AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her outraged gasp probably sucked all the air out of the gas station bathroom stall she was currently cowering in while Knox was outside, filling the Honda’s tank. “You take that back! I’m not falling for anyone.”
Ren snorted. “Whatever you say. You’re being careful, right?”
“Always,” she muttered distractedly. “I can do this. I can help him get his money, take my cut, then leave. Right? There’s no reason this has to get overly complicated.”
“Sure. Probably. As long as you don’t fuck him.”
Her stomach clenched as her mind flew back to the feel of Knox’s lips on hers as she dry fucked him that morning.
Well…hell.
CHAPTER 17
Knox was shocked at how easy it was to get married using totally false identification.
It had taken Tenley all of six hours to obtain a fake marriage license for the two of them. Apparently, Ren could forge anything. He must be good, too, because the clerk at the county courthouse had barely glanced at it before getting them in a room with a judge.
He knew the vows they spoke didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t even given her real name, and the license was a fake. They weren’t really married.
But there had been a point there in the middle of the ceremony where he’d been promising to love and cherish her, and she’d been looking up at him with suspiciously moist eyes, where it hadn’t felt fake. In fact, it’d felt…right.
She was shutting down on him, though. She’d spoken her own vows in a clear, confident, and completely clinical way. Definitely more Tenley Snow than Tenley Taylor.
He didn’t want Tenley Snow. He wanted his Tenley. All day and all night he wanted her.
Honestly, he didn’t even really give a shit about the trust anymore. He just didn’t want Thadeus to get it. But if his step-brother was out of the picture, he’d happily give that trust up, get a regular job (if anyone would hire an ex-con), and build furniture on the side. A nice, quiet, modest life would be fine with him.
As long as Tenley was with him.
He knew how crazy that sounded, too. He wasn’t an idiot. She was a con artist and a thief, and clearly had significant trust and intimacy issues. Tenley was far from a good emotional bet. Hell, they were practically strangers.
He just didn’t give a shit.
She was smart and beautiful and so damn funny (when she wasn’t making jokes at his expense). And she had a good heart. He’d seen it. Given her past, she could’ve grown up cold-hearted and bitter. But she hadn’t. She was still a compassionate woman—a dog lover, too—who was willing to go to great lengths to help him. There was no way her help was only about the money.
After all, no woman who had a forger and a fence in her arsenal—not to mention the money from a stolen bag of diamonds—was hurting for funds.
That was his theory, anyway. Now he just had to put it to the test.
“What is this place? It looks like a murder scene.”
Knox chuckled as they crossed the ratty, weed-encrusted parking lot outside the old abandoned warehouse. “No murders that I’m aware of. Just something I wanted you to see.”
“OK,” she grumbled. “But regardless of what I told Thadeus, vermin are not my thing, and my way of dealing with them is to flail, scream, and run away. In that order.”
“Noted.”
Knox unlocked the giant garage door on the front of the warehouse and shoved it open. A little poof of dust whooshed out when the fresh air hit the stale air inside the old building, but after that, the familiar scent of old machinery and wood shavings washed over him, as comforting as a warm blanket and a cup of hot cocoa on a wintery night.
Tenley wandered in behind him, eyes going wide as she took in what was, to him, the happiest place on earth.
The building was about half the length of a football field, completely open, with forty-foot ceilings, brick floors, and concrete walls thick enough to survive a bomb blast. It was mostly empty, except for the metal shelves where he stored his woodworking materials and hand tools.
And the pieces he’d made, of course. Those were lined up along the north wall, where they’d stay until he decided what to do with them.
Tenley wandered over to a hand-carved walnut rocker and ran her fingertips lightly over the spindles. “I don’t remember seeing this in any of your mom’s catalogs.”
“Mom didn’t make that. I did.”
