Her Collateral Bride: A Lesbian Age Gap Romance

“Turds!” His rage was a live thing, twisting and snapping in

the room, gone from red hot to white. “How dare you call my

—”

“Not my words,” Claire clarified gleefully, but she kept any

emotion from her tone. “I’m borrowing here. You know

exactly what I’m talking about. Anyway, no point rehashing

the reviews. Let’s get to the point. I know you’re on the verge

of declaring bankruptcy. After you pushed me out of my own

restaurant and destroyed my life, I decided I’d never get ahead

by cooking. I’d honestly lost the joy of it. You crushed that out

of me, I’ll admit. I had something to fall back on, though. My

family wasn’t ashamed of me. When you wrong a Sinclair,

you wrong all the entire family. And we had money. You were

right about that. We always did. You got the restaurant, my

dreams, and my broken trust. You got your start off my back. I

got a hard lesson in life, and I learned from that. I built myself

back up. Stopped cooking and went into management and

finance like my family always wanted. Made more sensible

choices. I had a lot of help, I’ll admit, but that’s what families

do. They stick together. I didn’t want a chain of restaurants. I

wanted it all. I wanted to be the one at the top, lending money.

Owning buildings and the people in them. In short, I do.

You’re up to your neck in shit and I’m that duck in the water,

always calm on top, churning underneath. Always working,

working, working.”

“You always did have your angle.” Robert said that like it

was a bad thing. The poor man. he still didn’t get it. “What do

you want in exchange?”

Claire wasn’t quite ready to let Robert off the hook. She

wanted to watch him squirm like the worm he was for just a