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God, I wasn’t sure. But tension flared from him like a heat storm, rolling through the room like flashes of lightning.

I crossed my arms, suddenly chilled. Hoping I was being paranoid, I decided to play cool, pushing my lips into a smile. “You’re back early. I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

His eyes pierced and pinched me. “Do you think I did it?”

“Did wh—?” It was halfway out before I realized what he was asking. I closed my mouth, unsure how to answer, not prepared to lie. Not prepared to tell the truth.

He repeated his question, his voice even and eerily controlled. “Do you think I did it?”

I didn’t flinch. “Did you?”

He closed his eyes a second longer than a blink and his shoulders sank ever so slightly. When he opened them, he asked with disdain, “Does it matter?”

“What does that mean?” Of course it mattered. His answer mattered very much.

“It means that people seem to make up their mind without caring if it’s the truth or not. I didn’t take you for one of those people. I guess I was wrong.” He turned and headed out of the room.

I flew after him, throwing words at his back. “Why the hell would you make that assumption? Because you walked in on me watching an interview? That wasn’t me saying those things. It was Chris.”

“Chris, who is your friend.”

“That doesn’t automatically mean I subscribe to his beliefs. I have my own thoughts and opinions too.” It wasn’t exactly an honest argument on my part. I did subscribe to the belief that in some way Reeve had contributed to Missy’s death.

But only in my head. My heart held out.

“And when I asked you your opinion you answered with a question.” Reeve climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms, taking them two at a time. “Hardly seems like you have your own opinion on this particular matter, does it? Or if you do, you’re not willing to share it.”

I followed him, trotting up the steps to keep up with him. “I don’t know the answer. Which means I don’t share Chris’s opinion. And it’s why I asked you. So that I don’t just assume.”

In his suite, he threw his jacket on an armchair and began undoing his cufflinks.

I stopped just inside the door. “Is this because it was Chris I was watching? Because you’re jealous?”

“Chris has nothing to do with this.” He tossed his cufflinks on the nightstand and then spun toward me, his eyes blazing with rage and hurt. “It was the wrong answer, Emily. You should have said no.”

“What?” I was as surprised by his sudden burst of rage as I was by his words.

“You heard me.” He pulled at his tie to remove it and from his stance, from his tone, it wasn’t crazy that it crossed my mind that he might use it on me.

But he balled it up and stuck it in his pocket. To put away later, maybe. Or to wrap around my throat when tired of the conversation. Wrap it tight and pull, watching my eyes as my life flickered away.

Except I didn’t really believe he’d do that. Not to me. It was gut instinct with no basis in fact.

As for Missy, I didn’t know what I believed. “I think I was pretty open-minded to say I didn’t know, but you wanted me to automatically defend you?”

“Yes. I did. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request to think the woman I’m sleeping with would be on my side. Excuse me for not thinking to include it on the list of expectations I gave you before we got here.”

The comment stung so unexpectedly that I almost regretted the answer I’d given earlier.

Then I looked at the bigger picture, and no way. That wasn’t happening. No regret. I would submit and demure to a lot, almost anything, but I would not give in on this.

And with that clarity, I was inflamed. “You can’t be serious.” He had his back to me, unbuttoning his shirt. “You can’t possibly expect me to know whether you’re innocent or not. When you’ve alluded to being dangerous. When you’ve perpetuated that image. You’ve wanted me to be afraid of you. Now you expect me to just assume you’d never really do something terrible? That’s not what you led me to believe.”

“I didn’t lead you anywhere you didn’t want to go.”

“You think I want to believe that you killed someone?” I was as mad that he kept his back to me as I was with the things he was saying.

“At the very least you want to think that I could have.”