Page 55 of Mess With Me

“What company do you work for?”

He does that face-scrubby thing.

I grab his forearm, instantly flashing back to this morning when I did this when he was shirtless next to me.

I shake off the sensation. “No face rubbing for you. Answer the question, Griffin.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Really? You can’t tell the person you want to be your fiancée?” I know I sound a little delirious, but that’s because Iama little delirious. This proposal—thisliteralproposal—is off-the-wall insane.

He goes to lift his arm again, but I’m still holding on to it.

“Sasha, my family doesn’t even know who I work for.”

I blink. “Seriously?”

He meets my eye. “Seriously. It’s for…”

I sigh. “Safety.” I consider. “What is it, the secret service? FBI?” I know he won’t answer me, but my tension slips, just a little. He’s not paranoid. He’s a professional. “What do you tell your family?”

“Nothing.”

“So what are you going to tell them about suddenly wanting to marry me?”

“I’m going to repeat the brilliant story you told in there. Except I’ll tell them I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Even though they’re just words, just things he’s saying to bolster an idea that’s not going to happen, a warmth tingles in my stomach.

But it quickly turns to something more painful.

“No one’s ever said that about me,” I say.

I’m instantly mortified. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

His expression is half-shock, half…what? Pity?

The same doesn’t hold true for him, obviously.

Laura.

“They’ve missed out,” he says, looking down toward the end of the street. It ends a couple of blocks from here on a promenade by the river. We start to walk, slowly.

I swallow. Have they? “Much to my mom’s chagrin, most men don’t really find me the marrying type.”

“I do.”

I laugh drily. “Fake marriage doesn’t count.”

“I’m not talking about fake marriage. There are men out there who’d fall over themselves to be married to you, Sasha.” He glances my way, then looks away again.

“Well, I’ll never know if I marry you, will I?” The words are harsh. But maybe they’re meant to be harsh because of the hurt I feel knowing he’s said that as a man who doesn’t actually want to marry me.

“I know it’s crazy,” he says. “But I’m serious when I say that us marrying is the best way to keep you safe. The place I work for specializes in looking after people. It would be extremely bad for business if an employee’s wife was harmed by a person we were at one point keeping tabs on.”

“At one point?”

“It’s—don’t worry about that. We’re still keeping tabs on Creelman. But I need you to at least consider this as an option. The best option. Not only because you’ll be protected, but because once Creelman finds out you’re married—after you tell your brother—there’s a chance he’ll back off.”

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