Page 14 of Dirty Little Vow

“It’s not that simple. If it were, he and I would already have married, but Tyler’s father liked to mess with Tyler’s head. He was jealous of him. Tyler’s certain that no matter what he does, his father has a gotcha planned.” I don’t pause. I keep pushing to get all I have to say out before he shuts me down. “The thing is, his father never thought Tyler would fall in love and happily marry. I feel like the gotcha got turned around, but Tyler just isn’t sure.

He downs the rest of his whiskey in his glass. “What does Tyler think is going to happen?”

“He doesn’t know, but what if the case file is released anyway? He can’t find it anywhere. The way I look at it, this makes us allies, not enemies. We should have just come to you in the first place.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Tyler wanted to handle this and end it without trouble.”

“He failed,” he says, refiling his glass. “He failed in a big way. Proven by the fact that I’m involved.” He sets the glass down and leans close. “You do understand that when I’m involved, it’s bad. Very bad. Don’t you, Bella?”

Chapter Ten

Tyler

I’m pacing my office, waiting on confirmation that Gavin is in custody, when my cellphone rings with Kent’s number on caller ID. Kent, being my head of security. I answer with, “Do you have him?”

“He left the building about thirty minutes ago.”

Which would be right when I was called into that partner meeting, I think.

“Do you want us to strip his credentials?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I want the bastard to dare to walk back in our door.”

“I’ll make sure he’s escorted to security if he’s that stupid. What else can I do?”

“Come to my office.” I hang up and walk to the window, fingers curling in my palms, my mind flashing back to the first big deal Bella had closed here at the company. She’d literally caught up with me as I stepped inside the elevator.

“I just sold Dash’s book. Or books. Seven figures, Tyler. Seven figures!” The doors had shut, and she’d flung her arms around me and hugged me, holding onto me, in fact.

My cock had been at attention before I’d even processed what was happening. Her perfect body and soft curves were pressed against me of her own free will, and I was swimming in lust and the scent of her floral perfume.

“Thank you, Tyler,” she’d said, and then tilted her chin up to look at me.

That’s when what she’d done had hit her. Her eyes had gone wide, and she’d gone, “Oh, God. Sorry.” She’d pushed away from me, and placed space between us, holding up her hands. “That was highly inappropriate. I’m so sorry. I was just…excited. And impossibly proud of myself. I haven’t even told Dash, and I’m bursting with the joy of it all.”

I’d just looked at her—the flush of her cheeks, the part of her lush lips, the blue of her eyes the color of a tropical sea—while telling myself not to grab her and kiss the hell out of her.

“Tyler?” she’d prodded.

I’d blinked myself fully into this moment, not the one where her breasts had been pressed against me, and replied with, “Why did you thank me, Bella? You made this happen.”

“You gave me the opportunity. You trained me. My God, Tyler, you spent hours talking through my questions with me. Do I need to go on? My thank you was and is sincere.”

“You did this, Bella. Not me. You’ve proven yourself an asset to this company and your brother’s career. Which frankly shocks me, considering you don’t have to work.”

“Neither do you.”

The elevator had opened, and one of the front desk girls had been standing there. We hadn’t even pushed the button to go down. She’d looked between us and then said, “I can wait for the next car.”

Bella had used her comment to flee. “No. I’m getting off. He’s going down, I believe.” She’d exited the car then and she hadn’t dared look at me, because we’d both known there was more between us, something taboo that could never be acted upon.

But we did.

And she saved me in every possible way. Now, I have to save her, the way she did me.

There is no other outcome that is acceptable.

---