Frisk Me(85)

Ava’s temper flashed. As did her guilt.

She shifted her gaze to the makeup artist with a sympathetic smile. “Can I have a minute?”

“Actually, I think I’m done,” Carly said, standing back to admire her handiwork. “Let me powder you and I’ll be gone.”

Thirty seconds later, it was just Mihail and Ava.

“First of all,” she said, keeping her voice cool, “I’m not Luc’s girlfriend.”

“Got it, so you’re just using him for his body and to further his career. Classy.”

That stung. “Mihail!”

He didn’t bother to look contrite. “When you guys are cuddled up in bed, did you tell him that you went to see his dead partner’s wife?”

She looked away.

“No? How about when you barged in on that little girl’s family, bringing up the worst point of their lives.”

“I didn’t barge in,” she said quietly.

That much, at least, was true. Both Beverly Jensen and the Johnsons had been more than willing to talk to her.

Mrs. Jensen, because she was eager to share her support of Luc. The woman bore no ill feelings that Luc had survived while her husband had died.

Shayna Johnson’s parents had been more guarded.

They’d agreed to talk to her, only in hopes that it would shed more light on the need to act swiftly in kidnapping cases.

Terrence and Jasmine Johnson held sorrow, but no bitterness.

Darius Johnson, on the other hand…

Well, Shayna’s older brother hadn’t been nearly so forgiving of the NYPD’s treatment of his sister’s kidnapping and death.

Nor the media cover-up that followed.

And it was Darius Johnson’s statements that would have Ava’s bosses practically bouncing out of their seats with excitement.

It didn’t get much juicier than law enforcement covering up the death of two people. One of them a young girl.

And Luc wouldn’t see it coming.

Because she hadn’t told him.

Mihail’s finger jabbed toward her face. “Right there. Guilt.”

She slapped his hand away. “Luc’s not going to take it personally.”

He told me to follow my gut.

Of course, he didn’t know just where her gut would lead her.

“So he told you all about it himself, did he? Maybe over dinner, drinks, he told you about watching his partner die and finding a dead little girl?”

Ava’s heart twisted.

No. He hadn’t told her. And she hated how much it bothered her that he hadn’t.

But there was something else bothering her too…something darker that she couldn’t shake.

It was that Darius Johnson’s account of what happened that day, and the following days, proved Ava had been right all along.

That there really was no such thing as a true hero.

Luc Moretti’s record wasn’t all saving babies and taking care of the homeless.

There was death there too.

Possibly even mistakes, if Darius’s versions were correct.

And yet none of that was bothering her as much as the fact that she hadn’t heard from Luc in three days.

She’d told herself he was busy, and that they weren’t in a relationship, and that she shouldn’t expect they’d hang out every day, but…

She missed him.

Officer Moretti might not be who she’d thought—secretly hoped—he was.

But Luc?

Luc was important to her.

And she was about to throw him under the bus.

“Finally!” Davis shouted from the other side of the studio as he strode toward the door. “What the hell took you so long?”

Ava’s shoulders straightened.

Luc.

Her eyes sought and found him immediately. As instructed, he was wearing his uniform, and her heart caught in her throat, even though she’d seen him in uniform dozens of times over the past two months.

Today, she let herself see Officer Moretti with fresh eyes. Saw the way his arms filled out the crisp blue of his shirt, the way his pants fit his lean figure perfectly.

But it was more than the dead-sexiness of an alpha man in uniform.

It was the pride with which he wore it.

And that’s when it hit her. It didn’t matter that Luc Moretti wasn’t a perfect cop, because there was no such thing as a perfect cop. No such thing as a perfect anything, really.

But she didn’t care about that.

Because Luc was a good man.

A great man.

A man who put on that uniform every day, not for the prestige, not for the television, not even for his own career advancement, but because he was purely good.

He was Ava’s opposite in every way.

Ava, whose only goal in life thus far was to get ahead in her career, helping no one.

Why the hell was she letting her life be dictated by people she didn’t like, rather than people she did?

“Something’s wrong,” she said quietly.

“Ya think?” Mihail grumbled darkly.

“No, with Luc. He hasn’t looked at me.”

He’d been in the studio for several minutes now, but not once had his eyes moved around the room to search for her.

This wasn’t the man who’d held her just a few nights ago and made passionate love to her on her couch.