotiation again.

Bristol hadn’t tried to fool herself into believing that he’d forgotten what he’d said. If she knew anything about Lachlan Drummond after all this time, it was that he truly was ruthless. He might not enact that ruthlessness the way his ancestors had, using Wall Street like a weapon, but that didn’t mean he lacked it.

Lachlan preferred to wait. As long as it took, as long as was necessary.

It was a family trait, apparently.

“You know that you’re the first girlfriend Lachlan has ever introduced me to,” Catriona had said on their last night on the island. Lachlan had been called into a last-minute huddle with his staff, so she’d found Bristol tucked up in one of the lesser-used sitting rooms with the big, fat book she’d been trying to finish before they left open before her. “I don’t want to say that you’re the first girlfriend who also reads, but...”

She’d smiled at Bristol, her face open and engaging.

Bristol knew by then that those were Catriona’s sharpest and deadliest weapons.

“That’s a bit harsh, surely,” Bristol had replied, smiling brightly in return, even as she’d looked around for an escape. Because it felt dishonest, somehow, to have private conversations with a woman she would never see again once the summer was over. The kind of conversations real girlfriends might have with their new boyfriend’s family.

She’d thought again about what Lachlan had said about wanting more of her—then shook it off. Because as much as she might have enjoyed Catriona and her family and the high-spirited banter between all of them and Lachlan at their nightly dinners, none of that was hers. Or ever could be, no matter what fantasies of messy realness Lachlan might harbor.

Bristol knew he didn’t really want any of that. If he did, they never would have met, because he would never have created an entire system to make sure his hired companions kept their distance—up to and including the tiresome Stephanie and her agendas.

“It is harsh,” Catriona had been saying. She’d sighed. “I suppose, Bristol, that I’m just ready for my brother to have something real.”

And for a long moment, the two of them had gazed at each other across that charming room stuffed full of novels and art, a thousand things unspoken between them.

Bristol had been certain then of something she’d thought off and on throughout their stay—that Catriona knew exactly how her brother handled his intimate relationships. Just as she knew that it had been possible Catriona’s oblique reference was a test to see if Bristol would disclose the nature of that relationship now she’d mentioned it, even though it was forbidden by the contracts she’d signed.

And Lachlan wasn’t in the room, so Bristol couldn’t look to his reaction as a guide or, better yet, allow him to handle his sister.

She’d had to