Page 19 of The Killer's Payment

At that moment, we pass a sign for the airport, and I realize that if I’m going to change my mind, I’m running out of time. Not that I’m even sure James wouldletme change my mind…

“Do you really want to marry me?” I blurt out. “Or are you just doing it so I won’t be able to testify against you?”

“What?” He glances away from the road for a second and stares at me with those dark green eyes. “Did you seriously just fucking ask me that, princess?”

“Don’t act like it doesn’t happen,” I protest. “I’ve heard some of Dad’s associates talking about—”

“Your father’sassociatesare fucking morons,” he says, cutting me off. “One, nothing could stop you from choosing to testify against me if that were your wish. This isn’t the nineteenth century. Two, there are so many loopholes concerning spousal privilege—particularly on the state level—as to make it irrelevant. And third—”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point.” I roll my eyes. “But you could still be in such a hurry because you’re running from the cops. How do I know that after our honeymoon I’ll even be able to reenter the country?”

“You don’t,” he says, voice cold. “Your choice is to trust me—or not. And that’s what this is really about, love, isn’t it? Do you trust me?”

I start to consider his question, then realize there’s nothing to consider. I’ve been freaking out for no reason. It’s all so perfectly simple.

“Yes.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Yes? Just like that after accusing me of marrying you under false pretenses and planning to lock you up in some offshore hideaway? You didn’t even let me finish.”

I shake my head. “Whatever you were going to say doesn’t matter. There are two kinds of trust. One has to be earned over time—but you’ve already started to do that. You could have done anything you wanted to me last night. I was totally at your mercy. But you sent me to sleep in your guest room, instead. And then…” I hesitate, feeling my face heat, but I force myself to continue, knowing that this is important. “You didn’t have to make it… umm, you know…goodfor me when we had sex, yet you did. And you didn’t have to do what you did with my dad today. You could have insisted that he repay the money he owes you. You could have used me as leverage, then tossed me out on the street the second you got what you wanted. But instead… well, here we are.”

“And the second kind of trust?” he asks, knuckles white as he grips the steering wheel.

“I think sometimes you justknow,” I say, voice soft. “You see him and something inside you screamshe’s the one. This is the man I was meant to be with, the man I love. And you’re afraid to listen to that voice because it’s crazy, right? Loving someone you haven’t even properly met. But you do—and if you love someone, you have to trust him. Or else it isn’t really love…”

Still clutching the steering wheel as if he wants to strangle it, he asks, “And when didyouknow, Sutton?”

I hesitate. It would be so easy to lie here, and the truth will make me sound foolish. But I don’t want to begin my marriage with a lie…

“The first time I saw you, I knew you were trouble. But the good kind of trouble, the kind of trouble you almostcrave, you know? Like sneaking into an R-rated movie or staying up half the night reading with a flashlight when your nanny has told you to go to sleep.”

“Good lord, I’m marrying a fucking child,” he says, voice strained. “Are youtryingto make me feel like a predator? R-rated movies and disobeying your nanny? And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“One of my father’s garden parties,” I confess. “You didn’t notice me, but I couldn’t help noticing you. And I couldn’t forget you, couldn’t stop thinking about the bad man I saw once and somehow couldn’t get out of my head. A man like that can drive a girl crazy—a man so powerful and dangerous and above her that she may as well not even exist.”

The car slows as he takes the exit for the airport. He turns toward me, expression unreadable in the dim light. “Wait—that’swhen you first saw me? At some party at your father’s house?” He frowns. “When was this?”

“Four years ago,” I admit. “When I was fifteen …”

“I never thought I’d be grateful for being oblivious to the interest of a gorgeous woman, but…” He shakes his head. “I may be a ‘bad man’ as you so eloquently put it, but fucking a fifteen-year-old is a line evenIwouldn’t cross. Fuck. That would have been three years of sheer hell.”

“Tell me about it.” I sigh. “And it was four, not three. Knowing a guy like you existed… You ruined me for other men, let alone boys my own age. Why do you think I was still a virgin at nineteen?”

“Honestly? I figured Daddy had you under lock and key. I know I sure as hell would have if you were my daughter.”

“Is that what you’re going to do with our children—if they’re girls?” I ask, heart pounding, afraid to ask the real question…

Do you even want kids?

Because that’s another thing I don’t know about James Hunter—and it’s pretty major, something that matters a lot to me. And yet, if he were to say no, I’d accept it. Just to be with him. How pathetic is that?

His grip on the steering wheel loosens the merest fraction. “So you’re saying you want kids?”

“Umm, yeah, or I wouldn’t have let you come inside me without protection. Why, don’t you?”

I hold my breath, half afraid of his answer.

He brings the car to a stop in front of the private terminal. Not answering, he unfastens his seatbelt and leans over, capturing my mouth in a bruising kiss. It’s the kind of kiss that’s everything and yet somehow still makes you want more. The kind of kiss that leaves absolutely no doubts.

---