A Moment of Truth: A Complete Bonus Set (A Matter of Trust #1-2) by Q. T. Ruby Read Free Book Online Page B

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    “Claire.” Dan cocks his head to the side and lifts his eyebrows in a playful warning.
    I smile and lift my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay . . . when I was little, maybe four or five, if we were playing outside and an airplane flew overhead, they would run up to me, pretend to be all panicked, and say, ‘Claire, they’re coming to get you! Hide!’ Then I’d bolt under the nearest bush, crying and waiting to be kidnapped by aliens.”
    He cracks up.
    “Yeah, it was super fun.” I squirm in my chair and take another long drink.
    “Do you get on now?”
    I nod. “For the most part. Not back then, though. I was odd man—er, odd girl out. Still am sometimes.”
    “It must be nice living close to them, but you mentioned that you don’t visit often. Why not?”
    “Well, I go home for my nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays mostly, but work ties me up a lot.”
    He raises his eyebrows. “You’re an auntie?”
    “Yep, Auntie Claire!”
    He smiles. “I bet you’re their favorite.”
    “I do try to give them the best and most obnoxious gifts—not to get back at my brothers or anything.”
    He laughs. “Of course not. So all your brothers are married?”
    “Yes—all married with kids. I’m the only holdout.” I snicker into my wine. I’m thankful our food shows up.
    “So you enjoy living here in New York even though you’re a homebody?” Dan teases, as we begin to eat.
    “I really do. When I moved here, it took some time to get used to things like the subway, buying groceries, laundry—that kind of stuff. City living is different than the suburbs, but I really like it. Do you come to New York a lot?”
    “Yeah, I’d say I’m here pretty often. Most of my work is on the West Coast, but with flying to London, I stop over here often enough. You think you’d ever live anywhere else? Move back to your hometown, perhaps, or is this it?”
    “No. I wouldn’t move back there. I like living here even though I don’t feel tied here, know what I mean? But, I do like my job . . . Would you move back to London?”
    “I don’t feel I’ve left really. I go back as often as I can.”
    “Do you enjoy all the traveling that you do?”
    He nods quickly. “I do. I love to visit so many places, but I sometimes wish I didn’t live out of a bag.”
    I smile wide. “Must be difficult to be a bag boy, especially if you lost your lug—”
    “Don’t even say it,” he says. “It’s happened before, and even though I don’t travel with much, when you’re without clean pants or a toothbrush, it’s quite frustrating.”
    “Pants as in underwear?”
    He grins. “Yes.”
    “Wait. So if underwear are pants, then what are the pants you wear over your underwear?”
    He furrows his brow for a moment then cracks up.
    “What?”
    “That was one of the funniest sentences I’ve heard. We call the ones on the outside fancy pants.” He purses his lips to stop from laughing.
    I examine him. “You’re lying”
    He bursts into laughter again. “Yes, I am,” he finally says, wiping his eyes. “We call them trousers.”
    “Trousers?” I scrunch my nose. “So proper. I’m guessing you didn’t lose your fancy pants today then?”
    He leans in and quietly says, “No, because if I had, we’d be buying me pants right now, not eating dinner.”
    As we eat, our conversation volleys back and forth, uncovering tidbits of each other’s lives. I, of course, steer the conversation away from my past.
    After dinner and several drinks, I absently stroke the stem of my glass, watching his beautiful mouth say . . . something or other. My brain catches maybe every third word as I try to decide exactly what shade of green his eyes are. Emerald? No . . . Jade? Not quite . . . Grass? Definitely not.
    His fingers inch their way to my wrist and stroke it oh so softly. I swallow hard, watching his thumb trace tiny swirls on my skin. Is he still talking?
    After a long while of mind-scrambling, yet chaste, skin-to-skin contact,