“How much was that angel again?” he went on, feeling a lot more cheerful than he probably should. “Six hundred bucks? And didn’t you get it commissioned by that famous glassblower dude from Sweden? It’s one of a kind, right?”
There was a brief silence, then a very quiet, very calm, “You’re the fucking devil, Aidan.”
“Straighten your shit out,” he repeated. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. Oh, and I left a box of provisions under the bed, just in case the forced confinement inspires some kind of fucked-up Alive situation.”
Without letting either one of them respond, he walked away with a spring to his step.
Fine, so maybe he shouldn’t be so damn proud about his sneakiness, but enough was enough. He had no idea why Claire believed that Dylan, the nicest guy on the planet, was a selfish asshole. Or why Dylan thought that Claire was a materialistic bitch, when these past few days had shown her to be the most easygoing, fun-loving chick Aidan had ever met.
Whatever the reason for their false perceptions, it was time for them to work out their issues.
* * *
“I can’t believe he locked us in here.” Claire sounded livid as she stared at the door, so intently it was like she was trying to use telekinesis to open the damn thing.
Dylan shook his head, amazed that Aidan had resorted to such juvenile bullshit. He was so not in the mood for this, not after spending the past twelve hours crawling around in a forest on a mock hostage extraction with his team. All he’d wanted to do when he got home was pass the fuck out, but thanks to Aidan, he was wide awake and spitting mad.
“He’ll let us out in a few minutes, right?” Claire turned around with a desperate look. “He won’t really be gone for hours, will he?”
“Yes, he will,” Dylan said grimly. “Aidan doesn’t mess around.”
Her features creased with dismay. “This is so ridiculous. I can’t be trapped in here with you.”
Offense prickled his skin. He rubbed his tired eyes, then dragged a hand through his sleep-tousled hair and examined the room for anything he might be able to use to dismantle the doorknob. Then he realized it was absolutely futile, because no way would Aidan leave any escape devices lying around. And since they were on the fifteenth floor, going out through the bedroom’s small balcony was out.
That left two options—kick down the door and say goodbye to his mother’s Christmas present, which he’d taken painstaking effort to secure, or spend the next few hours locked in a room with Claire McKinley.
When he felt her knowing gaze on him, he shot her a scowl. “What?”
“You’re considering ruining Shanna’s present, aren’t you?” she accused. “The idea of being alone with me is that bad?”
“Don’t give me that wide-eyed indignation. You’re not thrilled to be here with me, either.”
“No, but I’d suck it up if it meant Shanna gets her angel.” Claire paused. “I actually bought her a small crystal one for her birthday.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, for her collection. She loves those angels.”
“Yeah, she really does.”
They both went quiet. After a beat, Dylan sighed and lowered his tired body onto the bed. As he stretched out on his back, he saw Claire watching him with suspicious brown eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting comfortable,” he answered. “That angel was a bitch to get my hands on. I’m not going to destroy it just so I don’t have to spend a few hours with you.”
“Gee, thanks. Nice to know you’re willing to make such a big sacrifice.”
His nostrils flared. “Does the sarcasm ever stop?”
“Does the good-guy act?”
“It’s not an act,” he retorted. “Whether you believe it or not, I actually am a good guy.”
“Whatever helps you sleep better at night.”
Her bitter tone was the last straw. The last few days had been taxing, both mentally and physically, and he had no desire to undergo a character assassination, especially when he’d done nothing to deserve it.
“You know what?” He abruptly moved into a sitting position and rested his curled fists on his thighs. “Maybe Aidan’s right. Maybe it’s time we let each other know exactly what we think of each other.”
“Fine,” she snapped back. “I’ve kept my mouth shut for more than a year out of respect for your mother and because Chris asked me not to interfere, but I’m not biting my tongue anymore.”
“Good. Let’s start then.” He set his jaw. “I’ll go first. I think you’re a snob.”
“Yeah? Well, I think you’re selfish.” Claire’s entire body was stiffer than a board as she sat at the foot of the bed and angled herself so they could glare at each other more easily.
“I think you’re disrespectful,” he told her.
“I think you’re a bad brother and a bad son.”
“I think you loved Chris’s money more than you loved him.”
“Oh, that’s rich, you bringing up money.” Her eyes blazed. “Because as far as I know, you haven’t sent a dime home this past year.”
“First of all, what’s it to you? And second, if you must know, I offered to help my mom out after she left her job, but she said she was doing okay for cash.”
“Left her job?” Claire shook her head in disbelief. “For fuck’s sake, you don’t have to pretend with me. I was going to marry your brother—I know why Shanna got fired.”
Surprise spiraled through him. “What did you say?”
“I said I know why she got—”
“Fired,” Dylan finished. A sick feeling rose in his chest. “What do you mean, she got fired?”
“Why are you playing dumb?”
“I’m not playing dumb. I’m honestly confused. I don’t know what Chris told you, but my mom quit her teller job at the bank. She said she was tired of all the politics there.”
When Claire didn’t respond, Dylan’s stomach churned some more, knots of worry twisting around his insides. Jesus. Was Claire actually telling the truth? Had his brother and mom been lying to him all these months?
“Tell me everything you know,” he ordered. “I mean it, Claire. Everything.”
“You don’t know what happened at the bank?”
He battled another rush of queasiness. “No.”
“Shanna got fired, Dylan.”
“You mean, laid off?”
“No, fired.” Claire’s tone grew pained. “She wasn’t showing up for work, and when she did, she’d be hours late.”
“Are you fucking with me here? Who told you that? Chris?”
“Yes. But I also spoke to your mom about it.” She hesitated. “I’m the one who got her in contact with the lady from—” She stopped without warning and averted her gaze.
“The lady from where?” he demanded.
Claire’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Gamblers Anonymous.”
Dylan felt like someone had dropped a cartoon anvil on his head. He literally got the wind knocked out of him, and all he could do was stare at Claire in wordless disbelief.
Her brown eyes widened at his stunned expression. “You really didn’t know?”
It took a few seconds to find his voice, which came out so hoarse it sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of gravel. “My mom has a gambling problem?”
Claire nodded.
“Since when?”
“I think it started a few months before Chris and I met. I guess she went to the casino with a few women from her gardening club and she caught the bug. She went back the next weekend on her own, and then the weekend after, and the one after that. Eventually she was going several times a week, which was when she started skipping out on work.”
Dylan couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but apparently Claire wasn’t finished dropping bombs on him.
“She lost all her savings, but even then she couldn’t stop gambling, and when her paychecks weren’t enough to support the habit, she took out a second
mortgage on the house. Except she couldn’t afford the mortgage payments either, and the bank started foreclosure proceedings, so that’s when she confided in Chris.”
He sucked in a breath. “So my brother knew this whole time and didn’t say a word about it to me?”
Claire rubbed the bridge of her nose as if warding off a headache. “He told me you knew, but that it wasn’t your responsibility to do anything about it. He was the man of the house since your father died, so it was his problem. That’s why he took the job with Lowenstein and Tate instead of the assistant prosecutor position.”
There were so many unsettling details being thrown around he didn’t know which one to focus on.
“What are you talking about? Chris was always going to work for a defense firm. It was the only reason he went to law school, so he could practice criminal law.”
She frowned. “No, he didn’t. He was committed to the city job. When we first met it was all he could talk about.”
“I know he got an offer, but trust me, he never intended to accept. It’s always been his dream to be a big-shot defense lawyer.”
Her teeth clamped over her bottom lip. Another silence fell over the room as each of them absorbed what had been said.
“Were you—”
“Are you—”
They both laughed awkwardly. “You first,” he said.
“Were you really in the dark about all this?”
“Yes.” He gave her a grim look. “If I’d known, I would have been doing everything in my power to help my mom out. Why the hell didn’t she tell me?”
Even as he voiced the thought, he already knew the answer. Because he was her favorite. Her baby. His mom had tried to shield him from heartache his entire life, painting the world to him as a place full of sunshine and rainbows and cuddly kittens. He was always the last one to find out when something bad happened, and there’d been times when he wouldn’t be told at all, only to discover the truth years later.
“Maybe she was trying to protect you.”
Claire’s soft assessment was spot-on, and though he concurred, that didn’t make the situation any less insulting.
“So Chris has been making the mortgage payments this last year?” Dylan asked, still trying to make sense of it all.
Claire nodded.
“What about my mom and the gambling? Has she stopped? Like really stopped?”
“She claims she has, and I haven’t seen any signs that she’s relapsed. She’s also been looking for a new job.”
He rubbed the stubble coating his chin, momentarily distracted by the three days’ worth of beard growth beneath the pads of his fingers. He wasn’t used to his face feeling so damn prickly.
“I can’t believe you didn’t know.” Claire’s eyes shone with remorse. “And all this time, I…” She trailed off.
He swallowed. “You what?”
“I blamed you for the changes I saw in Chris. I thought he took that job because it paid more and he needed to support your mom, and then as time passed, he went from this fun, passionate man looking to change the world, to a stiff, pretentious jackass who only wanted to golf and smoke cigars with his colleagues.”
Dylan sighed. “He’s always been stiff and pretentious. I have no idea how that happened, considering both my parents were so easygoing. I guess I took after them, but Chris, well, I don’t know how he got to be so serious and conservative. But he’s also incredibly shrewd.”
“What does that mean?” she asked warily.
“It means he’s a smooth operator when it comes to women. He’ll tell you whatever you want to hear, do whatever it takes to impress you. I’m guessing he sensed you were passionate about certain issues, so he spun you a tale about working for the city and fighting for the little guy. And you said you like to get wild sometimes, right? Well, I bet at first, he took you to all sorts of fun places—dinner, dancing, weekend getaways. Am I right?”
There was sadness in her eyes as she nodded.
“Chris is not a party dude, honey. He hates clubs or crowds or going anywhere that doesn’t serve twelve-year-old scotch.”
“How come I never saw it?”
“Like I said, he’s smooth. Always has been.”
Dylan experienced a pang of sympathy when he noticed how upset she looked. He was pretty upset himself. Still reeling from the shock of discovering his mother had gambled away her life savings and nearly lost her house. Their house, the one Dylan had grown up in, the one filled with so many great memories of his dad.
But his heart went out to Claire too. Chris had totally played her, and knowing that spurred another realization.
“So wait, all those times you and Chris visited here or when I came to San Francisco, all those barbed remarks you made about money and my mom needing to get a job…” He let out a heavy breath. “You’re not a greedy bitch at all, are you? And you don’t care that my mom was a housewife for most of her life, do you?”
A startled laugh flew out of her mouth. “Um, no. I won’t deny I was bitchy to you whenever I saw you, but that was because I was watching my fiancé work his ass off while his selfish younger brother was man-whoring it up in San Diego.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m a SEAL first, manwhore second. I work my ass off, Claire.”
She had the decency to look sheepish. “I know. It was just easier to hate you when I focused on your partying.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, since we’re making confessions, I guess I have another one.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.” She smiled the first genuine smile she’d ever given him, and damned if it didn’t light up her face and transform her from beautiful to exquisite.
“Even when I believed you were a snooty bitch, I still thought you were the hottest woman I’d ever laid eyes.” He shrugged, a touch embarrassed. “I think I clung to that feeling of dislike because it made it easier not to lust after you. I mean, we could have hashed this out months ago, but I never took the time to dig under the surface with you. I guess I was using not liking you as my excuse to not pant over my brother’s girl.”
“Wow. Aidan was right. You really are the most honest man on the planet.”
“It’s my fatal flaw.”
“Honesty is a strength, not a flaw.” She paused for a moment. “You thought I was hot?”
The pink flush on her cheeks made him grin. “Not thought. I still think it.”
“You do?”
“Fuck, Claire, you’re gorgeous. You know that, right?”
“I don’t give much thought to my appearance, if I’m being honest.”
“Well, you should. You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met, and I’m sure Aidan would agree with me. Neither of us can take our eyes off you.”
She sighed at the mention of Aidan. “Damn him. He was right to lock us in here, wasn’t he? If he hadn’t, neither of us would know the truth about…well, about everything.”
“Yeah, he has this annoying habit of always being right. Drives me bat-shit crazy.”
She laughed again, then she slid off the mattress in the blink of an eye.
Dylan raised his eyebrows as he watched her kneel on the floor next to the bed. “What are you doing?”
“I just remembered what Aidan said about provisions. I want to see what that jerk deemed necessary for our survival.”
She stuck her arm underneath the bed and felt around for the mysterious box, which caused her ass to jut out in the most delectable way. Dylan’s gaze homed in on her firm butt cheeks, hugged by tiny denim shorts. Lord, she had the sexiest body he’d ever seen. He suddenly had the most overpowering urge to strip her clothes off and find out if she looked as spectacular naked as he suspected she did.
A moment later she was back on the bed, dropping a cardboard box on the mattress. She opened the flaps and peered inside with the curiosity of a kid unwrapping a present on Christmas morning.
She pulled out two sandwiches in clear plastic wrap. “Okay, we’ve got some sandwiche
s.” Next came a bottle of water, followed by the container of Shelby’s cupcakes.
Dylan watched with amusement as she continued her inventory.
“Oooh, a crossword book. And…a first-aid kit. Why would we need a first-aid kit?”
“Maybe he thought we’d beat the shit out of each other and one of us would need stitches.”
“Maybe.” She reached into the box again, coming up with a paperback copy of War and Peace. A quizzical expression crossed her face. “Um, okay.”
Dylan groaned. “Bastard. He likes to make fun of me because I’ve never been able to get past the first ten pages.”
With another laugh, she went to grab the next item.
Her face went tomato-red when her hand emerged with a box of condoms.
“Magnums,” Dylan remarked with a pleased nod. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Oh my God. I can’t believe he left us condoms.”
“I can, and it was damn thoughtful of him too.” He couldn’t control the seductive note that crept into his voice. “So what do you say, honey, should we tear one open and put it to good use?”
9
The worst thing about being a redhead with fair skin? It was impossible to disguise a blush. Claire’s cheeks had been a thorn in her side her whole life, and as her face heated under Dylan’s smoldering gaze, she knew she was transmitting everything she was feeling loud and clear.
Surprise.
Embarrassment.
Arousal.
since they’d kissed, she’d been trying to squash the desire she felt for Dylan, but now that her misconceptions about the man had been exposed, she was having a tough time controlling her hormones. It was one thing to ignore the attraction when she’d thought he was a selfish ass who didn’t give a shit about his mother’s troubles, another one altogether when she knew he was actually a decent guy.
“Ah, relax. I’m just teasing you.” His gorgeous green eyes twinkled. “I was kidding.”
She slanted her head in challenge. “Are you? Because you look pretty darn serious.”
After a second, he broke out in a grin. “Fine, so I was only half-kidding.”
Out of Uniform Box Set: Books 4-6 plus 2 Bonus Novellas Page 38
