Page 82 of Ruthless Enforcer

I stop walking. "Gabriel."

"Just looking." He stops too, turning to face me. "There's a place about an hour north of here. Two hundred acres, good pasture, a barn that needs work but has good bones. An airstrip. It's quiet. Private. Safe."

"You're buying me a ranch." I say ranch because my husband is skittish and might bolt if I say home.

"I'm considering options."

I arch my brow. "That's the same thing."

"It's not." He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch gentle. "I'm not buying you anything, Clara. I'm just… thinking about what you might want. If you stayed."

The words hang between us, fragile and dangerous.

"If I stayed," I repeat quietly.

"Yeah." He drops his hand and looks away, his expression frustrated. "I don't know, Clara. I just know that when you told me you loved riding, the first thing I thought was that I wanted to give that to you. I don't know what the fuck that means."

I step closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him. "It means you care."

"I know I care." His voice is rough, almost angry. "That's the problem."

Men. "Why is that a problem?"

"Because I'm not supposed to." He cups my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. "This was supposed to be temporary, a marriage on paper. A way to keep you and my family safe until the threat was neutralized. And now I'm standing on a freezing beach planning your future like I have any right to it."

"Maybe you do," I whisper.

"Clara—"

"Maybe you do," I say again, more firmly this time. "Maybe I want you to."

He stares at me, his blue eyes searching mine, and I can see the war happening behind them. The part of him that wants to pull me closer and the part that wants to push me away.

"I don't know how to do this," he says finally. “I don’t know how to want something I can't keep."

My heart cracks a little at that. "Who says you can't keep me?"

"Reality. Logic. The fact that you're a Whitlock heiress and I'm a Reyes and our entire marriage is held together with duct tape and bullets."

"And attraction," I add. "And trust. And the fact that you moved my underwear into your drawer without asking because you wanted me to stay."

A faint smile tugs at his mouth. "You're not going to let that go, are you?"

"Never."

He laughs—a low, rough sound that makes my chest ache—and pulls me against him. I wrap my arms around his waist and press my face into his chest, breathing in the scent of him: soap and salt air and something uniquely Gabriel.

"I don't know what happens next," he murmurs against my hair. "But I'm not willing to let you go."

"Good," I whisper. "Because I'm not going anywhere."

We stand there for a long time, wrapped around each other on the cold, gray beach, and neither of us says the word future, but we're both thinking it.

64

GABRIEL

Ifind Clara in the solarium three days later, standing in front of the easel with a new canvas in front of her.