The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

Her heart stuttered, and her fingers tingled from where Sawyer’s hand had brushed against hers, but she shoved both reactions to the back of her mind where she’d deal with them later, if at all. “Nice to meet you, Barry and Delores. I hope he pays you well for wasting your time.”

She reached up and started to close the window, figuring he’d move his hand or get squashed, his choice, but this had to end. Having her heart broken twice by the same man just wasn’t something she wanted to experience.

“I told you once that I wasn’t a man who begged or pleaded,” Sawyer said, not moving his hand or taking his gaze off her. “You’d put that in our cover story and said that I would for you. You were right. I’m begging. Please, just hear me out.”

She hesitated, the window halfway down, remembering the moment in the lobby when it had all still felt like just a fun adventure before she’d gone and fallen in love. “I already have. Nothing’s changed. Please don’t make this harder than it is.”

“Things have changed, thanks to several people who pointed out in great detail what a complete moron I was.” He took out a napkin with the Vito’s Diner logo on it. “I know you have the original, but I think we need to start over.” He wrote something down on the napkin and, reaching through the partially open window, held it out to her. “These are my terms.”

Her hand shook as she took the napkin and read it.

YOU.

That’s all it said. Her chin started to tremble.

“That’s really all I need. Just you,” he rushed on. “My big-picture plan is to spend the rest of forever with you.”

Clover couldn’t breathe, but her heart was going a billion miles an hour as the meaning of what he was saying began to sink in.

“Yo, man on the platform,” one of the cops yelled from the sidewalk but sounded like he was ten blocks away. “You got a permit for this thing?”

“That’s it.” Sawyer picked his hand up from the windowsill, leaving nothing to stop her from closing the window on him forever. “That’s the whole thing. I can’t make it happen without that, so name your terms.”

Her terms? She didn’t have terms. Everything they’d put on that napkin at Vito’s—it was a game, a ruse, part of their fake engagement. None of it had been real. But this? God help her, she believed.

“Sir,” the cop yelled again. “I’m gonna need you to come down now.”

Both of them ignored the officer as Sawyer reached in his pocket and pulled out the emerald and diamond engagement ring and went down on one knee.

“I’m not asking you to think about it, Clover. Not again. I’m asking you to marry me because I love you. I love the way you laugh at the same spots in the movies as I do. I love that you could find the secret hidden charm in a million flea market finds.

I love that you turn everything into an adventure that I want to go on with you. I love the way you chew your bottom lip when you’re anxious. I love that you curse in other languages. I love that you’re the first person I want to see in the morning and the last one I want to touch at night. I love that even without saying a word, you’ve out-negotiated me. Every time. I love you, Clover Lee.”

…

Sawyer held his breath, watching Clover as she stood behind the half-closed window. Barry was covered in flop sweat behind him, the crowd was getting bigger below him, and the cops were calling in for a ladder to bring him down. He didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the woman in front of him. He’d put it out there. He’d gone about as big as he knew how. Now it was all up to her.

And she wasn’t moving. Or talking. Or doing anything but staring at him with a look on her face that he couldn’t decipher.

His gut twisted and the engagement ring suddenly weighed a million pounds.

Wracking his brain for something—anything—else to say, to do, to promise he came up empty. This was it. He’d made his play and failed. He dropped his gaze to the platform floor, dropped the ring back in his pocket as he stood up, and opened his mouth to tell Barry to hit the button that would lower them down when the window began to inch open.

“Don’t tell me you’re going already,” she said as she started to climb out of the window.

Relief swept through him as he took her hand and helped her out onto the platform. “I’ll stay for as long as it takes.”

“And if that means forever?” she asked looking up at him.

“Then forever it is.” In fact, nothing had ever sounded better to him.

She sniffled and wiped away a tear from her cheek. “You broke my heart.”

He gathered her close, offering up a silent pledge to do whatever it took to make it up to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t ever let it happen again.”

He hooked a finger under her chin and tilted it up so she could look at him and know he meant every word. “Not in all the forevers.”