Her Collateral Bride: A Lesbian Age Gap Romance

Haley knew all of them. She was the keeper of all of them.

She could hurt Claire if she wanted to, but she wouldn’t. She

wouldn’t repeat history. Never.

“Please get your things. I’ll have Snake drive you back to

your father’s house as soon as you’re ready.” I want to change

my mind. I can’t. Her voice didn’t have to be hardened steel to

deal a death blow. As it turned out, it was soft as a whisper.

As it turned out, whispers cut the deepest.

That was a lie. They didn’t cut deeper than the pain in

Haley’s eyes as she blinked hard, but not heard enough to keep

the tears at bay.

Claire made herself watch Haley as she left. She made

herself take in every detail from the slump of her shoulders to

the tremble in her steps, to those horrible, glistening tears that

Claire had put on her cheeks. They weren’t the kind of tears

that Claire wanted to see Haley cry. Not ever. She wanted to

run after her.

She reached for her, into the empty space, after Haley was

gone.

Claire couldn’t go after her. She was weighted to the

ground, her body so heavy, a metal statue, a pillar of granite.

She no longer felt like a living being. She’d thought, all those

years ago, that her father’s coldness, that Henry’s forced touch,

that Robert’s betrayal were the worst things she could ever

experience.

She wasn’t entirely wrong, but this was a new kind of

suffering that she was unfamiliar with, and God, it hurt.

Chapter 18

Haley

July had finally arrived. It was one of Haley’s favorite