Memory in Death (In Death #22)(20)

She kept her back to him, took a slow sip of the wine. "How is it taken care of?"

"She came to my office today. I made it clear that it would be best for all concerned if she went back to Texas and didn't attempt to contact you again."

"You spoke to her?" She squeezed her eyes shut against the helpless anger. "You knew who she was, what she was, but you let her in your office."

"I've had worse in there. What did you expect me to do?"

"I expected you'd leave this to me. That you'd understand this is my problem. This is for me to handle."

"It's not your problem, but ours—or was. And it was for us to handle. Now it's done."

"I don't want you dealing with my problems, my business." She whirled around and before either of them knew she intended it, she let the glass fly. Wine and glass splatted and shattered. "This was my personal business."

"You don't have personal business from me any longer, any more than I do from you."

"I don't need to be shielded, I won't be shielded. I won't be tended to."

"Oh, I see." His voice softened, a dangerous sign. "So it's perfectly fine, we'll say, for me to see to those pesky little details. Can this get wrapped, for instance. But the things that matter, I'm to keep my nose out?"

"It's not the same. I'm a lousy wife, I get that." Her throat was clogging up, and her voice thickening as the words fought their way through. "I don't remember to do things—don't know how and don't give a rat's ass about finding out. But—"

"You're not a lousy wife, and I'd be the one to judge that. But you are, Eve, an extremely difficult woman. She came to me, she tried to shake me down, and she won't try it again. I have every right to protect you, and my own interests. So if you want to have one of your snits about it, you'll have to have it alone."

"Don't you walk away from me." Her fingers actually itched to pick up something precious to throw at him as he started for the doorway. But that was too female, and too foolish. "Don't you walk away and flick off my feelings."

He stopped, looked back at her with eyes searing with temper. "Darling Eve, if your feelings weren't so important to me, we wouldn't be having this conversation. If and when I walk away from you, it's to prevent myself from taking the alternative, which at the moment would be to beat your head against some hard object until a little sense rattles into it again."

"Were you even going to tell me?"

"I don't know. There were good reasons on both sides of that, and I was still weighing them. She hurt you, and I won't have it. That's simple. For God's sake, Eve, when I found out about my mother, and went into a spin, didn't you knock it out of me? Didn't you tend to me, even stand in front of me?"

"It's not the same." Her stomach burned, and the acid of it spewed into words. "What did you get, Roarke? What did you fall into but people who love and accept you? Good, decent people. And what do they want from you? Not a damn thing. Yeah, you had it rough. Your father killed your mother. But what else did you find out? She loved you. She was a young, innocent girl who loved you. It's not the same for me. Nobody loved me. Nobody and nothing I came from was decent or innocent or good."

Her voice hitched, but she bore down, let the rest spew out. "So yeah, you took a hard and nasty slap, and it sent you reeling. But what did you fall into? Right into gold. What else is new?"

He didn't stop her when she strode from the room. Didn't go after her when she charged up the steps.

At that moment, he couldn't think of a single reason why he should.

5

THE GYM SEEMED THE OBVIOUS PLACE FOR HIM to work off steam, and he had plenty of it. His shoulder was still weak from wounds he'd incurred a few weeks before, helping his infuriating wife on the job.

It was all right, apparently, for him to risk his bloody life, but not— according to the Book of Eve—to get rid of a f**king blackmailer.

Bollocks to that, he thought. He wasn't going to stew about it.

It was time, he decided, to punish his body back into shape.

He went for weights rather than one of the holomachines, and programmed a brutal session of reps and sets.

Her solution, he knew, had she headed downstairs rather than up, would have been to activate one of the sparring droids. Then beat the bleeding hell out of it.

To each his own.

Knowing her, she'd be pacing her office, kicking whatever was handy, and cursing his name. She'd have to get over it. Never in his life, he thought as he pumped his way through bench presses, had he known such a rational woman who could flip so quickly and so stupidly into irrational behavior.

What the bloody, buggering hell had she expected him to do? Give her a shout and ask her to pinch that ridiculous Texas fly off his neck for him?

Well, she'd married the wrong man for that, hadn't she? Too bad for her.

She didn't want to be protected when she damn well needed protection, didn't want to be looked after when she was blind with grief and stress? That was too f**king bad for her as well, wasn't it?

He ripped through the session, taking dark satisfaction in the burn of his muscles, the ache of the healing wounds, and the drip of his own sweat.