“I was planning to check on Sky in the gym and then go for a run.”
“Take a day off? You’ve earned it after the weekend.”
“I had too many days off in Kentucky. And too many carbs.”
“Too many carbs? I never thought I’d hear you utter those words.”
“Well, you live and learn, don’t you?”
“I could do with a run too. We can go out for dinner afterwards. Something healthy. How about that new sushi place downtown?”
Next time, I needed to think before I opened my damn mouth.
“Sure, sounds great. Meet you on the terrace in half an hour?”
This time, he picked me up for a kiss. I wasn’t small, not by normal standards, but beside Black, I always felt tiny.
“Don’t be late.”
We parted ways, and as soon as he disappeared around the corner, I sagged against the wall. Maybe I was overreacting? Just because Black could have committed the crime didn’t necessarily mean that he had. But deep down inside, I knew what I’d been denying to myself for years—that Black was the best suspect. In the immediate aftermath, I’d discounted the possibility, and nobody else had pushed me to consider it. Of course they wouldn’t. Black had an alibi, and the execution of the theft was perfect. I’d have expected nothing less.
But now Ana was here, and Sky, both looking at the case with fresh eyes. I barely knew Sky, but she was smart, and I trusted Ana implicitly. My whole life, I’d scoffed at the idea that blood was thicker than water, but then I’d met my half-sister and we’d just clicked. Bonded over a shared hatred of our father and the fact that our pasts had followed eerily similar paths despite us growing up on different continents.
When I got to the gym, Sky was on the mats at the far end, sparring with Rafael. I paused in the doorway to watch them, and it was as if I’d stepped back in time eighteen years and looked into a mirror. A young girl who didn’t have a clue what she was doing being schooled in the lethal arts by a man who choreographed death like a ballet.
I cleared my throat. “Can I have a minute?”
“With who?” Sky asked.
“You.”
Rafael didn’t speak, just stalked silently past me and vanished along the hallway. The Grim Reaper reincarnated as a panther. I’d kidnapped him once. Wasn’t sure I could manage it a second time.
“What?” Sky asked. She didn’t look at me.
“I need to apologise. For being a bitch yesterday.”
“You saw where I grew up. You think I’m not used to that shit?”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t get it from me.”
Now she met my eyes. “Forget about it.”
That was as close to an acceptance as I was going to get.
“So…” I picked up a pair of hand wraps. “What did you learn while I was away?”
“A detour to the office won’t take long,” Black said.
“For the last time, I don’t need to see Dr. Kira again.”
My husband stood in the bedroom, half-dressed—flannel slacks on the bottom half, nothing on the top. Ordinarily, I’d have lain back on the bed and enjoyed the view, but this wasn’t an ordinary day.
“You were drugged, Emmy.”
“Most likely with ketamine and a side of benzodiazepine. That’s nothing. And it’s worn off now. I just scrapped with Sky in the gym then ran ten miles, for crying out loud.”
“You’re out of sorts.”
“I’m tired, that’s all.”
“Do you want to stay in tonight?”
Yes, but that would only lead to even more questions.
“Let’s just have a quiet dinner out and an early night.” A sigh escaped my lips as he tugged on a T-shirt. “A girl’s gotta eat.”
Damn Black for making this harder.
When he was in work mode, he took no prisoners, and more often than not, he pushed me to the point of pain and beyond. But in husband mode, he still made me swoon even after fifteen and a half years of marriage. Yes, we’d only been a proper couple for three of those years, but he’d always been a gentleman and tonight was no different.
As Black topped off my drink and pressed his thigh against mine under the table, I wondered if it was too late. Could I pretend the last two days hadn’t happened? Besides me, only Ana and Sky truly suspected Black’s duplicity. I’d already shut Sky down, and Ana would drop the matter if I asked her to. Emerald’s trail had gone cold. It would be easy to back off and let her fade into the night again.
It would also be wrong.
Alaric had only ever tried to make me happy, and he’d suffered for it. Somebody needed to make things right, and that somebody had to be me.
But for tonight, I buried all the fear and sadness along with my head in the sand, and when Black took my hand at the end of the evening and led me upstairs to bed, I let him undress me and caress me and bury himself inside me. And as the moon rose ever higher and the stars twinkled over the balcony, I thought back to my childhood, to the mother I hated so much. When I was little, maybe five or six years old, Julie Emerson had told me that people like us weren’t destined to be happy. I’d spent my whole life trying to prove her wrong, but maybe it was time to accept that just for once, on that single point, she’d been right.
CHAPTER 34 - BETHANY
“THANK YOU SO much. I’ll be sure to pass on your condolences.”
I took the covered dish and carried it into the kitchen. Hmm… Where to put it?
Alaric looked up from his spot at the table.
“Tell me that’s not another casserole.”
“The lady said it was biscuits.” But not cookie-biscuits. These were scone-biscuits, and I knew which I preferred. That wasn’t to say we didn’t have plenty of cookies too.
