Portrait in Death (In Death #16)(61)

She did a search, located him in the gym. Switching to video scan, she watched him strip down, drag on shorts. He looked exhausted, she thought. Not just tired, which was rare enough for him, but wiped out.

He went for the weights, and Eve bided her time. Go ahead, she decided, sweat some of it out. That's what she'd have done.

It wasn't just the shadows under his eyes that worried her, but the cold set of his face as he pumped the weights. Cold and hard.

He was pushing himself. Punishing himself? God, what was going on?

While he worked, she paced her office, trying out a dozen possible approaches. After a brutal thirty minutes, he went into the pool house.

Lap after lap, fast, strong, hard. Too hard, she thought, and was on the point of going down to stop him when he rolled over on his back. Seeing him floating there, eyes closed, misery in every line of his face broke her heart.

"What is it?" she murmured and stroked her fingers over the screen. "Why are you so unhappy?"

Work? No, didn't compute. If it was trouble with work he might be pissed, but he'd be challenged by it. Even energized. It wouldn't make him miserable.

Summerset? Didn't play either. She'd checked, personally, with the medicals and had been told the skinny son of a bitch was healing perfectly, and already ahead of schedule.

Maybe it's me, she thought, with a slow, sick dread. Maybe his feelings for her had just... clicked off somehow. Everything between them had happened so fast when you thought about it. And had never made any sense, not to her. If he'd stopped loving her, wouldn't he be unhappy, guilty, tired, distraught. All the things she saw on his face now?

That was just bullshit. She kicked the desk as Roarke pulled himself out of the water. Just raging bullshit. And if it wasn't, well, he was going to be a lot more unhappy, guilty, tired, and distraught before she was done.

She marched into the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of wine and drank a glass like medicine. She'd give him a few minutes to clean himself up, then she was going in.

He was just getting out of the shower when she walked into the bath. Or swaggered, spoiling for a fight. She watched him hook a towel at his hip, met his eyes in the mirror.

"You look like shit."

"Thanks, darling."

No smile, she noted. No glimmer of warmth or amusement, not even irritation. Just nothing at all.

"I've got some things to say to you. Put some pants on."

"They'll have to wait. I've a conference call scheduled shortly." It was a lie. It passed through his mind he'd never lied to her before. And it didn't go down well.

"It's going to have to go without you." She stalked back into the bedroom, slammed the door shut.

The sound of it cut through his aching head like a laser. "Perhaps I'm not hunting down the next murdering bastard who plagues New York, but my work's important." He crossed to the closet, yanked out a pair of trousers. "I don't expect you to stop doing yours when it's inconvenient for me."

"I guess I'm not as nice and agreeable as you are."

"There's a bulletin. I'll talk to you later," he said as he yanked on the pants.

"You'll talk to me now." Her chin angled, a challenge, when he simply turned his head and stared coolly. "You've got to get through me to get out of the room. And the way you look right now, champ, I can put you down in thirty seconds."

He could feel the temper eating through the misery now, like a hot bite. "Don't bank on it."

"You want to fight?" She shifted her stance, crooked her finger. "Come on."

"You'll have to save your pissing contest for later. I'm not in the mood." He stepped toward her, intending on nudging her aside. She shoved him back.

His eyes fired, and that pleased her.

"Don't." His warning was low, and very, very calm.

"Don't what?" She shoved him again, saw his hands ball into fists. "You want to take a shot at me. Go right ahead. Get it out of your system before I knock you on your ass."

"I'm telling you to stay away from me for a bit."

She planted her hands on his bare chest and shoved him again. "No."

"Don't push me!" At her next move, he grabbed her wrists, jerked her forward, back. Fury flooded him, gushing through his blood. "I don't need you crawling up my back. Leave me be. I don't want you around."

"Don't want me around." It was a slice in the gut, fast and bloodless, that she countered by running him back against a wall. "You son of a bitch, you're the one that got me into this in the first place."

He had more left in him than she'd thought, and in a ten-second sweaty grapple, reversed their positions. She countered, feinting with an elbow toward his chin as she hooked her foot around his and tossed him to the floor.

She saw the hot rage light on his face even as it flamed in her. She sprang.

He saw stars, then lost himself in the red-hazed violence as they rolled and wrestled over the floor. Something crashed, shattered.

He felt the black bloom out of that tiny core inside him. It wanted to spread. Wanted to wound. And as they grappled, breath coming fast and short, the diamond she wore on a long chain around her neck spilled out and struck his cheek.

Appalled, disgusted, he dropped his guard and let her pin him.