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Corey thought she might pull her hand away from him, so he squeezed it, encouraging her to continue.
“He was thrilled to see me; his deployment had been long, but he was pissed and worried I would get hurt. I told him reporters traveled with soldiers all the time; it wasn’t unsafe. But he said he’d never forgive me if I got myself hurt.”
She cleared the rasp in her voice and shut her eyes.
Corey understood. He remembered how Marc acted when Beth was in an accident a couple of years back. Grant was a man on a mission when his wife Trish was threatened two years ago. Then a few months back, he’d seen Nick lose his mind about Morgan being in danger. So the idea of a man wanting his girl safe didn’t confuse him.
What was currently screwing with his head a bit was that he wasn’t at all jealous of the love in Taran’s voice when she talked about the man she had planned to marry. Weirdly enough, he understood how she felt. To have her life mapped out and then suddenly, in a moment, everything changed. For her to have to move on and figure it out without the person she always thought would be her partner. Yeah, he understood that. Nothing about it made him jealous, but it did make him want to pull her close and wrap her up in his arms. Attempt to keep that hurt away.
“Since I didn’t get hurt, I felt like he wasn’t mad at me. Silly, I know,” she said, bringing him out of his head.
“None of that sounds silly,” Corey assured her as he parked in front of her townhouse. He turned to her and reached out to cup her soft, warm cheek in his hand. “It sounds like you’re an amazing person to make it through all that, and your ability to keep yourself together is impressive as hell. I’d like nothing more than to get to know everything about the woman who is constantly blowing me away.”
He looked straight into her sea-green eyes, and his stomach dropped. His eyes ran over her delicate nose and peachy skin. God, she was gorgeous. When her tongue snuck out to lightly gloss over her lips, he forgot to breathe.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Taran said and glanced away.
Ten thousand thoughts flipped through his head in one second. She wasn’t over Jeremy. She couldn’t continue this. She’d never feel about Corey like she did about her former fiancé. He was trying to be open, to communicate better than he had in his last two relationships, but if he’d pushed her into not wanting to give them a shot, he’d kick himself.
“What—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fine.”
She sighed. “My boss wants me to do a story on you.”
It took a second for that abrupt change of topic to sink in. Corey pulled back slightly and focused on the windshield in front of him. What was she saying?
“Him and every other sports outlet in the world.” His tone was careful, but he white knuckled the steering wheel.
“Probably, but he’s been pushing more these last couple months.”
Corey gritted his teeth but couldn’t look at her. “If you think letting me fuck you was the way to get me to agree—”
“Is that really what you think of me?” The sharpness in her tone had him finally looking at her.
Real pain reflected in her eyes. And it cut the breath out of him. He hadn’t even let her talk, just jumped to conclusions.
“No, not at all.” He reached out for her hand, and when she tried to pull away, he held on tighter. “I’m being an ass, and I’m sorry.”
She relaxed and let him pull her small hand into his.
“My entire life, people have used me to get information about my parents, girlfriends, and me.” Corey swallowed. “I’m not great at trust, but I’m working on it. So I’m sorry I lashed out. I know your boss wants my story. I knew it from the second you told me who you were. The second you said Taran Murphy, cold fear shot through my bones.”
She brought her hand up and whacked him on the arm. “Oh, shut up.”
He chuckled. “Seriously, I’m aware your magazine wants my story. You don’t have to tell me that.”
Taran flicked her bangs out of her eyes. “The thing is…” She paused.
Corey didn’t breathe because he didn’t know what she might say. And he knew her next words could break whatever was happening between them.
“My boss will keep pushing, and I’m sure you’ll hear about it. I just didn’t want you to think I was hiding it from you. That this was some secret or an end game.”
He let out his breath. This he could handle.
“I’m choosing to trust you. I won’t hold what your boss wants against you, because I want nothing more than to keep seeing where this thing between us is headed. But it’s never going to be heading toward you writing an article about me.” He focused on her reaction as he said the words, but she didn’t seem upset or even disappointed. “You okay with that?”
She smiled. “I’m great with that, Cor. But I do have one more question.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“You want to come inside?”
Hell yeah, he did. He liked this woman a lot, and it was turning out to be very easy to trust her too.
