Page 153 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

But she has spent too much time studying human behavior not to recognize when two men, who normally move as one, are standing on opposite sides of something.

“Then let’s find out what’s in there.” She throws back the sheet.

Her glorious nakedness should distract me.

Under almost any other circumstances, it would.

But now, the stakes are too high.

She crosses the bedroom, retrieves her robe, and pulls it around herself.

“Sophie.”

She turns. “Voss specifically told us my mother might be in those records. Now he’s contacting you before the sun is even properly up to make cryptic comments.” She gestures toward my phone. “So let’s find out what we’re facing.”

Brushing her hair back over her shoulder so that it falls in a thick river down her back, she leaves the bedroom.

Scowling at me, Caleb gets out of bed and pulls on his tuxedo pants from last night.

Despising Voss more than ever, I follow.

No one speaks as Caleb presses his palm to the biometric reader. The wall panel slides aside, and the steel safe unlocks.

He opens it.

The black decryption card rests exactly where we left it.

Sophie looks at the three of us reflected faintly in the polished steel.

“Whatever is in there, we all see it.”

Her gaze catches mine.

It is not a question.

“Agreed.”

Caleb removes the card, and we all move to his secured terminal at the desk.

I enter my credentials.

Caleb provides the biometric authorization.

A final field appears on the screen for Sophie’s code.

For a moment, she simply looks at the blinking cursor.

Yesterday I watched her push the final baccarat plaque forward with a steadier hand than men twice her age and ten times her experience.

Last night, I watched her claim a place inside this marriage that Caleb and I could never have forced her to occupy.

Now she pulls out the chair, sits, and types in her six numbers.

The system accepts them.

ACCESS AUTHORIZED.

She sucks in a breath as a progress bar appears.