Chapter 8: Clause Nine

The chairwoman left for the city at ten, with her interpreter and two cars, and said she would not be back until dinner.

The house went quiet.

Weston and I ate breakfast in the kitchen without looking at each other, and he drank his coffee standing up.

At noon I walked down the lawn to the boathouse with my phone.

I needed one place with no staff and no windows facing me.

It was a long low building of gray wood, with a loft, a sailboat on a rack and a smell of salt and old rope.

I had been there a minute when the door opened behind me.

"I saw you walk down here," Weston said. "I'm not following you."

"That's exactly what following is."

He shut the door.

"Clause seven broke," I said.

I had not planned to say it. It came out of me in the plain voice I use in court.

He stood very still by the door.

"Which part?"

"The part where I said it wouldn't."

He crossed the boathouse.

His hands came up and held my face.

His eyes searched mine for a long moment.

"Tell me again," he said.

"Clause seven broke."

He kissed me.

It wasn't the dinner kiss. There were no cameras and no chairwoman, and nobody had decided anything.

It was slow at first, and then it wasn't, and I heard the sound I made into his mouth.

I got both hands in his hair.

He backed me up against the workbench, and the edge of it caught the backs of my thighs.

"Clause nine," I said against his lips.

"Is it still in force?"

"You tell me, big guy."

"I'm going to break it," he said. "Say no and I'll stop."

"I'm not going to say no."

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