Pretty Little Wife(9)
She had to drop that piece of intel sooner or later. Now worked.
Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “One of the people who called mentioned that you were a real estate agent.”
Huh. Interesting. “Why does my career matter?” Not that this was a sensitive subject for her, but it was.
“Technically, you mentioned it first.” A small smile came and went on Ginny’s mouth. “But if you’re asking why I know, the fact is in my notes. The person calling likely volunteered.”
The tension snapping between them subsided. The air shifted, as if they’d reached more even footing. The gun and badge and whatever else Ginny carried in or under that suit might win most battles, but Lila had a few weapons of her own.
“Anything else I should know about you?” Ginny asked.
“I expect you to find Aaron. If you can’t do that, I’ll hire someone who can.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Lila realized she’d spoken her first lie of the day.
“That’s not how it works.”
“I know Aaron is not the only missing person in the area.” Lila had been following along on the news and listening to a weekly true crime podcast that highlighted the case.
She’d done her homework before she launched her plan. The horrible backdrop of a missing woman might help blur the picture of what happened to her husband . . . of course, that all depended on Aaron staying dead.
Ginny didn’t so much as twitch at being thrust in the heated spotlight for questioning. “Do you think the cases are related?”
“I hope not, since you haven’t found her yet.”
Chapter Five
Three Weeks Earlier
AARON SET THE PLATE IN FRONT OF HER. GRILLED CHICKEN and a salad. It was his go-to meal on his night to make dinner. They took turns when they ate in, but he took more food shifts than she did. Probably because her cooking skills extended to grilled cheese and pasta and not one inch further.
Pasta. That’s what she really wanted tonight. She’d watched a cooking show this morning and now craved cacio e pepe. She’d never had it, but the idea of noodles with cheese and pepper sounded so simple and delicious that it made her despise the chicken without tasting it.
Aaron stood there, looming over his side of the square table instead of sitting down. “You’re staring at the plate.”
“It looks good.” Sitting there, moving the food around on her plate, all she could think about was how she’d folded her life into his. Her needs grew smaller and smaller, less important and less of a priority, until only broken pieces of what she thought marriage would be remained.
The relationship didn’t start that way. He’d been a regular at the sandwich place across from her office where she went to pick up lunch and sometimes dinner. She’d see him and catch him glancing her way. They eventually met when he dropped a full travel coffee mug right in front of her. Stunned and stammering, he apologized and shot her a sweet smile.
He was attractive in a nonthreatening way. A little quiet with a tough background she would learn rivaled her own on the pain scale. So she let him in. Let him as far in as she let anyone, which to be fair was not far.
From the beginning neither demanded much of the other. They built a relationship based on companionship and understanding. He didn’t balk at her need for alone time. He liked to fish and was fine to do that without her. He provided stability and safety. When she thought about family, she thought about a home and dinner at the table and the absence of yelling. With him she had all those things.
She’d never looked at Aaron and felt a breathy rush of desire or the need to strip off his clothes and have sex against a wall. They’d done that, but the zing she was supposed to feel never hit her. But it wasn’t just Aaron.
For most of her life, she hadn’t felt the thrumming sensation. A few twinges of attraction, but the idea of purposely seeking out something fleeting, based on hormones and body parts that could disappear with the wrong haircut or by gaining twenty pounds, seemed like a waste of time.
In reality, she’d spent her entire life running from that out-of-control dynamic in search of safety and would only base a marriage on the latter. Her fear sent her spinning into the arms of the very thing she sought to escape.
“Jim told me a funny story today.”
She couldn’t call up any interest in what Aaron had to say, let alone some boring story from a random guy. “Jim?”
The chair legs scraped against the floor as Aaron pulled it out and sat down. “Biology teacher from Maine. The one with the thick accent.”
She pretended to care as she moved the lettuce around on her plate. “Oh, right.”
“He slept in his car last night.”
They hadn’t gotten to that point, but Aaron did use the guest bedroom right now. Lila refused to feel guilty about that. He deserved to be banished. She’d wanted to pummel him, slap him—something that ended with a crack of skin against skin. Anything to break through the frozen mush of disdain she felt for him.
But she had to wait. Plan. Make her move at the right time.
“Why?” She put down the fork, abandoning any pretense of interest in the food.
“He and the wife argued about money.”
“I once read that money is the issue couples fight about the most.” Not them, not usually, but other couples. They had enough issues without adding stressed economics to the pile.