“I’m not doing this now.” My voice is sharper and harder with the pressing need to fix this before I end up in jail and take her with me. “I need you to go back to your desk and let me handle what I need to handle.”
“Go back to my desk,” she repeats. “Right. I’ll do that.” She marches toward the door, but not before I see hurt and doubt in her eyes that I’d hoped to never see directed at me. I pursue her, reaching her as her hand comes down on the doorknob, my palm flattening on the door above her, my hand at her waist.
“Don’t go like this,” I say, lowering my voice to add, “Please.”
“You told me to go.”
“Not angry. Not doubting me.”
“You all but dared me to feel those things.”
“Not by intent. I’m focused on solving problems and keeping everyone safe. The idea of you feeling either of those things will mess with my head, and I can’t have anything messing with my head right now.”
She faces me, folding her arms defensively in front of her. “So that’s what I’ve become? Someone to mess with your head? To distract you?”
“Sweetheart,” I say, my hands settling at her waist, “that is not what I said.”
“You don’t have to.” Her hands close around my wrists. “And I don’t want to be that to you. I want to be helpful. I want to be a partner.”
“You are the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m trying to make sure my family doesn’t destroy us.”
“They can’t destroy us, but secrets can. If I’m a distraction—”
“Emily—”
“You can’t end up like Brody,” she says. “If I’m a distraction, you need to send me away, even if it’s for a few weeks.”
“I’m not sending you away.”
“Then you need—”
“Tonight,” I say. “We’ll figure this out tonight, but I’ll likely be late coming home. And I need you to promise me you’ll go home right after work and stay there so I won’t worry about you, but I’m going to have security monitoring you.”
“This is that bad?”
“Do you want the real answer?”
“I need the real answer.”
“Then yes. It’s that bad.”
She studies me for several long beats. “You really expect me to just walk out of here in the dark, don’t you?”
“Yes, because you’re smart enough to know that this isn’t the right time or place to have this conversation.”
“No. It’s not. The right time and place would have existed before right now, but bottom line, I’m in the dark, which means I’m flying blind when it comes to evaluating what’s important, therefore, I have to tell you something I found out about Mike Rogers today.” She hesitates. “And I really didn’t want to share it like this.”
“That doesn’t sound good but I need to know.”
“This is not how I wanted to tell you this,” she repeats, which only sets me more on edge.
“Tell me.”
“Fine. Tell you. Right.”
“Emily—”
“Your mother and Mike are having an affair.”
I feel those words like a punch in the chest, the idea of my mother being the one sane person in my family I’ve clung to, is shattering moment by moment. “How do you know?”
“He showed up at the restaurant, and it was pretty obvious between them but I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. But then, your mother went to take a call, and I went to the bathroom. I rounded the corner and they were very intimate, his hands on her, the things they were saying—”
“I don’t want to know,” I say roughly. “Did they see you?”
“No. They did not.”
I release her waist and press my hands to the door above her head, my lashes lowering. My mind races and lands on the Sports Center, which takes on a new twist. Maybe my father wants to ruin Mike, not just control his vote. “Can my family get any more fucked-up?”
“Shane, I’m sorry,” Emily says, her hand flattening on my chest, over my racing heart. “Maybe your father’s cheating hurt her or maybe she’s coping with him dying.”
I open my eyes. “Or maybe she’s trying to control the vote.”
“Is that in your favor?”
“I have no idea anymore.” My hand covers hers. “Thank you. I needed to know. It pieces things together that now make sense.”
“What things?”
“Emily—”
“You aren’t going to tell me.”
“I need to do damage control. When it’s done—”
“Right. Because why would we do this together.” She turns for the door.
My hand flattens on her belly, my body arching around hers, and I press my cheek to her cheek. “Emily,” I say, and this time her name is roughened with the torment I feel over shutting her out and keeping her close at the same time that I know can’t continue. “I’m asking you to give me until tonight. Please. Just give me until tonight.”
She doesn’t immediately respond, and the seconds tick by until she finally says, “Just come home safely, Shane.”
I hold her for several more beats, looking for an answer, but there isn’t one I can give. I push off the door and she waits for me to speak, willing me to say what she wants to hear, what I don’t give her. She abruptly moves, opening the door and leaving without the promise that I will come home safely. Because that might not happen and I will not ever lie to her.
*
An hour later, I’m back at Nick’s warehouse, in the conference room with Nick and Seth on either side of me.
“Do I believe Brody and his wife were murdered?” Nick asks. “Yes. Is there proof?” He pauses, sipping from the black FBI mug he’s holding that matches his black FBI shirt, which is too much fucking FBI to suit me right now. As if he doesn’t agree, he decides to give me a little more. “So far, no, but the FBI is looking into it. This case is on their radar.”
“I don’t believe there is any way they will connect the dots to you at this point,” Seth says.
“The wife was the one connecting point,” Nick says, “and we can assume Adrian, and your brother, came to that same conclusion.”
“Or my father,” I say. “He knew about Brody’s wife, and not long after finding out—I’m paraphrasing here—he told me neither Mike, nor Martina, are going to control his company.”
“You think he had Brody’s wife killed?” Nick asks.
“No,” I say. “The only thing my father likes dirty is his money. Never his hands. I think he might have urged my brother to make the problem disappear. How Derek did it is on Derek. He also wants to buy the Sports Center Mike’s team plays in, and I don’t think it’s just about controlling Mike’s vote. Emily went to lunch with my mother today, and Mike showed up. She believes they’re sleeping together, and if my father knows, this just got personal for him.”
“Emily’s right,” Seth confirms. “We’ve been watching them. She visits frequently under the guise of redecorating for him.”
I cut him a look. “You knew it was more and didn’t tell me?”
“Apparently Mike and Maggie have suddenly gotten careless,” Nick supplies. “It tends to happen when people go undetected for a while, and feel invincible.” He slides a folder to me. “Those are photos we took of them early this morning. She stayed at his house last night, which has not been the case, in the past.”