Once more, yet again, Griff was taken aback at Claire’s sweetness and warmth, at her desire to make other people happy. She really did seem to be the kind of woman who put others first, and who did anything she could to help people get what their hearts deeply wished for.
How to reconcile this giving, generous woman with the cold, cunning bitch in his work files? More and more, Griff was beginning to think that the files were wrong, and that the woman sitting in front of him wearing a cheap wrap-around dress, and no jewelry, and very little makeup, and all the more stunning for all of it, was the real Claire. That the real Claire wasn’t hungering for money or status or a beach house in The Seychelles, and that she wasn’t actually missing her old life in New York at all.
No, Griff was truly beginning to believe that the real Claire was happy in the here and now. That she was building something true and honest… something that she took pride in, and loved deeply, and was willing to sacrifice and work for.
She was looking to have something real. Something really good.
And he liked her for it. He admired her. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know everything about this beautiful, bewitching woman. He wanted to see her again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and not because Dallas had ordered him to. He wanted her in his arms, and in his bed. He wanted to love her, love her deeply and fully and properly.
He wanted her.
And in that moment, Griff knew that the last, lingering vestiges of his professionalism had just gone flying out of the goddamn window.
In that moment, he knew that he was completely, totally, fucked.
**
The kiss had been totally unplanned. It had been nothing but a surprise. It had happened completely out-of-the-blue. It had just been part of the honeypot op. It had meant nothing real.
That’s what Griff told himself later, as he stood in his bathroom at home, clutching the counter and staring at himself in the mirror. He told himself all of that; he told himself more than that.
I didn’t mean to do that.
I didn’t mean it.
But even as he met his own eyes in the mirror, he knew that he was lying. Because when he’d walked Claire out to her car and she’d turned her shining, stunning face up to his and said, “Well, goodnight, Jack. Thank you so much for dinner,” and then had turned to unlock her car door, he’d done the only thing in the world that had made any sense to him in that moment.
He’d spun her around, taken her in his arms, pushed her back against her car. And when she’d gasped in surprise, he’d swallowed that small, sexy sound into his own mouth.
Her lips had been soft… so damn soft. Griff had let his hands slide up to cup her face, carefully avoiding her bruised cheek, and had let his kisses become stronger and more demanding. And God help him, but when she’d moaned, all low and sultry and dark, and had shuddered in his embrace, he’d barely held it together. All he’d seen was the back seat of her car – and all he’d wanted was to take her in it. Right there in the damn parking lot.
Reason had won out, just barely. Instead, he’d pulled back a bit – no more than an inch – and tenderly cradled her face in his rough hands. She’d stared up at him, those blue eyes so bewildered, so hot, and he’d gently pressed a tiny kiss on her nose.
“OK, kitten?” he’d rasped. “Or did I massively overstep?”
“No.” Her voice had been tremulous. “No, you didn’t overstep.”
“You sure now?”
“Totally sure.”
“Can I see you again?” he’d said, and it wasn’t so much a question as a demand, and they both knew it. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Her face had been alight with happiness, and he’d found himself smiling back like an insane person. “I’d like that.”
“Me too.” One last kiss, and then he’d stepped back with nothing but regret. “Gimme your cell number right now, kitten. No more putting it off.”
And she’d given it to him. Griff knew that it was a burner, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was that he had a direct line to her… that he could hear her voice whenever he wanted.
Griff shook his head slowly now, still meeting his own eyes in the mirror.
“You’re fucked, man,” he said aloud to the idiot in the mirror. “”Totally fucking fucked.”
Chapter Eleven
Chris took one long, last look around the King’s Garage, feeling surprisingly emotional about leaving it. He knew that he’d miss it, of course, that he’d miss the guys, miss working on the motorcycles. But it was time to go, and Chris was looking forward to the future.
Still, he lingered a bit. He wasn’t sorry to go… he just wasn’t quite ready to go.
“What the fuck, Brooker?” The low growl behind him made him smile. “Do I have to throw your ass out or what, man?”
Chris turned to look at Matt ‘King’ Kingston, his soon-to-be-former boss. King was standing in the doorway, his massive arms crossed over his massive chest, his dark gray eyes as hard as ever, but a tiny smile on his rough face. Yeah, he’d miss King too. The man was shady and secretive and tough-as-hell, but he was a good man in his heart. He’d been good to Chris, he’d been a good boss… and he’d become a good friend.
“Hey, King,” Chris said amiably. “Just thinking how glad I am to never have to set foot in this pit ever again.”
Now those gray eyes flashed with amusement at the challenge. “Is that so?”
“Yep.” Chris wandered over. “Taking a big step up in my life, man… just looking back on my humble beginnings.”
“Ah,” King said. “From grease-monkey to carpenter. Dizzying heights.”
“Right?” Chris agreed. “Moving up in the world.”
“I’m gonna miss you,” King said abruptly, catching Chris by surprise. “You’re the best damn mechanic I’ve ever known, Brooker, and you’re a damn good man.”
“Thanks,” Chris said, taken aback.
“But I also know that you’re a talented carpenter, so enough wasting time and working for other people, Brooker, it’s time to work for yourself. You take care of that gorgeous woman of yours, and you make a go of your own business. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” Chris took the other man’s extended hand, shook it. “Thanks, King. Thank you for every single thing you’ve ever done for me.”
“My pleasure, Chris.”
“If you ever need me for anything, and I mean anything, you just say so. I’ll be there, no questions asked.”
“I just may take you up on that one day, man.” King grinned. “Like when I need a dining room table set made.”
Chris laughed, shook his head. “I’ll give you a good price on it.”
“Damn right,” King growled, reverting to badass in a split second. “A great price, actually.”
“Hi.”
The men turned now to look at Jenny. She stood near the front door, a bit shy and uncertain if she was interrupting.
“Hey, baby,” Chris said. “I’m glad to see you.”
She laughed. “You just saw me this morning at home.”
“And it feels like ages ago,” he teased her.
She laughed again, then looked at King. “Hi, Matt.”
“Jenny.” He inclined his dark head at her, gave her one of his rare smiles. “How you doin’, honey?”
“Oh, great.” She moved into the garage now, a bit more at ease. Even though she knew that neither one of these men would ever, ever hurt her, and she’d worked hard to get past her brutal rapes and beatings at the hands of four men almost seven years before, her first instinct when entering a room was always, always to stay as close to the door as possible. She and Chris both knew that some parts of her ordeal would never fully go away, and they’d worked hard to make their peace with that. “Ready to go.”
“Up to Colorado Springs for two weeks, huh?” King said.
“Yep.” Jenny nestled up to Chris, just slid on into his arms like she’d been born to
be there. And in some ways, she thought that she had been. “Time to start the serious work on the restaurant now. The pipes and electric stuff and moving the walls around. Best to be on-site for all of that.”
“Totally right,” King said. “You keep those contractor boys in line, Jenny.”
“Oh, I will,” she said, all hardcore. “You know me. I’m a bitch on wheels.”
Both men blinked at her language – so utterly out-of-character for her – then burst into laughter. She grinned back, so lovely and confident that Chris couldn’t stop himself from planting a kiss on her blonde hair.
“You tell ‘em, baby,” he murmured. “Kick their asses if they do a piss-poor job.”
She leveled him with a mock-severe look. “That’ll include you too, I hope you know.”
Chris reeled back. “Me?”
“Yes, you, Mr. Furniture Builder. You give me stuff that’s not up to my exacting standards, and I’ll kick your ass.”
“Aw.” Chris looked chastised. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll work hard to not disappoint you with the tables and chairs, ma’am.”
“You’d better,” she said. “Or I won’t let you share my hotel room.”
“Well,” King interrupted, rolling his eyes at the cuteness overload. “Seems to me that it’s time for you to go, man.”
“Yeah.” Chris took one more look around the place that he’d considered a sort of home-away-from-home for almost five years, and he knew that he’d let it go fully now. “Time to leave.”
**
Olivia sighed and stretched her arms above her head, then let them drop into her lap. She’d been staring at these spreadsheets for approximately eleven billion hours, and still didn’t have the first damn clue what she was looking at.
“Hey,” Dallas said behind her. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Argh,” she groaned. “And not a second too soon, I swear.”
Dallas moved into the room, started massaging her tense shoulders. “Still struggling through the baffling world of financial documents?”
“Argh,” she said again. “Why do accountants make it so hard to see the damn point? Why don’t they just give me a number – like, one number! – and say, ‘This is how much money you have to invest in an expansion’. Then they give me another number – just one more, mind you – and they say, ‘This is what it will cost to expand’. And I look at the two numbers, and if the first number is bigger than the second number, I can go ahead and open a second safe house. If it’s smaller, I figure out ways to raise more money or I figure out ways to cut costs. I mean… why don’t they do this? Why?”
Dallas laughed. “Because then they’d never be able to justify their sky-high invoices.”
“True.” Olivia stared at the screen some more, still feeling like she was reading Sanskrit. “Maybe I can take you up on your offer after all?”
His large hands stilled on her neck. “To help you, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, baby, I’d love that. I love helping you.”
“I know.” She sighed as he rubbed a knot in her neck. “I was being stubborn when I said no.”
“Nah, you weren’t. You just wanted to do it on your own, and I can respect that.”
“Well, I gave it a shot. Failed miserably. Time to admit defeat. Spreadsheets: One. Olivia: Zero.”
Dallas laughed again, then drew her up and into his arms. “Will you be mad if I tell you something?”
She tipped her head back to stare at him, her red hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Maybe.”
“OK. I’m braced for the rage storm.”
She narrowed her chocolate-brown eyes. “OK, Dallas. Spill it. What have you done?”
“Well.” He tightened his large arms around her a bit, to stave off an impending attack. “I already looked at the financial documents, baby, and I know your organization’s financial position perfectly. I also know if you can afford to open a second safe house or not.’
“You – what?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you wanted to try on your own. I wasn’t about to step on your toes about that.”
“I – oh.” She huffed a bit, then asked what was surely the most important question. “And? Can I?”
“Can you what?” he teased her, his dark blue eyes bright with humor. “Can you get mad at me now?”
“Nooooooo.” She considered rearing back and kicking him in the shins, but decided that she’d probably just hurt her toes. Every inch of the man was rock-hard, rock-solid muscle, after all. Even his shins, most likely. “Can I afford to open a second safe house?”
He made her wait, just to be a bit of a jerk, then he smiled and released her. “Yeah, baby, you can. Easily.”
“Really?” She was so overjoyed, she forgot to poke him in the chest now that her hands were free again. “Really really?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, wow. Dallas.” She stared up at him, stunned. “What a difference it would make to so many women and kids… so many lives changes for the better…”
He nodded, loving her all over again for her dedication and commitment to getting abused women and kids out of violent domestic situations. If Olivia could fund the building and maintaining of a second safe place for them to go, Dallas would be nothing but supportive over the coming stressful months of paperwork, and permits, and construction, and hiring of staff. Hell, he’d be as big a part of it as she’d want him to be, and he wasn’t even slightly adverse to wielding a hammer and getting the place physically up and running. Anything Olivia needed or wanted, Dallas was there to give it, to give it in spades, to give it without question or hesitation.
“How long have you known this?” she asked him. “Be honest now.”
“Uhhh.” He peered down at her, trying to gauge how pissed she really was, then decided that she really wasn’t. “About three days.”
“Jerk,” she said, with nothing but affection in her voice. “Such a jerk.”
“Yeah… but I’m your jerk.”
Olivia laughed, then pulled him down for a kiss. “How about we go to the bedroom and celebrate?”
“What about dinner?” he said, not giving a good goddamn about dinner, but enjoying riling her up a bit. “I slaved over it for hours…”
She made a sound in her throat, the sound that Dallas fucking loved hearing because it meant that she was turning all wildcat on him. Feral and gorgeous, fiery and impatient. Making love with his wife was always incredible, but when she made that sound? It was mind-blowing, and his cock hardened in anticipation of what was to come.
Well. Besides him, clearly.
Without another word, he led her to the bedroom, then picked her up and tossed her gently on the bed. Before she could catch a breath, Dallas was on her, pinning her down with his hands and thighs.
“Love you, baby,” he growled just before he lowered his dark head to kiss her throat. “Love you so damn much.”
“Ah! Dallas!” she cried as he nipped her sensitive skin. “I love you too…”
“Show me, Olivia.” He lifted her shirt to expose her perfect breasts and the long, raised scar that she thought about less and less as time passed. “Show me how much you love me.”
And – as night fell and the dinner turned stone-cold – Olivia did exactly that.
Chapter Twelve
Looking back on it all later, Claire would never fully know or comprehend what the hell had possessed her to tell Jack the truth.
Oh, not the whole truth, of course, since that was impossible. But a big part of the truth. The important parts, for sure.
But when she thought about it later, as she lay nestled in his arms in her bed, she thought that telling lies and telling the truth had a few things in common.
She'd learned that if you told one lie, then you were pretty much guaranteed to have to tell another one, to explain or justify or cover up that first lie. Then a third lie, to protect the first two lies. Then a fourth, to shore things up and to keep t
he house of lies from falling down. And on and on, lie after lie, until it was like a snowball barreling on down a hill. You told one lie, and then you couldn't stop telling more of them.
But, oddly and incredibly, what Claire discovered was that telling the truth was exactly like that. Once you told one real, shining true thing, then you wanted to tell another one. Then another. Then you were tempted to just lay it all out, just go for total honesty. This was especially the case if you hadn't told the truth in a long time, the way that she hadn't. Truth was liberating, she thought as she lay next to Jack's naked body, and it was empowering, and after she'd told Jack one true thing, then she'd had a damn hard time stopping herself from telling him every single true thing that she knew.
She'd invited him over to her place for dinner, since she'd felt like it was high time for her to feed the man, and no way she could afford a decent restaurant. Cooking at home was way more within her budget, and also, she wasn't bad in the kitchen. Years of cooking classes had paid off at long last, it seemed. She'd never even boiled water in her old life, of course, since Wilbur had insisted on a personal chef, and she'd barely cooked more than pasta in her new life, because why the hell spend lots of money to cook just for herself? But for Jack, she'd splash out a bit, borrow a few pots and pans from Cole, invest in some spices and shrimp.
She'd chosen a night when Cole was bartending at Satan's, since he'd jokingly threatened to 'drop by' while Jack was over. Just to keep an eye on the man, he'd said.
"Don't you dare," she had hissed at Cole. "You stay over in here in your trailer and watch TV, you hear me?"
"I'll bring dessert!" he had protested, all innocence. "You like ice cream?"
"I hate ice cream," she had informed him. "I also hate nosy neighbors."
Cole had grinned at her. "Alright, alright... keep your shirt on." His grin had then widened. "Or don't keep it on... hey, is that why you don't want me to come over? You gonna have a whole seduction scene going on over there? Don't want me interrupting your night of lurrrve?"
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