“What about the florist? Is someone checking florists in the area? Long-stemmed red roses almost two weeks before Valentine’s Day, someone might remember him. He could have paid with a credit card.”
Not baby talk. She wasn’t ready.
She hadn’t assimilated enough rational or clear thoughts to have the conversation with herself yet, let alone anyone else.
“They weren’t florist quality, they were in cellophane with a rubber band holding them together. Typical bodega bouquet, or maybe from a subway stop. We can hope subway stop. There’ll be surveillance cameras and there are fewer subway florists than bodegas. In any case, Sean has officers canvasing...”
“Maxwell wouldn’t have been able to afford anything but a cheap bouquet,” she said, half to herself. It all made sense. And she was relieved to know that they still had a viable lead, no matter how small. It gave her hope. “They’re checking his neighborhood bodegas, right?”
“Yeah, and between there and the courthouse, too.”
Good. For a second there, she felt almost normal. An ADA sitting at her computer, enmeshed in her case files, getting filled in by a professional on an ongoing investigation.
“We have to talk about it, Emily.”
He hadn’t moved. Neither had she. But they were no longer at the office. Even a home one.
“No, we don’t.”
“That’s not logical. You’re an intelligent, savvy woman. You know this isn’t going to go away. You can’t just take your luck and disappear. The kid’s mine, too. The responsibility is mine.”
She couldn’t listen to him. Not yet. “The body’s mine.” And it was a hell of a lot older than his.
His sigh wasn’t encouraging. It sounded like frustration, not compliance. He was a Colton. He wasn’t giving up.
More to the point, he was Cormac. A person as determined as she was to be in control of his life, of his heart, at all times.
They couldn’t both be in total control on this one.
At the moment, her position seemed more solid for being the one who could claim boss-hood.
“I’m only asking for conversation,” he said, his tone rightly conciliatory.
She looked at him, met his gaze, and knew instantly she’d made a grave mistake. Her heart lurching in a way it never had before Cormac, she said, “You want to tell me exactly what to say to you? Because at the moment, I can probably repeat back to you what I’ve heard said, but other than that, you’re asking for something I don’t have.”
“I just need to know what you’re thinking.”
“You and me, both.” Exhausted, she met his gaze, letting him see whatever was in her eyes. “I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. But you want answers and I don’t have any. My system is still in the struggling for acceptance stage.”
He held her gaze, and she held on to his, too. In those seconds, it was like their eyes were satisfying them with answers neither one of them had to give.
“Can we at least confirm that we’re going to have it?”
Too much. Way too much. So many things could affect that outcome. She wasn’t ready to think about any of them. But...his intense dark eyes pulled words up out of her. “We can confirm that I have no intention of purposefully terminating the pregnancy.”
It was all she had.
Oh, and “And I hope we can confirm that no one but the two of us needs to know about this situation right now. At least not until we’ve had time to adjust to the news ourselves, to be better equipped to answer questions.”
Like, what was a forty-three-year-old woman doing in bed with a thirty-two-year-old man? Well, not what, that was obvious. But...why?
One look at Cormac made that a little obvious, too. So maybe, the questions would be more in line with, why was a thirty-two-year-old man doing it with a forty-three-year-old woman?
“What about your parents?” He knew she had them. That they were happily retired in Florida. That she saw them once or twice a year but talked to them regularly. And that she’d been an only child and had a great childhood. Nothing more. Not even that her dad was a retired cop. Just the generics.
She shook her head. “Not until I know more.”
His nod wasn’t enough. “And your family?” she prodded, even though he’d already agreed not to tell them.
“No.” He raised his hand from the table, reached out like maybe he’d take hers, but his palm fell back to the wood again. Empty. “Not until we have more of an idea of what it all means.”
What it all means.
A bizarre way of describing a pregnancy.
Yet purely Cormac. The words reached her in long empty places. The baby wasn’t a case to solve or answers to find to lead her to the right conclusions. He or she...meant something.
“You want salmon for dinner?” She wasn’t hungry, but, at her age, carrying a child, no way she was going to skip a meal.
“If you’re cooking. I’m not all that fond of the stuff, but with the sauce you baked it in last time...”
Last time. As his words dropped off, his look told her where his mind had gone, leaving them together in the middle of a sensual memory they both needed to forget.
He should have said he’d already eaten. Or insisted on ordering takeout—his usual mode of providing meals at home.
Smelling the salmon cooking, sitting down to eat it with her...all just reeked of things he’d spent two months forcing himself to forget.
He’d been happier for it, too. Better able to focus on work. More peaceful. A trifle bored, perhaps. Missing the excitement.
But definitely better.
He’d saved himself from the depth of emotion that blinded him and could get folks killed.
Luckily for him, Emily seemed clearly as determined as him to forget the wildness they’d shared that one week in the beginning of December, probably remembering even better than he did how off it had been, how detrimental to the overall success of their individual lives.
They ate salmon but talked about Wes Westmore, the twenty-four-year-old slickly charming hedge fund millionaire on Wall Street who was as arrogant as he was good-looking. The man was currently sitting in a jail, a definite flight risk, while awaiting the upcoming trial where Emily was going to prosecute him for the murder of his girlfriend, Lana, who’d been found dead in his apartment.
Nothing about the senseless murder was understandable, or in any way palatable. And when Emily yawned, Cormac immediately insisted that they should turn in. She practically made a run for the spare bedroom, shutting herself inside before he’d turned out the lights and double-checked the front door, taking a peek out the living room curtain to ensure that their police detail was on the job.
He went to his bedroom but left the door open and worked for a few more hours, checking occasionally to see the light still on under her door. He found no connection between Evan Smith, the defendant awaiting a new psychiatric evaluation, and any other part of Humphrey’s or Emily’s life. Nor was there any obvious connection between the three people Smith had killed. From what he could see, the murders had been a result of simply way too much alcohol and testosterone overload. Smith didn’t appear to have known the three people he’d killed in the bar fight that night.
Sometime close to midnight, he noticed the sliver of light gone from beneath Emily’s door and told himself to lie down and go to sleep. He turned out the light, slid beneath his covers, and spent a good part of the night tossing and turning, dozing and waking, with an awareness of Emily, her body holding his child safely within her. He needed to do something.
He needed to make it all aboveboard, not something that had to be hidden.
He was taking a cold shower before dawn and was dressed in his usual jeans and thermal pullover and sucking down his second cup of coffee when Emily appeared, also in her usual apparel.
“You don’t need business attire, working from home,” he said, in lieu of the good morning that would have been more impersonally appropriate. The close-fitting navy pants, off-white silky blouse and jacket had him wanting to undress her in the worst way.
He’d already taken that exact outfit off her once before. Unzipping the heeled leather boots with his teeth. To her extreme pleasure.
And his.
“In the first place, business attire is pretty much my whole wardrobe. And in the second, I’ve got an appointment for an in-person interview this morning.”
Whoa, what now? “An appointment? In person?” He knew shaking his head wasn’t the best move with her. It shook anyway.
“I’m not on vacation, Cormac. The Westmore case is going to trial, and I have to be ready for it. If that slimeball walks, it’s on me, and there’s no way I’m going to let that happen. He killed a woman and somehow thinks he’s entitled to get away with it.”
He understood the extreme distaste in her tone. Agreed with it. But... “There are any number of people who know you’re the ADA on the case. They know the witnesses. And we don’t know who’s after you.” If he had to put it more bluntly, he would.
“I know. Which...is why I’m hoping you’ll go with me to the interview.” She blinked, looked away as she made the statement. Working him on the fly, he translated.
She no more wanted him accompanying her to work than he wanted to fall in love and get married for happily ever after.
“Of course I’ll go,” he said, accepting her compromise. Didn’t matter whether she wanted him around or not. What mattered was that he would be guarding her body—and the life inside it as well.
And he hadn’t even had to fight her on it.
Could it be that Emily Hernandez was finally realizing that she needed him?
Only professionally, of course.
Which was all he was after.
You didn’t come home last night. Trying to hide from me? I like that. Playing hard to get. I’m up for the chase. It’ll make getting you that much more rewarding.
Trembling, Emily read the text message as Cormac sat in the cab beside her. It had come in on her business cell. With no phone number attached.
“What’s up?” Cormac’s brow was creased with concern as he glanced from her to her phone.
Not now. Not in the cab.
“Why does anything have to be up?” She smiled, shook her head.
But then handed him the phone.
He read. His thumb flew across her screen, followed by other screens popping faster than she could decipher them. Then, handing her the phone, he pulled out his own, seemingly repeating the process, pausing after several seconds to read the screen.
By the time they arrived at the luxury apartment building in Tribeca, his phone was back in his pocket, and she was feeling...protected from the anonymous text.
He reached for his wallet, but she slid forward and paid the cab driver, then waited for him to vacate the car before following him out.
It felt weird, having him there. It made her uncomfortable on many levels. But she was glad he’d come along. For the moment, she needed him.
His professional services.
The text message...it unnerved her almost as much as the original abduction attempt. More than the flowers had done.
So much so that as they walked from the curb to the door of the building, she wanted to take Cormac’s hand. To hold him close and hide herself against him. Which was probably why she let him so easily guide her in front of him and then keep a hand at her back as she showed her identification to the doorman, after which Cormac’s hips beneath his jacket lightly grazed her coat-covered butt as he hurried them inside.
The flat expression on his face, the focus as he guided her to the elevator, helped tamp down the fire that soft touch had raised in her, leaving her embarrassed with herself.
She was flooding with want and he obviously hadn’t even noticed the miniscule contact.
Which was as it should be.
As she wanted it to be.
Needed it to be.