An Indecent Proposal (The O'Malleys #3) - Katee Robert

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, always to God. It’s been a wild ride and it only seems to be getting wilder the longer I’m in this world. Thank you for the chance to keep doing what I love and the unending inspiration to keep me writing.

A big thanks to Leah Hultenschmidt for helping me polish this book into a truly amazing story. Cillian and Olivia wouldn’t be the same without your input and insight. Thank you! I can’t wait to work on more books with you!

Thank you to Laura Bradford for another great year under our belt. Here’s to many more books and another awesome year!

Thank you to the whole team at Forever. You all have made this experience such a positive and amazing one every step of the way! Cheers all around!

Hugs and thanks to Jessica Lemmon, PJ Schnyder, Julie Particka, and Trent Hart for being sounding boards and plot wranglers, and listening to me ramble on about the voices in my head. You’re awesomesauce.

Thanks and drinks and all the chocolate to the Rabble. Your support and enthusiasm and just downright amazingness never fail to make my day and inspire me to write all sorts of dirty things just so I can share them with you in teasers. This one’s for you!

Thanks to Tim (yeah, I know you were looking for this) for being there day in and day out and always being willing to be the one to feed us so we don’t starve while I’m under deadline. I would totally put Baby in the corner for you. Kisses!

As always, more thanks than I can express to my readers. I love hearing your responses to this series, and your excitement never fails to make my day. Thank you!

CHAPTER ONE

Need another drink?” The words were clear despite the general ruckus of the bar, the voice like whiskey on the rocks. If Cillian O’Malley put a little imagination into it, he could almost taste her tone. It was the closest he’d come to having an actual drink in ten months.

Olivia.

He looked up, straight into night-dark eyes that made him think reckless thoughts about leaning across this bar and kissing the hell out of this woman. It was something the old Cillian would have done, and if the look on her face was any indication, he would have gotten the shit kicked out of him for the effort. He smiled despite the dark mood that had brought him wandering into Jameson’s to begin with. “Hey, gorgeous.”

The guarded look on her face was the same as the first time they’d met, like she expected him to whip out a gun and start shooting or threaten her or some shit like that. Since he knew for a fact he’d never so much as raised his voice at her in the two times they’d interacted previously, it stung a little that that was her knee-jerk reaction to him.

And it made him want to show her how wrong she was.

“You know, I’d pay good money to know what I did to piss you off so much.”

Olivia’s expression iced over in a way that would send a smarter man running. It just made Cillian more intrigued. He’d been caught up in his family’s dramas for so long, it was refreshing to having an unconnected interaction—even if it was with someone who hated him. Hell, it was almost better this way.

It just added to the tangled mess inside him caused by sitting in this bar. Jameson’s and he had a complicated history that he’d never be able to escape. It was the last place his family had felt whole. He’d been here with his brothers, Aiden and Teague and Devlin, on the final night when they’d been celebrating Teague’s impending marriage. Devlin had been shot in a drive-by on the way home, and the O’Malley family had lost the closest thing to an innocent they could call their own. Cillian hated this place as much as he loved it, but it was here his feet brought him when he wandered.

Olivia crossed her arms over her chest, which only served to accent the way her breasts pressed against her shredded T-shirt. It wasn’t ripped enough to be truly indecent, but he could see several slices of her dusky skin beneath the black fabric, and it was distracting as hell. She cleared her throat, but he still gave her body a slow look, taking in her spiked combat boots, tiny skirt, coming back to that shirt, and then settling on her face.