Her Collateral Bride: A Lesbian Age Gap Romance

the kind a person got from standing out in the cold. It was so

much worse than that, because it was mixed with a sick sort of

thrill that made her limbs warm and her face hot. She ducked

down, angling her face away, aware that her pale complexion

was probably scarlet.

“Do you understand?” Claire asked, like Haley was a child.

Haley wanted to fight her, but she realized Claire would

only find that amusing, and she was tired of being this

woman’s sick project. She was here because she’d agreed.

Because she needed to do this to save her dad and herself from

financial ruin. She could get through this. She would learn to

survive. Claire had said that she wasn’t a prisoner, and she

planned on holding her to that.

“Yes,” Haley whispered, and she hated that her voice

wavered. It wasn’t weakness, she told herself. It was the stress

of everything. The shock of how unorthodox the whole

situation was. The terror of having her life uprooted like this.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good.” Claire turned her head, her hair flying like a

gossamer curtain around her shoulders. She had hair like an

angel, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair how beautiful this

woman was. Looking at her was like looking at the sun, and

Haley didn’t dare. “Please go with Jenny now.”

No one could accuse Claire of having poor manners. She

dismissed Haley and bent back over the work spread across

her desk. There was a closed laptop and endless piles of

papers. Did some of that belong to her father? Was Claire

working on her dad’s restaurants?

Haley’s heart thundered wildly. Her palms were soaking,

and she realized she’d had her hands balled into fists. She