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CHAPTERTWELVE
Emma was still simmeringtwo degrees below livid when she and Noah arrived back atSagrado. Detective Hill and her stupid timeline. She’d been fishing, trying to get Noah to admit something, but what?
Emma dropped her purse onto the table by the door. Hill hadn’t come right out and said it, but the detective thought Noah was involved in the fire somehow, which was insane. Why in the world would Noah have paid someone to start the fire? And he would have had to have arranged it as he’d been quite busy orgasming her to the brink of insanity when the fire had started. And then to have arranged it while he’d been in the home, no less? It made no sense, and Emma didn’t like things that made no sense. Or maybe Hill knew something about Noah that Emma didn’t—
No.
Emma shook off the thought. Noah wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. She knew that without a doubt. More than that, he’d proven to her she could trust him, and since she did trust him, she intended to sort out this mystery.
Emma turned to Noah. “Is there someplace I can make a few phone calls in private?”
“This way.”
After grabbing her cell from her new purse—another gift from Esme—she followed Noah toward the back of the house. She hadn’t been back here, but the place was so big, it’d probably take her six months of visits to see everything.
“Just through here,” he said, pushing open a door, and when Emma stepped into the room, she froze.
Nestled beneath a glass dome that showcased the setting sun, a grand piano commanded the space. She hurried across the room and lowered onto the bench. After setting her phone beside her, she smoothed her fingertips over the keys. Even though they werebeneathher hand, she couldfeeltheir weight. These weren’t cheap plastic keys; these were ivory.
“Noah, this is stunning.” She danced her fingers over the keys in a quick F minor scale before launching intoWinterfrom Vivaldi’sFour Seasons. Since she didn’t quite have it memorized anymore, she just played through thead libto thea tempo. She only botched the thirty-second notes a little. Okay, a lot.
From his position beside the piano, Noah traced the tips of his fingers along her jaw. “Ya know, I always thought I was buildingSagradoin honor ofAbuelo, this room specifically, but now, I’m pretty sure I was always building it for you.”
Her gaze jumped to his, and her heart played leapfrog behind her sternum. “What?”
He motioned to the sitting area across from them. “If you want, we could get rid of the sofa and chairs and replace them with a desk so that this could double as your home office. Or we could keep the room the way it is and find some other place for your home office.” With a finger to her chin, he tilted her face up and held her gaze steady on him as he touched his lips to hers. “All you have to do is say ‘yes,’Bomboncita.”
But he didn’t wait for her answer. He simply exited the room, shut the door, and left her in emotional freefall.
Despite what she said about keeping their arrangement temporary for now, she could too easily see herself in this space but not as an office. Like the music room at Isadora’s, this should be a family room. This should be a place where good, happy memories were made, a place where she could share her love of music with the people she loved.
With a family she and Noah made together?
But did she really want that? Honestly, she wasn’t sure. She’d never seen herself as a mother, as that would mean she’d have to trust someone enough to take him as a lover, which was something she’d never been able to do before—until Noah.
She shook herself back to her senses. She’d asked for privacy for a reason, hadn’t she? There were mysteries to solve.
Emma grabbed her cell and dialed a number she knew from memory. The phone rang four times before a familiar voice sounded over the line.
“Hey, Auntie Ems.”
Emma instantly brightened. “Hey there yourself, munchkin. What’s up?”
“I’m about to pack for a sleepover at Trevor’s. Mom said that since I hadn’t annoyed her to high heaven this weekend that she’d let me have a sleepover on a school night! She’s so funny, isn’t she?”
And so was he, a joker to his core, just like his father.
Andi rarely let PJ stay over at someone’s house on a school night unless she had to work. Usually, PJ came to Emma’s when that happened, but given the current situation, that wasn’t possible. Plus, Emma had a sneaking suspicion the fire was the reason Andi needed to work tonight.
“Mom told me about your house,” he said, suddenly too serious for his years. “I’m sorry, Auntie Ems. If you want, I can help you fix it. Mom told me that was a sweet offer but that there was too much damage. So then I said that was sad and that you should come live with us, which I thought would be fun. I mean, I’m super sorry about your house, but it would be awesome if you lived with us. You always tell the greatest stories about Daddy. I especially like the ones about his bearhugs crushing you. They always make me laugh the most.”
This kid!
Emma wished she could reach through the phone and give him a bearhug from his Auntie Ems.
“Oh, theywerecrushing,” she reassured him. “Probably more so than if an actual bear got his arms around you.”
“Daddy’s hugs probably wouldn’t be as smelly or hairy as a bear’s, though.” Even over the phone, PJ’s sarcasm flowed. Oh yeah, he was so his father’s child. PJ turned serious again. “I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately that Daddy’s all better and teaching me to climb. Mom said they used to climb all the time in the Army. Oh, they would wrestle, too, but that she could always beat him. Do you think Daddy used to let her win?”
