Innocent in Death (In Death, #24)

by J.D. Robb

Just look at him, she thought, sitting there as though he couldn’t be more interested or enthralled to hear about some stupid fish. And, of course, he’d know that every eye in the place would be turned on him at some point during the evening. She couldn’t blame them. He sat, at ease, the half-smile on his gorgeous face, the light of interest in those laser blue eyes. Candle- and lamplight gleamed in his hair, that thick mane of black. When his lips curved more fully, her heart actually bumped her ribs. He could still do that to her, chase her heart to a gallop, stop her breath, melt her bones. And do all of that just with a look.

Roarke, you’re just going to have to bring Eve out to see us.” “I’ll have to do that.” He lifted his glass, smiled over the rim at Eve. And when someone said his name, and he glanced toward them, Eve saw something come into his eyes, just a flash of it. A something she’d only seen when he looked at her.

She started out, stepped, and made herself turn around, meet Summerset’s eyes. “She’s a manipulator. I get that. She’s also beautiful, polished, sophisticated, smart. Smart enough, I’d bet your skinny ass, to settle happily with what Roarke’s got at his fingertips now. Basically, she’s just the type I’d think you’d do a happy dance if he flipped me for.” She had to take a breath so her voice would stay steady. “She wouldn’t track blood into the house, she’d know just what dress to wear to the next dinner party. And she wouldn’t forget there was a goddamn dinner party because she was standing over a dead body. So, why tell me all this?” “She would be a sparkling accent on his arm. She speaks flawless French and Italian, and has a limitless supply of charm when she wishes to dispense it. And she’ll use him. She’ll take, take more. If it was necessary, or if she simply had the whim, she’d toss him to the wolves to see who’d win.” He finished the whiskey. “You, Lieutenant, are often crude, you are certainly rude, and have very little sense of how to be the wife—in public—of a man in Roarke’s position. And you would do anything, no matter what the personal risk, to keep him from harm. She will never love him. You will never do anything but.”

“That one thing, Eve,” he said as she turned away. “Answer that one thing. Do you believe I’d betray you with her?” She drew in what little she had and turned to face him. “No. No, I don’t believe you’d betray me with her. I don’t believe you’d cheat on me. But I’m afraid, and I’m sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.” He took a step toward her. “Eve.” “If you don’t let me go now, this will never be right.” She made it out of the room, down the stairs. She heard Summerset say her name, and kept moving. Get out, was all she could think. Get away. “You need your coat.” As she yanked at the door, Summerset draped it over her shoulders. “It’s very cold. Eve.” He spoke her given name quietly, and nearly shattered her last line of defense. “Will you let her use you both this way?”

squash

Quash, not squash!

“So . . .” Mavis nursed and rocked, nursed and rocked. “Why haven’t I heard any media dirt about a blonde fuckhead found floating in the East River?” Eve lifted her wine, set it down. And did what she’d needed to do all day. She cried like a baby.

He turned her hand over, interlocking fingers. “There you were, and it all shifted under my feet. You were everything I shouldn’t have, shouldn’t want or need. A cop for Jesus’ sake, with eyes that looked right into me.” He reached out, just a whisper of fingers on her face. And the quiet touch was somehow wildly passionate, desperately intimate. “A cop wearing a bad gray suit and a coat that didn’t even fit. From that moment, the hole inside me began to fill. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop what rooted there, or what grew. “She put it in me, you filled it. Can you understand that’s part of this—the connection you worry about? Can you understand that whatever it was I felt for her it’s nothing. It’s so pale, so thin and weak compared to what I feel for you.” The tears came now. He watched them drip down her cheeks, wondered if she were even aware they leaked out of her. “She was part of my life. You are my life. If I have a regret, it’s that even for an instant you could think otherwise. Or that I allowed you to.”

She stepped forward as if to pick up the fur she’d tossed over a chair. Smoothly, she turned to hand it to him. And with perfect timing, flung herself into his arms. The sable fell as he took her shoulders to shove her back. Eve stepped to the doorway to see Magdelana with her arms locked around Roarke’s neck, his hands on her bare shoulders—one of the ivory straps sliding to her elbow. “Son of a bitch,” she said. On cue, Magdelana spun around, her face full of passion and shock. “Oh, God. Oh . . . it’s not what it looks like.” “Bet.” Eve strode in. Actually, Roarke thought, it was more of a swagger. He had a moment to admire it, before Eve rammed her fist in his face. “Fuck me.” His head snapped back, and he tasted blood. Magdelana cried out, but even the deaf would have caught the suppressed laughter in the sound. “Roarke! Oh, my God, you’re bleeding. Please, let me just—” “Don’t look now,” Eve said cheerfully. “But he’s not the only one.” She decked Magdelana with a straight-armed jab. “Bitch,” Eve added as Magdelana’s eyes rolled back and she fell, unconscious, to the floor. Roarke looked down. “Well, now, fuck us all!” “You’re going to want to get that mess out of my house.” With this, Eve strode out again.

She touched his cheek. “I’ve got to grab a shower and get to this. I planned to dig straight in, so we could maybe have a really late dinner, but then I had to punch you and your blonde tart, and one thing led to another.”

“How fortunate I am, under the circumstances, to have a woman who understands me. Fear of Roarke?” he repeated. “You can do the fear of God thing, but see, you can’t see Him, and most people feel He’s not going to really—what is it—smite them. You, however, are flesh and blood, and would do a lot worse than a smite. You’re a lot scarier than God.” “I don’t know quite how to take that,” he said after a moment.