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Finally, she forced herself to turn off the shower and pulled the curtain back Royce sat on the toilet Lauren jumped and let out a tiny yelp He handed her a towel, his eyes lowered She accepted it and wrapped it around herself

His gaze lifted to hers, his eyes so blue, so tor you weren’t there"

She squeezed her lashes shut, water dripping down her cheeks, off her hair "I can’t do this now Not before I go to work" She stepped out of the tub and he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close "I wanted to tell you I was going to tell you I wasn’t about to let your father hold this over my head for the rest of our lives I"

She shoved away froht You wouldn’t want my father to hold this over your head" She pointed at the door "I know this is your bathrooet dressed Please I need to be alone"

"You took that wrong You didn’t"

"I don’t want to hear this now, Royce I want to go to work and do what I do far better than relationships I put cri moment and then scrubbed his heavily stubble jaw and stood up, towering over her His eyes pierced hers, lingering on her face for several tense seconds, before he turned and walked away She stood there, unable tosnapped inside her She ran after hi the bathroom door at the same moment he reached for the bedroom door

"Consider yourself fired"

He turned to look at her "You can’t fire me You didn’t hire me and neither did your father, Lauren I promised to check out a threat I fell in love The end" He turned and yanked open the door and left, sla it behind him

Lauren sank down on the floor and daain He didn’t love her No And saying he did was manipulative andher like sorily at the stupid tears she should be above and forced herself to stand up It was time she took a real lesson from Julie, that she separated sex from relationships, accepted that the relationship part was better left for people who liked heartache, because she didn’t

Royce showered in the spare bathrooed into jeans and a black t-shirt he’d left in his dryer, and was pulling on a leather jacket, when the bedrooed, dressed in a crea, brown hair and turned them to sunshine Hair he knew smelled like honey and vanilla God, he had it bad for this woman and she hated him He was pathetic, the kind of pathetic he would have called foolish in any other ht, sweetheart," he said, and there was a bite to his voice he couldn’t hide She had a fist around his heart and just kept squeezing "You’re stuck with me until I catch your would-be killer Then you can kickhtly, that sunshine hair hiding her face E hiaze lifted to his "Yes?"

"Truce, baby Today is going to be hell Let’s be on the saet this SOB and ht tremble to her voice "Yes, okay" She walked towards him but they didn’t speak