Zoe gave me an odd look. “Did you actually poison him, Emmie?” she asked, peering at me in the dim light from the stove light. “I mean no shade. Props to you, just…”
“No,” I said. “I’m not like you. I’m weak. I could never. I couldn’t even leave Brooks years ago when I really should have. It’s just… What if the murderer poisoned all my cupcakes?”
“Tastes fine to me,” Zoe said, chewing. “You need to find a way to reopen immediately and take advantage of being the murder café. I bet you pay back your loan in, like, a week.”
“How? I can’t. I need to concentrate on staying out of jail.”
Zoe smirked. “You could ask your hot lawyer.”
“He’s not—”
“Hot? Uh, yeah, he is. And I say this as someone happily in a relationship. Dude is fine as hell. That suit? Chef’s kiss. And you know I am not one for a man in a suit.”
“Okay, fine, he’s cute,” I grumbled.
“Fine,” Zoe corrected. “Fuh-ine. With two syllables. The way he was standing over you? No wonder it was so hot in that room.”
“I can’t ask him for help.”
“Why not? I bet he can snap his fingers and have this place open.”
“I—I don’t know.” I rubbed my arm.
“You need to be more assertive. You’re a small-business owner and a mom to twenty-five-ish,” Zoe said as the cats all meowed in a mass around the food. “You’re a grown-up. You can ask for what you need. The worst he can say is no.”
“But I’m not paying him.”
“This is a small town. Barter and beg, baby!”
I should have wornsomething a little more attractive that wasn’t covered in cat hair if I was going to go beg Marius for help.
Especially since he looked like that.
I froze in the dark archway to the empty great room later that evening after playing with the cats and getting a pep talk from Zoe.
With one leg bent and the other outstretched, he was like a Victorian portrait in the wingback chair. His Bengal cat snoozed on the rug in front of the fire. He’d opened the windows, and the fresh winter air blew in, relieving the room of its stuffy heat.
The tall man was reading through legal papers written in tiny font, marking things with a red pen, and jotting down notes on a legal pad in a leather portfolio.
I shouldn’t interrupt him—it was a weekday. The man obviously had a real job that wasn’t helping me with problems caused by my terrible decisions.
But…
Zoe would yell at me if I didn’t at least try.
I squared my shoulders and marched into the great room before I could chicken out.
“I-I just,” I stammered, “forgot my book.”
Marius looked up, his hazel eyes almost gold in the firelight. “I didn’t see one.” He frowned.
I panicked. “Maybe the police took it.”
He set down his pen. “We need to talk about your case.”
“You don’t want to get more comfortable?”
The raising of his eyebrow let me know that comment might have been a little bit forward.
