Her Collateral Bride: A Lesbian Age Gap Romance

she’d been so successful early on in her career. It wasn’t just

the cooking, even though it was probably amazing. It was all

of Claire. Her personality. Her drive. Her intelligence. Her

many, many talents. “You can stay for dinner.”

Haley couldn’t stop smiling, even though her face hurt from

it. Joy was the best kind of hurt. She hadn’t expected to come

here and find Claire this way. She’d expected to have to beg

and plead her case, probably for hours. She’d expected it to be

frustrating and painful, not to be met with hopeful optimism

the moment she walked in the door.

“I told myself that if you came back here, or if you called or

texted, that I’d listen,” Claire said. “I didn’t want to intrude on

your life. I didn’t want to push in because that would be

hurting you and I promised that I wouldn’t do that. Things got

out of control, but maybe all that control is actually pretty

overrated.”

“What?” Haley gaped at her. “Say that again. I’m sorry,

you’re saying it’s overrated?”

Claire winked and Haley could have died. The surprises

were clearly just getting started. “Not in the bedroom.”

Now she was dying for another reason. It had been over a

month since she’d touched Claire and her body was in a state

of shock. She would have happily locked the kitchen door and

stayed in there all afternoon with Claire while whatever was in

the oven burned and smoldered and alarms and sprinklers went

off in the rest of the house. Haley doubted the kitchen door

actually locked. And she could wait. She could. Because she

wasn’t going to leave here alone again. Even if she left without

Claire, she’d be back. They were going to be a ‘they’. Claire

seemed entirely in agreement with that.