Page 3 of Indecent Proposal

We never planned for our office to be attacked, after all, but when you worked in the business that we did, you just folded these kinds of contingencies into your team training. Now it looked like our preparative measures were going to pay off.

The elevator opened and I pushed Claire inside with one hand and pulled out my keycard with the other. That keycard combined with the typed-in code would override the elevator shut-down if the security team went into lockdown. With a sniper outside I didn’t think they would—that kind of situation was for an intruder—but you never knew what they might deem appropriate. I’d trained these guys after all and I hadn’t trained ‘em to slack on the job.

The elevator took us right up to the top floor and to the offices I shared with my three partners. Our building was taller than the others in the area, built specifically so that unless someone was hovering around on a helicopter, they couldn’t snipe us.

Claire trembled next to me. I had the instinct to put my arm around her and comfort her, with how hard she was shaking, but I didn’t think she’d like that seeing as we literally just met and she clearly didn’t like me.

And really, when did I ever have the urge to console anyone?

“This is how it’s been,” she whispered, hugging her arms around her mid-section. Her face had gone pale, and her eyes were wide and glassy, like she was watching a horror film unfold for the tenth time—it still scared her, but she knew how everything was going to go.

Clearly, her mind was warring between adrenaline and exhaustion. Whatever had been going on with this woman, this wasn’t the first instance. How long had she been stalked?

And yeah, maybe Iwasan asshole for doubting her.

Grabbing her arm, I hauled her out of the elevator as the door opened, leading her into my private office and paging security to let them know where I was, and that I had the target safe with me.

Then I turned to face the beautiful, and troublemaking, Claire Turner. A woman I had the distinct impression was about to turn my own life upside down and inside out by the sheer virtue of the way she’d just proven me, of all people, wrong.

“All right,” I ordered, using that firm, adamant tone of voice that let someone know I wasn’t messing around. “You want to tell me exactly what’s going on?”

To her credit, she did, in fact, tell me everything.

Unfortunately,everythingwasn’t much.

CHAPTER2

Claire

In two weeks, my life had become a virtual nightmare.

Well, it had taken longer than two weeks, really, but two weeks was when it went from frustrating and disappointing—the kind of quarter-life-crisis champagne problems shit that we all went through—to dangerous and insane.

It started with my fiancé.

Well. My ex-fiancé.

Richard was the kind of guy that I’d told myself I could really fall in love with if I just worked hard enough. Everyone thought he was amazing. We’d attended the same university and started dating, and of course I couldn’t say no to him about anything. His family was prominent in the financial sector and on Wall Street, he was handsome, he was rich… when my mom found out we were dating I thought she might actually faint from joy.

For various reasons, I’d told that little nagging voice in the back of my head to shut up. I wasn’t going to listen to the jitters and doubts about our relationship that tried to seep in. Richard was a great guy. I was lucky to be with him. Who wouldn’t be happy to date a handsome, charming, and successful man?

And everything had been fine, really, it had been, until Richard had proposed and we’d started planning the wedding.

The more we planned, the heavier the ring on my finger became. I found myself struggling to eat at times, my stomach tight and knotted. I lost hours of sleep, tossing and turning at night in our bed. I had panic attacks out of nowhere.

None of it made sense. He was a good, decent man, but as time went on, I realized that he wasn’t who and what I envisioned as my husband. It was cliché to say, but I was pretty sure the issue wasme, not him, and what the hell was I supposed to do with that? Disappoint my family and break Richard’s heart simply because I just wasn’t ‘feeling it’? Surely I needed a better reason than that.

The universe presented me with a reason to take a step back, even if it was a flimsy one. About six months into the engagement, Richard began acting… odd. Nothing crazy, but he spent more time at work and telling me less about it. Normally that would make a woman suspect an affair, but I was pretty sure having an affair was supposed to make you feel happy and giddy, high on the adrenaline of sneaking around and the joys of a new relationship.

Richard just looked exhausted and frazzled. He seemed withdrawn and weirdly lost in thought at times, too.

I tried asking him about his odd moods and changing behavior, prying gently. I was his fiancée, after all. I might have been having second thoughts about marrying him, but he hadn’t known that, and I did care about him. I wanted him to be able to confide in me if something was eating at him, but he always just brushed me off.

Clearly he was going through something, and I took the opportunity to ask for a separation. Some time apart for both of us to reflect on our relationship and each other. I didn’t call everything off entirely—I just told him that I was getting cold feet over his secretiveness and the way that he’d become agitated at times without any explanation, and I needed space to clear my head. I leased a small apartment and that was where I’d been for the past couple of months.

As much as I hated to admit it, I did feel so much better once I was away from him. Like I could breathe again. I felt unrestrained. And the more time that passed, I knew that I needed to end things permanently. Being with Richard made me feel stifled, because in his wealthy social circle, I was expected to act and behave a certain way, and my real personality and desires were repressed. His life didn’t truly mesh with mine and I couldn’t force myself to be something I wasn’t.

Finding a way to tell him all that was more difficult than I thought it would be, and I was still trying to figure things out whentwo weeks agohit and my life took another wild turn.

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