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“And you didn’t contact him at all today?”
“No. Damn it, it was his turn.”
“Agreed,” Mira said with a warm smile. “And you gave him his personal time and space.” She leaned forward, surprised Eve with a light kiss to the cheek. “Now go home and pry it out of him. You’ll both feel better.”
“Okay. Right. Thanks. I feel stupid.”
“No, sweetheart. You feel married.”
Chapter 12
Her puke green police issue was in front of the house when Roarke arrived, so he knew Eve was home before him.
He wasn’
t ready to talk to her or anyone else for that matter. But he could hardly ignore the fact that the man who’d stood in as his father for most of his life was laid up with a broken leg.
He’d check on Summerset, then try to sweat out some of the fatigue and frustration in the gym, swim a few laps. Maybe get good and drunk. Whatever worked.
Meetings hadn’t. The day-to-day demands of running or overseeing his business hadn’t. Nothing had been able to erase the image of a pretty redhead with a bruised face from his mind.
So he’d just try something else.
He stepped inside, relieved—and guilty for the relief—that Eve wasn’t in the foyer, or the front parlor. At the moment, he was forced to admit he wasn’t feeling quite equipped to go up against her again.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so bloody tired, and so off his stride.
Setting his briefcase aside, he glanced toward the wide curve of stairs. Likely she was up and at work in her home office, and with any luck she’d be busy with whatever case was occupying her for some time yet.
Still, he hesitated. He wasn’t handling her well. Wasn’t handling a bloody thing well, come to that. He just needed a bit more time to himself. A man was entitled to that, wasn’t he?
Surely a man was entitled to a little time to think, for Christ’s sake, when his whole life had been turned inside out.
He dragged a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath as he walked back to Summerset’s quarters.
He heard the blast of music from three rooms away, and nearly turned on his heel in retreat. Mavis. God knew he adored the woman, but he didn’t have the energy for her just now.
On the other hand, with her there, he could make this duty visit all the quicker.
At any other time it would have amused him to see his dignified majordomo stripped to the waist and stretched out in a sleep chair having blue goo slathered on his face. Trina, one of the few people on or off planet who actively terrified his wife, was doing the honors as she shuffled her feet to the beat of one of Mavis’s music discs.
She’d chopped off her raven black hair close to the scalp and had a neon pink design of a butterfly dyed over the crown. She’d repeated the motif with temporary tattoos—or so he assumed—at the corner of her mouth, and in a running line, necklace style, over her shoulders and along the tops of her impressive breasts.
Her partner in crime was pouring some sort of pink foam into a wide pitcher. There was no way to tell whether it was intended for topical or internal use.
Mavis still had her bells on, and had donned a sunny yellow romper with a woman wearing a black g-string and leather boots painted across the butt.
The PA was wearing an eye mask and a headset while her feet soaked in bubbling blue water. Her hair was coated with something thick and green.
Pitcher in hand, Mavis turned and spotted him. “You’re home! Welcome to Summerset’s Totally Iced Salon. Want a strawberry smash?”
He assumed she meant the pink foam. “Thanks, no.”
“Dallas is hiding upstairs. Drag her down for us, will you? Trina wants to use this new skin product on her, and she needs—”
She broke off as she got a good look at his face. There were shadows under his eyes. She’d known him more than a year, and this was the first time she’d seen him wear shadows. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” He stepped over to Summerset. “And you?”
