Loyalty in Death

He noted that she looked neither pale nor tired – two early signs of overwork. He would have suffered the torments of the damned before he would have admitted – even to himself – that the fact pleased him.

"Roarke," he said in frigid tones as she breezed by him and started up the steps, "is in the video room." Summerset's brow arched slightly. "Second level, fourth door on the right."

"I know where it is," she muttered, though it wasn't absolutely true. Still, she would have found it, even though the house was huge, a labyrinth of rooms and treasures and surprises.

The man didn't deny himself anything, she thought. Why should he? He'd been denied everything as a child, and he'd earned, one way or another, all the comforts he now commanded.

But even after a year, she wasn't really used to the house, the huge stone edifice with its juts and its towers and the lushly planted grounds. She wasn't used to the wealth, she supposed, and never would be. The kind of financial power that could command acres of polished wood, sparkling glass, art from other countries and centuries, along with the simple pleasures of soft fabrics, plush cushions.

The fact was, she'd married Roarke in spite of his money, in spite of how he'd earned a great portion of it. Fallen for him, she supposed, as much for his shadows as his lights.

She stepped into the room with its long, luxurious sofas, its enormous wall screens, and complex control center. There was a charmingly old-fashioned bar, gleaming cherry with stools of leather and brass. A carved cabinet with a rounded door she remembered vaguely held countless discs of the old videos her husband was so fond of.

The polished floor was layered with richly patterned rugs. A blazing fire – no computer-generated image for Roarke – filled the hearth of black marble and warmed the fat, sleeping cat curled in front of it. The scent of crackling wood merged with the spice of the fresh flowers spearing out of a copper urn nearly as tall as she and the fragrance of the candles glowing gold on the gleaming mantel.

On-screen, an elegant party was happening in black and white.

But it was the man, stretched out comfortably on the plush sofa, a glass of wine in his hand, who drew and commanded attention.

However romantic and sensual those old videos with their atmospheric shadows, their mysterious tones could be, the man who watched them was only more so. And he was in three glorious dimensions.

Indeed, he was dressed in black and white, the collar of his soft white shirt casually unbuttoned. At the end of long legs clad in dark trousers, his feet were bare. Why, she wondered, she should find that so ripely sexy, she couldn't say.

Still, it was his face that always drew her, that glorious face of an angel leaping into hell with the light of sin in his vivid blue eyes and a smile curving the poetic mouth. Sleek black hair framed it, falling nearly to his shoulders. A temptation for any woman's fingers and fists.

It hit her now, as it often did, that she'd started falling for him the moment she'd seen that face. On her computer screen in her office, during a murder investigation. When he'd been on her short list of suspects.

A year ago, she realized. Only a year ago, when their lives had collided. And irrevocably changed.

Now, though she'd made no sound, came no closer, he turned his head. His eyes met hers. And he smiled. Her heart did the long, slow roll in her chest that continued to baffle and embarrass her.

"Hello, Lieutenant." He held out a hand in welcome.

She crossed to him, let their fingers link. "Hi. What are you watching?"

"Dark Victory. Bette Davis. She goes blind and dies in the end."

"Well, that sucks."

"But she does it so courageously." He gave her hand a little tug and urged her down on the sofa with him.

When she stretched out, when her body curved easily, naturally against his, he smiled. It had taken a great deal of time and a great deal of trust between them to persuade her to relax this way. To accept him and what he needed to give her.

His cop, he thought as he toyed with her hair, with her dark corners and terrifying courage. His wife, with her nerves and her needs.

He shifted slightly, content when she settled her head on his shoulder.

Since she'd gone that far, Eve decided it would be a pretty good idea to pull off her boots and to take a sip from his glass of wine. "How come you're watching an old video like this if you already know how it ends?"

"It's the getting there that counts. Did you have di

She made a negative sound, passed him back his wine. "I'll get something in a bit. I got hung up on a case that came in right before end of shift. Woman screwed a guy to the wall with his own drill."

Roarke swallowed wine, hard. "Literally, or metaphorically?"

She chuckled a little, enjoying the wine as they passed the glass back and forth. "Literally. Branson 8000."

"Ouch."

"You betcha."

"How do you know it was a woman?"

"Because after she pi

"Well, that'll teach him." Ireland cruised through his voice like whiskey and had her tilting her head to look up at him.

"She went for the heart. Me, I'd've screwed it through his balls. More to the point, don't you think?"

"Darling Eve, you're a very direct woman." He lowered his head to touch his lips to hers – one brush, then two.

It was her mouth that heated, her hands that reached up to fist in his thick, black hair and drag him closer. Take him deeper. Before he could shift to set the wine aside, she flipped over, knocking the glass to the floor as she straddled him.

He lifted a brow, eyes glinting, as he used his nimble fingers to unbutton her shirt. "I'd say we know how this one ends, too."

"Yeah." Gri

CHAPTER TWO

Eve scowled at her desk-link after she'd finished her conversation with the PA's office. They'd accepted a plea of man two on Lisbeth Cooke.

Second-degree manslaughter, she thought in disgust, for a woman who had cool-headedly, cold-bloodedly ended a life because a man couldn't control his dick.

She'd do a year at best in a minimum-security facility where she'd paint her nails and brush up on her fucking te

Eve knew she'd told Peabody to take what you could get, but even she hadn't expected it to be so little.

She damn well let the APA – and she'd told the spineless little prick in short, pithy terms – inform the next of kin why justice was too overworked to bother – why it had been in such a fucking hurry to deal it hadn't even waited to settle until she'd finished her report.

Setting her teeth, she rapped a fist against her computer in anticipation of its vagaries and called up the ME's report on Branson.

He'd been a healthy male of fifty-one, with no medical conditions. There were no marks or injuries to the body other than the nasty hole made by a whirling drill bit.

No drugs or alcohol in the system, she noted. No indication of recent sexual activity. Stomach contents indicated a simple last meal of carrot pasta and peas in a light cream sauce, cracked wheat bread, and herbal tea ingested less than an hour before time of death.

Pretty boring meal, she decided, for such a sneaky ladies' man.

And who, she asked herself, said he was a ladies' man but the women who'd killed him? In their damn rush to clear the dockets, they hadn't given her time to verify the motive for the pissy man two.