Victorious(71)

“No problem at all, Mrs. Godfrey. We can do it another time.”

“Yes, please. Another time would be great. And call me Natalie.”

“I will, thank you, Natalie.”

She hands me my robe and turns her back to gather her supplies while I put it on. I leave her to finish cleaning up and head for the deck.

He’s pacing, phone pressed to his ear, body rigid with the tension that reminds me of the days that followed David Rogers’s decision to sell my story to the highest bidder. Turning, he spots me there and lowers his voice.

I feel left out, excluded from whatever is happening, but I resist the urge to turn my back and go inside. Rather, I wait for him to end the call, which he does a few minutes later.

“Did Jasmine leave?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t an hour.”

“I couldn’t seem to concentrate or relax. I heard you yelling. What’s wrong?”

“Rogers’s wife has gone to the media to pressure the FBI into making an arrest in her husband’s case.”

“Anyone in particular she wants to see arrested?”

“Who do you think?”

“Flynn…”

“Don’t worry. They’ve got nothing on me, or we’d know it by now. I talked to Emmett. He says our guy on the ground in Lincoln is making progress and should have something soon.”

“Can you make his wife stop saying you did it?”

“Emmett is handling that, too.”

It’s a warm day and the sun is beating down on the deck, but I’m chilled to the bone nonetheless. Normally, Flynn would be holding me as he offered comfort, but now he keeps his distance.

“You’re angry with me.”

“A little, I suppose.”

“I may ask that question again in the future.”

“For the record, I’m not close to nor do I regularly associate with any woman I’ve slept with other than Marlowe.”

“What about Cresley?”

“We’re friendly. We don’t hang out except for once in a while at the clubs. I don’t talk to her between visits or hit her up when I’m in New York. I like her. We’ve partied together, I’ve met her son a few times, we had sex a few times with Hayden. That’s all it’s ever been or will ever be. She’s not going to suddenly drop by here out of the blue to hang with us.”

“Will she be at the party?”

“No.”

“Are there other women coming to the party that you’ve slept with?”

He doesn’t like the question, but I don’t care if he likes it. “Other than Marlowe, no.”

“Do you think I’m out of line to ask these things?”

“No.”

“Then why do you look so pissed off?”

“Because! You think I’d hire someone I’ve f*cked to come in here and run their hands all over you. You actually thought I’d do that.”

“I didn’t know if you would do that because your attitudes toward sex are very different than mine were until I met you. I’m still learning the rules of how it’s done in your world.”

He seems to lose some of his rigidity as that point strikes home. “Okay, that’s fair enough, and I wasn’t seeing it from your point of view. But you have to know I’d never disrespect you that way.”

“I do now.”

He takes a step toward me and then another.

I do the same, meeting him halfway. “Did that count as a fight?”

When he smiles down at me, I’m thrilled—and relieved—to see the tenderness is back in his sexy brown eyes. “Maybe. You kinda got me right here asking me that.” He rubs his hand over his breastbone.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I have questions. I’ll probably have others as we go forward. I need to know I’m allowed to ask them.”

His hands encircle my hips, and he gazes down at me in that intense, all-consuming way of his. “You’re allowed to ask, just as I’m allowed not to like it.”

“But you’ll always answer me truthfully?”

“Yes, I promise.”

I go up on tiptoes to kiss him. “She rubbed oil all over me. Seems a shame to let that go to waste, doesn’t it?”

“Mmm,” he says, biting my earlobe. “That would be a damned shame.”





Chapter 17





On our way to Beverly Hills in the chauffeured Bentley my dad sent for us, Natalie sits close to me, holding my hand. She’s wearing the same dress she wore for our wedding in Vegas. I’m in my favorite Armani tux. From what I’ve been told, the celebrity news programs are ablaze with the accusations Rogers’s wife is making against me, but I’m comforted by the FBI’s public statements that I’m not a suspect.

I hope they mean that. They haven’t actually told me that—yet. Emmett has spent the day on the phone trying to get more information out of them, but other than what we’ve seen on TV, they’re letting me continue to twist in the wind.

I didn’t kill David Rogers. I never met the guy. Am I sorry that someone else killed him? Not at all. After selling Natalie out to the press for money, he got what was coming to him.