Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)

“Are you guys okay? Is he sick? Is that the appointment?” But then, if he were ill, surely Becky would be with him.

Her old friend shook her head. “Oh no. He’s fit as can be. Well, he has that bad back. But he’s all good otherwise. It’s just…”

“You’re not separating, are you? Divorcing?” Annalise continued, since she’d never been one to tiptoe around a tough situation. Best to be direct. Ask the questions. Most people wanted to talk. Most people were looking for an opening to share their woes. If Becky was, Annalise wanted to be the person to listen.

Becky scoffed and shook her head. “I wouldn’t let him out of my grasp. Same for him,” she said, her tone chased by a light laugh. “It’s just been a tense few months. I haven’t really said much to anyone.”

“I’m here if you want to talk. Or if you just want me to listen,” Annalise offered. Sometimes people shared more with someone they didn’t see regularly. Knowing the person across from you was leaving soon could make it easier to say the hard things. If you knew you didn’t have to see him or her in the near future, you could open up. Your secrets would be tucked safely away in their luggage on the return trip home.

Becky’s shoulders rose as she inhaled deeply. “Ever since the investigation…” she began, then trailed off. “I shouldn’t say anything. I can’t say anything.”

Annalise squeezed her hand. “I understand.”

Clearly, Becky had said all she was able to say. Annalise reached for the sugar, poured some into her coffee, and shifted gears. “So…is the big cruise still happening after Sanders retires?”

“I hope so,” Becky said, twisting her index and middle fingers together. “Fingers are crossed it doesn’t get put off.”

As they talked more about little things, the wheels in Annalise’s head started to turn, and she wondered what would defer Sanders’s retirement, and why Becky was so tense from the investigation. What on earth would they have to be worried about from an inquiry into an incident that happened eighteen years ago? Sanders was Thomas’s best friend back then. They’d worked together.

The wheels picked up speed. Wait a second. Did Sanders know something? Was he talking to the cops?

Her heart squeezed.

Oh.

The appointment.

Was it over the case? Did Sanders have something to hide? Did Becky? As the possibilities took shape, she cycled back eighteen years ago to a night when she’d slipped into the house late, lips bee-stung and bruised, hair a wild tumble, heart racing from being with Michael. Becky had been reading, waiting up for her, and they’d talked briefly in the living room.

“So, the young Michael Paige-Prince. You sure do like him. Is it serious?”

Annalise had nodded with a grin she couldn’t contain. “How do you say it? I am crazy for him.”

“Yes, that’s how we say it here. And I can see why. Smart, kind, and a handsome young man.”

“He is,” Annalise had echoed, feeling dreamy, the way she always felt when she thought of the boy she was falling in love with.

Becky had smiled dopily. “He gets his good looks from his father.”

At age sixteen, she’d barely registered the comment.

Now, years later, she lingered on the remark. He gets his good looks from his father. Surely that was nothing, right? There had been no secret affair between Becky and Thomas, no long-simmering desire? It was just a comment, wasn’t it? Hell, Annalise herself could tell at that age that Michael was “like father, like son” in the looks department. And she didn’t have any weird daddy issues or attraction to her boyfriend’s father, but empirically, Becky was right. Michael was handsome, and so was his father. That was all. Case closed.

Annalise quieted her skeptical side, telling herself that Becky’s comments from years ago couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her odd behavior today.

As Annalise said her good-bye at the end of the meal and slid into the backseat of a Nissan, her Uber ride waiting to whisk her to her shoot, she replayed last night.

The bar, the kiss, Michael’s hands. His mouth, teeth, tongue.

His name on her lips.

Her fingers between her legs.

Hot sparks rained down on her, and she shivered. She’d be seeing him this afternoon. The first man she’d ever loved, back when she hardly knew what that butterfly feeling was in her chest—flutters, wings and all.

First love was like that. Enchanting and light, stitched from an endless thread of hopes and dreams. It made you feel invincible and hungry for more all at once. She’d wanted to be with Michael so much when she returned to France. She’d tried so hard to fight the distance through letters. They’d attempted to stay together through the end of high school and on into college.