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She didn’t care.
Boone waited for them to look away before continuing. “I wanted to give our marriage one last chance.”
“By burning down her business?” Damon asked. “While you’re seeing someone else?”
“Rita and I both made our mistakes, but we were talking about giving it one more try. She had dumped her side guy, but she wasn’t willing to work less hours.”
“Why would you care?” Ariana asked. “You work more than she does.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I can’t believe you were going to set it on fire,” Ariana said. “I mean, it’s one thing to want to do something.” Like throwing tea at a narcissistic arsonist. “But it’s something else entirely to follow through with it.”
“What can I say? Rita and I are passionate people. It’s part of what drew us together.”
Ari leaned back in her seat and rubbed her temples.
“You really have no idea where Rita is?” Damon asked.
“Wish I did.”
“Why have you been threatening Ariana if you’re innocent?”
“I’m only innocent of whatever happened to her,” Boone said. “I was desperate to hide my affair and my plans for the fire, but in the end I had to give the cops the receipts. And it only took a matter of minutes for them to put two and two together. So, here I am.”
Ariana sat up straight. “Were you going to burn it down that night?”
“No. These things take time and planning. Research and purchasing was only the first step.” Boone’s phone dinged, and he looked at it. “I have to get back to work. Are we done here? You people won’t bother me any more about Rita’s disappearance?”
“Why don’t you care?” Ari asked.
“I do,” he said. “I was in the process of trying to save my marriage.”
“Do us a favor,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t ever do us any favors.”
“Trust me, I don’t care enough about you two to bother with anything that complicated.” He gathered his things and left, reminding them once again about the NDA.
Ariana’s head spun out of control. He’d bought the supplies to burn down Rita’s restaurant.
“Do you buy his story?” Damon asked.
“His NDA is pretty convincing.”
“I still don’t trust him, but if he is telling the truth, we’re back to square one.”
“Not really,” Ariana said. “Now it looks like Rita’s mystery boyfriend is behind it.”
