Delicate Us

Chapter 28

Syler

The file felt heavier in Syler's lap than it actually was. That was all she could focus on while Trace's electric green eyes bore into her, waiting. Waiting for what she had come to say. But his presence, seeing Penelope leaned in so close to him, and now this file, those three words lodged so far down her throat, it got lost in the tangle of nerves in her stomach.

It had been quiet for minutes. Trace looked at Syler, and Syler at the file. Every time she parted her lips to speak, something in her would bite down and shut them.

Trace's hand wandered to her knee. When he sighed, Syler finally found the strength to look at him. His chiseled jaw, high cheekbones, incredible lips, and kind eyes. "I'm sorry I left you like that."

She took a swift intake of breath and looked up at him confused why he was the one apologizing. Still, that apology meant everything to her. It tied itself in a nice bow in her heart over the fact that perhaps there was something still worth salvaging between them. "No, Trace, I—I'm sorry," she paused, trying to tell her thoughts to slow down so she could read them. "I'm not sure where to begin." I set the file aside on the table, letting a finger linger over it. "Did you... read it?"

He cracked a confused look. "You know I didn't read it. Look how many pages it is. My nightmare." His brows lifted as he said, "Unless there's an audiobook for it."

She sent him a calm, sullen grin.

After he withdrew his hand from her knee, he leaned back ever so slightly and eyed the file. "Are they real? You have contracts with other guys?"

She sighed and let myself sink into his couch, feeling the heaviness of the burden on his shoulders. "Yes. All past relationships though. It was my mom's idea. I had an ex who bad-mouthed me to the press, and it sent me into a really bad depression. I don't think I left the house--my room for a year." She raked her blonde hair back with her fingers before tugging her sleeves over her hands.  "The contracts are all just asking for privacy from the press. They're all the exact same." Syler opened the file. "You can look if you want. It was other celebrities who suggested having a failsafe. I'm not the only one who needed them."

His eyes never left hers. "Was this part of our contract?"

Syler sat back, folded her arms over her stomach, and tucked her knees to her chest. With a quick shake of her head, she said, "No."

"They're all the same," Trace echoed, "yet you never gave that to me."

Syler shrugged. "I fought my mom over it. But, I told her this wasn't supposed to be a real relationship, so there was no point to just add more. The NDA covered enough about privacy anyway. I didn't want you to read it and think I was forcing myself on you. That's why I was so adamant about us reading it when you came over that day."

That seemed to take Trace aback. He pressed his lips and drew himself away from her just a tad.

"I also wanted to give you the freedom to say whatever you wanted. You earned it after saving the girls at the bar from that creep."

Like her words were a rope between them that she tugged, he leaned forward, his hand making its way back to her knee.

"I'd never say anything negative about you. No matter how many more traps you set up for me to walk in."

A trap. He thought of them as a trap--that she had trapped him. Did he think that before or after he realized he was part of a mastermind plan to take down his agent? Syler didn't want to know that though. If it was only before, she thought it might kill her. Trying not to see the ugly in that sentence, and instead, focus on the fact that he just admitted he'd jump through any hoop for her, she said a quiet, "Thanks."