Dirty Rumor: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance(21)

My first thought is to dismiss the notifications completely. There’s something called a Magnolia Alert on the site for urgent business, rumors that can’t wait, that people want confirmed immediately, and it looks like someone has tagged a lot of posts with it, and it’s probably by accident. I’ll have to make an admin post reminding people not to abuse that tag unless it’s really urgent.

Then my brain makes sense of the text snippets. The alert function on my phone doesn’t display the entire post, but one of them stands out.

DID ACE KINGSLEY MURDER…

The rest of the notices are more of the same, and more pop up onto the screen while I watch.

My heart races in my chest, and my mind plunges directly into crisis management mode.

First, I highly doubt that this rumor is true. Ace Kingsley doesn’t seem like the type to kill a woman and then return to New York like nothing has happened. I also haven’t heard him make mention of having a wife in—well, wherever he was before he came back to the city. That’s never been part of any of the discussions I’ve heard swirling around the Swan, or on Rainflower Blue, for that matter. It’s as if he vanished off the face of the earth and then, not long ago, resurfaced in the city, having done nothing in the intervening time period.

Of course, that ‘nothing’ has been the cause of much speculation—it’s just that I’ve never heard a location confirmed.

And anyway, how would a rumor like this get started anyway, unless someone wants to smear his reputation? Murder isn’t sexy. The vast majority of the rumors I deal with on Rainflower Blue have to do with whereabouts, with cheating, with who was seen with whom, not real crimes.

No wonder traffic is spiking.

The doubts come hard on the heels of my mental dismissal of this ridiculous rumor. He did brush me off hard last Saturday morning. He was a different person when I came out of the bathroom, brusque and rude and dismissive.

Maybe….

No.

I’m not going to start suspecting people of something like murder because someone on my website doesn’t like Ace Kingsley. That has to be the explanation.

Unless….

There was that woman at the Swan.

“…what you did to her. Just tell me.”

What you did to her.

Who?

And when?

That conversation could have been about anything.

Where the hell is Ace, anyway?

He’s in front of the building, his driver by his side. Ace has his hand on the shoulder of an older woman. He shifts to the side and I see that it’s Mrs. Hensley, from two floors below me. She has an overcoat on over her nightgown and she’s clearly distressed, tears running down her face. What is she doing down here? It’s well after midnight.

Ace’s face is the picture of compassion, and that’s when I realize I’m sitting in the car like a complete *, staring out the window at the scene. I climb out of the car and go over to them, listening as Mrs. Hensley’s shaking voice echoes across the sidewalk.

“I just don’t know where he’s gone,” she says, one hand going up to her disheveled hair.

My heart twists in my chest.

“I’m sure we can help you find him, ma’am,” Ace says, his voice smooth and comforting. As far as I know, he has no idea who she is, but he’s stopped out here to help her.

Not something a hardened murderer would do, right?

“I just don’t know.” Her voice is pained.

Mrs. Hensley must have woken in the night and been caught up in one of her moments. I’ve run into her in the elevator more than once, a little confused but not unhappy. This is different.

“Mrs. Hensley?” I say, stepping up to Ace’s side. “My name is Carolyn Banks. I live a couple of floors above you. Do you remember me?”

She scans my face, and then her expression relaxes. “Oh, Carolyn. Of course. How—how are you?” Another flash of confusion. “It’s quite late,” she says, glancing down at her overcoat and nightgown combo. “It’s very late.”

“You’re right, Mrs. Hensley.” I step forward and link my arm in hers. “Are you feeling all right? Is there anyone you’d like me to call?” I know she has one son in the city and a daughter on the west coast. Somewhere, I have the son’s number written down—she gave it to me forever ago, thinking she’d set us up. He should know about this, if not in the middle of the night.

“No.” She shakes her head. “I think I’d like to go back to bed.”

“Not a problem at all.” She lives on the third floor. I mouth “I’m sorry” at Ace, and he shakes his head, raising his hands slightly. “Tomorrow” he mouths back, and I give him a smile.

In the elevator with Mrs. Hensley, a strange tiredness descends on my shoulders. I was going to sneak up to the penthouse and knock on Ace’s door once Mrs. Hensley was safe in her apartment, but my eyes are getting heavier by the second, and my heart is in two places at once.

Afraid that the rumors might be true.

And warmed through by the sight of Ace Kingsley stopping everything to help a distraught old woman.

I’m falling…despite the rumors.





Chapter 20

Ace





I toss and turn all night, wishing Carolyn was here with me.