Solid Gold (Unseen Enemy Book 8)

by Marysol James

  Griff’s breath froze in his chest. Oh, God, did she mean…

  “Here in Denver,” she continued. “I love this life, John, and as soon as I figured out that this is where I truly belong, it all became so clear.”

  “So… so you’ll be coming back here?” he asked, almost afraid to say the words out loud. “Coming back to stay?”

  “I’m already back here.”

  “You –” He stared at her. “You are?”

  “Yep.”

  “When?” he rasped, simultaneously ripped to pieces and delighted that she’d been so close to him without him knowing it. “When did you move back?”

  “Three months ago.”

  “Three…” Griff blinked hard. “But… but why didn’t you –”

  “Tell you?” she said. “Because I had to be sure that I was here for me. Not because of Wilbur, and not for you.”

  “And?” he said, every nerve in his body tingling.

  “And…” Claire smiled. “I’m here for me. I’d be here even if you weren’t. I’d be here no matter what, because this is my home.”

  “I’m so happy for you, Claire,” he said, and he really meant it. He knew how hard it was to figure out where you belonged, and if she’d done it… well. She was one of the lucky ones. “You deserve it.”

  “Thank you.”

  They fell silent now, just looking at each other. Griff was aching to ask her if she’d make place for him in her life, but a part of him knew that her life here was just fine the way it was. He knew that she saw Spider and Mirrie and Cole often; he knew that she went to the café and worked on expanding her business; he knew that she gazed up at the Rockies and fell in love with them over and over again.

  And since he knew all of that, he also knew that she didn’t need him. Her life was full and it was amazing, and if she invited him back in, it was because he’d add to her joy. He wouldn’t define it.

  That’s the way it should be.

  And that’s what he was working on himself, in his own life. Since leaving Solid Security, Griff had slaved to build his own consulting business. It was one hell of a learning curve, but he loved it, and even with the hours and hours of work, he’d discovered that being free from the punishing hours of bodyguarding overnight opened up his life in ways that he hadn’t ever experienced.

  He went to the gym early in the morning, when it was busy, not late at night, when most people were leaving instead of gearing up to go to work. He saw some of the same guys, and they’d struck up some conversations about weight-lifting and football. He stopped by the same coffee shop a few days a week, and since he wasn’t rushing off to get some sleep, he was able to linger and chat. Griff found that he liked being a regular somewhere, and to his surprise, he spent entire days in the café working. What had once struck him as an unthinkable, waste-of-time activity now inspired his creativity and energy, and he found it all the sweeter for having discovered this so late in life.

  He’d loosened up on his rigid, self-imposed rules, and as a result, he’d put on about ten pounds of what was surely brownie and white-chocolate-chip cookie weight, and he truly didn’t give a damn. He wore jeans more days than not, and only donned a dress shirt for meetings with potential clients… though he’d banished his ties to the back of his closet for good. All in all, his life was quieter, slower, more relaxed… and he loved it. He’d love it more if Claire was in it, of course, but if she decided to stay away and out, he’d still be happy.

  Not as happy as he could be, but he’d be happy. He’d be OK.

  “So,” Claire said now, breaking the gentle silence between them. “I was wondering if we could get to know each other as we really are. No lies or hidden agendas or half-truths.”

  “You mean – go on dates?” Griff could barely get the words out, he was so stunned. “Like… go on dates? That we’d – date? On dates?”

  She laughed at his incoherent babbling. “Yes. Coffee dates. Maybe chat over a glass of wine. Go for dinner and a movie. Take our time, and just see each other whole and honest and true.” She smiled now, that sweet, gorgeous smile that he’d missed so damn much. “You’ll be John Griffin, and I’ll be Claire Mason, and we’ll figure each other out. By going on dates, and dating on those dates.”

  He smiled at her teasing, wishing that he could kiss her. But unlike that regret-laden wishing that he’d done outside the church, this wishing was hopeful and optimistic. It was wishing for something that hadn’t quite happened yet, instead of wishing to undo something that had happened and was beyond repair or recourse.

  It was like wishing on the brightest, most brilliant falling star in the sky.

  My star. My Claire.

  “Yes, Claire,” Griff said, his voice husky with want. “I’d love to date you. On dates.”

  “Great.” She stood up and he followed, hating that she was heading for the door, but knowing that if he let her go, this time she’d come back to him. “So, John. Tomorrow morning at ten? The Web? I know that you know where it is… Spider and Mirrie told me.”

  “The Web at ten,” Griff confirmed. “And just so I have a bit of a heads-up here: what are the chances that Spider and Mirrie will brain me with a metal mixing bowl?”

  Claire laughed and shook her blonde head. “I’m not telling you that. You’ll have to take your chances.” She reached the door, opened it. “You willing to take the risk?”

  “For you? I’ll risk anything, kitten. Anything at all.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Three months later

  Claire sighed and shut her laptop with a sense of relief. Expanding the business had seemed like such a great idea six months before, but now that it was actually happening, and she had clients coming out of her ears, she was seriously questioning her life choices.

  She wandered into her small kitchen, put on the kettle to boil water for tea. As always, she stared out of the window, today admiring the first snow on the Rockies. She’d decided to rent this apartment just for this view, and even though the living room was small and the bedroom was painted a horrific pink, she hadn’t had a single moment of regret. This view – it was everything.

  The buzzer went then, and she smiled. She glanced at the clock on the stove, shook her blonde head with affection.

  Bang on time. As always.

  She pushed the intercom button, and said, “Hello?”

  “C’mon, kitten. You know it’s me.”

  “Of course I do, John,” she said. “I just like hearing your voice right away.”

  “Aw.” She could hear him smiling. “Let me up and you can hear me and see me.”

  “Deal.”

  Claire buzzed him in, then stood in the open door, watching the numbers as the elevator came up to the sixth floor. The doors slid open and there he was: large and gorgeous, relaxed and sexy in jeans and a long winter coat. He strode over to her, took her in his arms. His kiss was passionate but restrained, and she melted into a soppy puddle of goo, as she always did.

  “Hey,” he growled. “How you doin’, gorgeous?”

  “Good.”

  Reluctantly, she untangled herself, then led him into the apartment. She went into the kitchen and poured the boiling water into two cups of loose green tea, then turned to catch him watching her every movement avidly.

  “I just finished the sketches for the wedding rings for Jenny and Chris,” she said, flustered as always by the heat and intensity of his green gaze. “I’ll meet them tomorrow over coffee, and show them some of my ideas.”

  “Really?” Griff took off his coat, folded it neatly over the chair by the front door. “So – whose rings are next? Emma and Dean? Selena and Luke?”

  “Argh,” she groaned, a woman in agony, but pretty happy about it. “God… I don’t know.”

  “Well, aren’t Emma and Dean getting married first? Like in the spring?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you do their design and creation before Selena and Luke’s?”

  “Yeah, I thought so, until I talked to Emma
this afternoon.”

  “She OK?”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s great.” Claire paused, then burst into a massive smile. “She’s almost four months pregnant, so she'll give birth about two months after Olivia has had her son. Dallas and Dean are already planning massive joint birthday parties for their kids.”

  “She – what?” Griff said, delighted. “That’s great!”

  “It is. Especially because she’s having a girl, so everyone can stop asking her now if Dean’s ever going to get his little princess to spoil.”

  Griff rolled his eyes. “Knowing those two, any daughter of theirs would be anti-princess shit just on principle.”

  “Right? That’s what I think.”

  “So what does this mean for their wedding? They’re going to delay or they’re gonna move it up?”

  “Oh, delay. By a year, probably. Just until things get settled with the new baby.”

  “OK, so…” Griff shrugged. “Start Selena and Luke’s wedding rings.”

  “Yeah. No.” Claire laughed a bit. “They’re also delaying their wedding, probably by about six months.”

  Griff stared down at her, totally confused. He knew that Selena couldn’t be pregnant, since she’d had a full hysterectomy two months earlier. She was getting back on her feet emotionally now, or at least, Griff had thought that she was. But maybe not… maybe this was why the wedding was being postponed?

  “Is Selena OK?” he asked, worried and already reaching for his cell. “Do you think I should call her?”

  “Oh, definitely call her,” Claire said. “And congratulate her and Luke on being moved to the top of a list to adopt a baby boy.”

  “What?” Griff was delighted all over again. He knew that Luke and Selena had been placed on about forty different lists, but some mothers were hesitating at Luke only having one hand – as if that would ever make him any less of a father to a child. “Even though they ain’t married yet?”

  “This one girl doesn’t care,” Claire said. “She likes Selena a lot, and she thinks that Luke would be an amazing role model for her son. She says that she wants them to have her baby.”

  “So… is that it? It’s a done deal?”

  “Not yet. They have to submit Selena’s medical stuff to show that she’s not at high risk for cancer anymore, that her mastectomies and hysterectomy have completely removed the genetic threats posed by the BRCA1 gene. They also have to show that she’ll work days from now on at Solid Security, and Luke will cut back on his night shifts at Curves. The mom wants to be sure that Luke and Selena will be home with the baby, and so they’ll need to make some adjustments to their schedules.”

  “I’m sure that ain’t gonna be a problem.”

  “Oh, it’s not. Dallas and Jax have already said that it’s done.”

  “Excellent.” Griff sighed. “So why move the wedding?”

  “Cost. The adoption’s going to hit them hard financially, and although there will be enough left over for a baby and bills, there won’t be enough for a fancy wedding.”

  “Not even a City Hall thing?” Griff said. “I know that Jenny would let them have the reception at one of her restaurants, and she’d offer them an amazing price. I’m sure that Selena could find a nice dress for not too much, and I bet that you’d cut ‘em a deal on the rings, if they wanted to work with you.”

  “Oh, Selena knows all of that. I mean, I offered straight away, but she says that they’d rather wait. She says there’s no rush, and that she and Luke are more excited about a baby than a wedding.” She reflected. “If everyone had that attitude, I’d be out of a job, huh? It's like when Mark and Francine just decided to elope that one weekend and get married in Canada... if everyone got hitched so spur-of-the-moment, nobody'd have the time or foresight to order crazy-expensive rings from me.”

  Griff laughed, hugged her close again. “So… you can focus on your other clients now, right? That engagement ring for that woman in Washington, and those rings for that couple up in Mahone Bay?”

  “Argh.” Claire shut her eyes. “I need to hire another person.”

  “Why? Brian ain’t working out?”

  “Oh, no. He’s working out great. He’s an amazing jeweler, and he can do stuff with a solderer and jewel settings that I can only dream of. Hiring him was a great decision. No, I need to hire someone else because we can’t handle the orders between the two of us anymore.”

  “That ‘design your own ring’ feature on your website was a real game-changer, huh?” Griff said, so damn proud of her. “Brought in – what? Four new orders the first week?”

  “Five,” she said. “And that’s been the average number of orders per week for the past four weeks. We can’t keep up with the demand without sacrificing the quality of the work, even if the orders are staggered.”

  Griff stared at Claire, saw that she looked frazzled but deeply happy. And God knows, she deserved it. She deserved everything good that was coming into her life, because she’d earned it, fair and square. The part of Griff that valued a good work ethic, and admired tenacity and focus in others – that part of himself that his parents had insisted upon and taught him to protect and develop – knew that Claire had grit. She had it in spades.

  God, she was just light-years away from the rich Manhattan trophy housewife that she’d been for over a decade. She was so far from her days of shopping, and desperate distractions, and bored chats with women that she hadn’t known very well, even after years of lunches and drinks and events with them. She was a successful businesswoman, an artist always learning her craft… and she was radiantly happy and all the more beautiful for it.

  How he’d managed to not sleep with her yet was nothing but a mystery to him, and he’d just about driven his water bill sky high with the number of cold showers that he’d had to take over the previous three months. He was horny all the time, he felt like a teenaged boy with a permanent hard-on, he had to ‘relieve the tension’ every morning, every night, and at least once more every day. Usually twice.

  He was in agony.

  OK, sure… they’d agreed to not sleep together until they really knew each other, until they truly trusted each other. He’d thought that it might take a couple of weeks, maybe a month… but what he’d discovered was that he didn’t want to just get into bed with Claire. Not anymore. Not until… until…

  Not until she loves me.

  Not until it’s lovemaking between us. Not sex, not sleeping together.

  Making love.

  That was going to take more time, way more time, and he knew it. But like everything that was good and right in his life lately, it had to be done right, or just not done at all. And if it was done right, then it would be worth waiting for.

  So. He was waiting. And he’d keep waiting for as long as it took for her to love him.

  To love him back.

  “John?” Her soft voice broke into her reverie, and he blinked.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “You OK?”

  “Sure, baby. Why?”

  “Because you were just standing there and staring at me for about twenty seconds. I thought that you’d gone into a trance.”

  “Nope,” Griff said. “Just thinking.”

  “Thinking what?”

  Thinking how much I love you.

  “You’re doing it again,” Claire said, bemused. “Staring at me like you’re waiting for something.”

  “I am,” he said, without thinking. “I am waiting.”

  “OK.” She sounded a bit worried. “What is it that you’re waiting for?”

  “I can’t say.”

  She paused, then cocked her head at him. “You – you can’t say?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it has to be something that you just decide to do all by yourself. No prompting or fishing from me, no pushing you to say it. No pressure, no little nudges.”

  “Ummm. Ohhh-kay?” Claire stared at him, wondering if he was talking about what sh
e thought that he was talking about, but she decided that she needed more information. “Maybe give me a hint?”

  “No hints,” he said severely.

  “Come on. Just a small one.”

  “No way.”

  “A tiny one, John.”

  “No, Claire.”

  “You want me to guess?”

  “Nope. I really do not.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Totally,” Griff said with huge emphasis. “No hints, no guesses, no way, no how.”

  “How about I just say what I think it is?”

  That stopped him, and he peered down at her uncertainly. “Uh…”

  “I love you.”

  Griff almost fell over backwards. “You – you –”

  “I love you.”

  “Claire,” he whispered, too shocked to do anything more than breathe and remain vertical. “God, baby… do you mean it?”

  “With everything that I have, and everything that I am, I mean it. You’re the most incredible man that I’ve ever known… you’re good and giving and generous. Pretty damn sexy, too, I should add.” She gave him a wicked grin, and he’d never seen her eyes more brilliant. “I love you, John.”

  “Thank Christ for that, Claire, because I love you too. I’ve loved you for weeks and weeks… and I was just waiting for you to catch up to me.”

  “Oh, I loved you ages ago,” she said airily. “Ages and ages. But I’ve been super busy. Work, you know.”

  “Smart ass,” he growled, good and done waiting now. “I think you need to be punished for making me wait even one minute longer than necessary.”

  “Oooooh.” It was both a taunt and a purr, and his whole body responded to it, helplessly. “What are you gonna do about it, tough guy?”

  “You think that I ain't gonna show you?”

  “I'm hoping against hope that you do show me.”

  “Aw, kitten,” he muttered. “You really do like to tempt fate, huh?”

  Her response was to turn and scamper away. Startled for a few seconds, Griff watched her go, then a slow, dangerous smile spread across his face as he realized what the game was. When she paused in the hallway and flung him a look that was nothing but a challenge to come and get me, Griff actually laughed aloud. She tilted her head at him – a sassy, snarky little gesture – and when he started towards her, she took off again.