Page 55 of Indecent Proposal

“I mean… I kind of like the cabin now,” I admitted. “When I’m not hiding out there scared for my life.”

I swore I could feel him smile, even though I couldn’t see it since my head was buried in his chest. “Good to know. But I was thinking you could stay at my place, since it’s close by and you can hopefully start to get your life back together again fairly quickly.”

“You really want me to stay with you?” I pulled back to look at him, frowning in confusion. “Are you sure?”

“Well, if you don’t want to—”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I want to make sure thatyoureally want it,” I pointed out. “I don’t—I understand that during times of stress and all, y’know, you can make relationships, connections—I don’t want you to force yourself to continue anything you don’t want to.”

“Claire.” Vaughn took my face in his hands, his eyes holding mine. “This is the first time I’ve ever wanted to explore something with a woman. I know when it’s just sex and trust me, I’ve got no problem cutting someone loose when that’s all it is. But you. . . you mean so much more to me and I’ve kinda gotten used to you,” he said with a smile. “You’re feisty, you don’t let anything get you down, and you never stop fighting. Even when that means you’re fightingmebecause you’re stubborn as hell. I want to keep exploring what we have together.”

“Exploring what we have together,” I repeated back to him with an eyeroll. “That’ssoromantic.”

“You already had romantic,” he pointed out. “You didn’t want it.”

“No, I didn’t,” I agreed, because he was right. “I want you.”

I wanted the unconventional. I wanted someone who put me through my paces. Someone who challenged me and who I could trust. Someone who saw all that I was and would support me, and take me just as I was.

“Well, lucky you, you’ve got me.” Vaughn smirked. “And you’re buying dinner, by the way. Since you owe me for the security consultation.”

That smug asshole.Mysmug asshole. I kissed that smirk right off his face.

I was home free.

EPILOGUE

Vaughn

The whole legal proceeding for a criminal investigation this big was going to take a while, so that was my main concern with getting this folder to my friends at the FBI and moving everything forward as soon as possible. I knew that Claire—and myself, to a certain extent—would be stuck in legal proceedings for a while. But hopefully it wouldn’t be forever if we could move quickly on this.

That was my excuse later on as to why I didn’t even think about the consequences of letting Claire meet my closest friends, my partners in stopping crime.

“Who isthis?” Bryce asked, grinning as I led Claire into the room to meet two of my best guy friends.

This was supposed to be for a strategy meeting, but Bryce could never resist a pretty girl. He was charming and handsome enough to get any woman he wanted, too. He was the most gregarious out of the three of us, for sure, which was why he took the jobs that required the most social interaction.

Fine by me. But this was one girl he couldn’t get his hands on.

“Claire,” I said testily. “Claire Turner.”

Bryce raised his eyebrows at me. “Oh, kay?”

Seth, the one who actually bothered to hire the IT guys and generally knew what they were talking about better than the rest of us, glanced at Bryce, then at Claire, then at me. “So, Claire, why don’t you tell us your story?”

Claire quickly breezed through things, and I filled in the gaps where necessary. I thought we did a pretty good job pulling everything off, until we wrapped, and Bryce finally spoke.

“So, when did you two start sleeping together?” he asked.

I glared at him while Claire’s eyes went a bit wide. “What?” she said, unconvincingly.

“It wasn’t as payment,” I snapped. I didn’t want them thinking I’d coerced her into anything.

“I knew it,” Bryce smirked.

“No, you didn’t.”

Bryce just laughed. “You never care if I flirt with someone but I just tried tointroducemyself to her—”

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