“I know,” I sigh. “I’m not usually a jealous bitch, but I was a little annoyed when the call came saying she was spending the night on some island.”

“Well, I’m happy to keep you company and occupy all your thoughts while you wait for her to come home. Want a tour of the house?” He waves me forward and onto the little pea-pebbled pathway.

“Wow, these stones feel so good on my feet.”

“They really do, don’t they. You don’t normally hear those three things together. Bare feet, stones, and feels good. But they are smooth and polished. It’s like a foot massage as you walk.” He chuckles to himself and adds, “And if you ever find yourself lying on your back, they massage that too.”

“Is that right?” My God, he just admitted to f**king someone on this path.

“Wanna feel it? Here,” he says as he takes my hand and kneels down on the pebbles, pulling me down with him. “Lie down, I’ll show you.”

“No.” I pull away, forcefully this time. With enough gumption for him to realize that’s never gonna happen. “No, I don’t want to.”

“OK,” he says, getting back to his feet. “You’re a tough cookie to crack, aren’t you?”

“Define crack?”

“To break, to open—”

“Now you’re the one sending mixed signals.”

“Am I?” he replies quickly. “I think I’m sending all the right ones, to be honest.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want? Why ask me out? Why all this strange interest?”

He stares down at me with a flat line for a mouth, his eyebrows melded together in an expression of confusion. “Why not you? You’re pretty, you’re here, and you’re the only beautiful woman around who is not on her honeymoon or part of my family.”

Oh my God. The god just insulted me by practically labeling me ‘available’. “Was that supposed to be a compliment?” I ask him. It takes a lot to undo my Happiness is a #Hashtag motto, but I admit, I am very, very annoyed at this point.

“Are you looking for a compliment? Because I can dish them out, Grace. I can tell you your eyes are beautiful, your ass is perfect, and your tits make me hard just picturing them inside that flimsy little piece of fabric you’re calling a dress. Do you need to hear all those things right now? Do you need your ego pumped up? Because from where I’m standing, all those things are so obvious to me, I kinda figured you’d think I was some pathetic player if I said that to you tonight.”

Well, thanks a lot, ass**le. I’d like to say that, but I don’t because I’m uneasy with all the anger I’m experiencing right now. He’s affecting me in a very negative way and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I cut right through his bullshit and lay it all out there. “Do you want to f**k me?”

“Would you like me to f**k you?”

This is going nowhere. I’m getting nowhere. And I can’t take the pressure, so I blurt out, “Yes! Yes, I want you to f**k me.”

He’s shaking his head before I even finish. “I’m sorry, Grace. I don’t work that way. I mean, yeah, look at you. I’d like to f**k you sideways, upside down, and backwards, and not really in that order because I’m a total ass man. But I don’t date anyone without a NDA.”

“Ah, there it is! I knew that was true!” I turn around and start walking back to the beach.

He does not follow and I know this partly because I don’t hear the soft sound of feet on stones behind me. But also because when I get all the way back to the shore he calls out. “Hey, Grace!”

I stop but don’t turn.

“Want a trial run? To give you time to make up your mind. See if I’m worth the price of your silence?”

I stop and throw up my hands but I don’t turn back around. “Are you asking me if I’d like to f**k you tonight without the contract?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“No strings?”

“No.” He chuckles behind me as he walks down the path. “There are definitely strings, Grace. And if we go any further, you will verbally agree to them. You’ll give me a lady’s word that you will not talk to the media.”

Well, he’s got no idea how much the media revolts me, so that’s a deal I can make. I turn and I’m surprised to find him very close. “What am I not talking to them about, if I give a lady’s word to take you up on the free trial?”

He takes a deep breath like he has to steady himself to answer that question, and then he lets it out and replies, “Submission.”

“I don’t really know what that means, so you’re gonna have to explain.” My heart is beating so fast at the sudden turn in conversation, I almost want to pass out. I steady myself by leaning against the trunk of a palm tree. “Will you hurt me?”

“Maybe,” he says softly. “If you like that.”

“What if I don’t like that?”

“Then I won’t do it. But how do you know you won’t like it unless you try it?”

“Was all this small talk just a way to break the ice so you could get me to agree to this?”

“Yes.”

No hesitation on his part at all. Just yes. I turn away and my heart pounds inside my chest, enough to make my vision blur, and before I know what’s happening I’m falling to the ground. “Did you drug me?”

He laughs. “Drug you? How in the world would I have drugged you, Grace? Jesus. A little faith. I’m not a kidnapper, for f**k’s sake. I’m just a kinky bastard who wants to get laid. And I want to do that with you tonight. Stop thinking so hard.” He’s got me by the arm and I realize I didn’t fall. I almost did, but he caught me. “I can make it nice, if that’s what you want.”

“Just tell me why? Why me?” I force myself to look him in the eyes. “You can have anyone and I’m not the only available woman at this resort. So just tell me what you see when you look at me—and not all that bullshit about eyes and skin and whatever, but what you really see. Do I have the word victim written across my forehead?’

“Victim? What?”

“That something that says you can take advantage of me. That says I’m vulnerable and needy and I will agree to this thing you ask for because I’m desperate for someone to love me and the only person who can do that is you. That’s what you want me to believe, right? I’m damaged—”