Innocent in Death (In Death #24)(38)

He pushed off the desk. “I’m sorry if it upset you,” he said as he moved to a wall panel, opened it to take out a bottle of brandy. “She’s outgoing, impulsive. I imagine she was curious about you.”

“Is that what you imagine?” She felt the anger warring with something inside her, something she recognized as acute distress. “Even after you told her she wouldn’t like me.”

He glanced at Eve, poured the brandy, replaced the bottle. “No more than you would her. Very likely she intended to make the gesture and prove me wrong.”

Blind spot, Summerset had told her. “I think that was pretty low on her list of intentions. You’re going to work with her?”

This time irritation escaped control just long enough to show. “I’m not, no.”

“Then she’s a liar?”

“If she said I was, she misspoke, or you misconstrued.”

“Imisconstrued?”

“Christ Jesus.” He knocked back some brandy. “You’re trying to box me into a corner here, and there’s none to be had. We had a perfectly innocent lunch, at which time she asked for my help with some investments she wants to make. I agreed to give her some direction, and some names of people she might work with. It’s nothing I haven’t done for other people countless times before.”

“She’s not other people.”

“Bollocks to this.” And there was the temper, rich and ripe. “Did you expect I would say, ‘Sorry, can’t give you the names of a few money people as my wife doesn’t like the fact we shagged a dozen bloody years ago?’ This isn’t like you, Eve.”

“I can’t say, as I haven’t been in this position before.”

“What position, exactly?”

“Having a woman you have feelings for thrown in my face. Knowing she meant for me to feel exactly that.”

“As I’m not a bleeding droid I’ve had feelings for other women before I met you, and you’ve run into a few of them. As for Magdelana, why would she want to antagonize you?” he demanded. “She’d have nothing to gain. You’re overreacting, and making a situation out of something that happened years before I knew you existed. Do you need reassurance from me? Promises, pledges? After all we’ve come to be to each other?”

“How is it she’s made all the moves, and I’m in the wrong here? You don’t see her.”

“I see you. I see my wife twisting herself into a jealous knot over something long past.”

He set the brandy aside again, ordered himself to be calm. “Eve, I can’t go back and change what I was, what was done all those years ago. I wouldn’t if I could. Why would I? If I took a step then, it somehow brought me here. To you.”

That wasn’t the point, she thought. Or was it? But everything that wanted to come out of her mouth sounded, even in her head, like the whining of a needy woman. “Can you tell me she doesn’t want to pick up where you left off?”

“If she did, or does for that matter, she’ll be disappointed. Eve, you and I didn’t come to each other as children, or as innocents. If either of us wind ourselves up over relationships that came and went before our own, we’ll forever be in knots.”

“Excuse me?” She pushed to her feet. “You beat the hell out of Webster right in this room.”

“He had his hands on you, in our home . That’s bloody different.” The words lashed out, hot-tipped and razor sharp. “And never did I think you invited it, encouraged it, or would have tolerated it. You and I went round, Lieutenant, because you threatened to stun me. What in f**king hell do you want?”

“I guess to know what in f**king hell she wants. Is she planning a job? Does she want you—”

“If she is, it wasn’t mentioned to me. In fact, quite the opposite. And if she is, it would be no business of mine. Is that how you see me? So spineless that I’d slip back not only over the line, but into another woman’s bed?”

“No.”

“Whatever she might want, Eve, she’ll get no more from me than what I agreed to give. Some basic investment options. Should I have my admin write that up in the form of a contract for you?”

Her throat burned, the headache was back, and she’d accomplished nothing but pissing him off while putting Magdelana squarely between them. “I hate this. I hate feeling this way, acting this way. I hate that we’re standing here arguing about her. Putting her in the center of it.”

“Then stop.” He moved to her then. He laid his hands on her shoulders, ran them up and down her arms before drawing her against him. “If we’re to argue, at least let’s argue about something real. Not this. You’re not just the center of my world, Eve.” He kissed her brow, her temples, her lips. “You’re the whole of it.”

She flung her arms around him, held hard. He’d answered, she told herself. Put at away, put it aside. “It’s your fault I love you like this.” For a moment, she pressed her face to his shoulder. “That I’m stupid with it.”

“Of course it is.” He brushed a hand over her hair, laid his cheek against it. And felt his own insides relax again. “We’ll feel stupid together. Better now?”

Better, she thought. But it wasn’t over. She was afraid enough of what might happen next that she told herself, again, to let it go. Just let it go. “Good enough.”