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“What about the others?”
“What others? He was my only serious relationship; I told you that when you asked before.” They’d touched on past relationships during one of their many nightly phone conversations, so she couldn’t see why he was bringing it up now. Then Celia decided to go on the offensive.
“What about you?”
“What about me?
“You and Sonya? Was that really as innocent as you two claimed?” Sonya had written about how helpful he had been in her journal, but there was no hint of anything sexual, something Celia had found strange during the investigation and even now. She just wasn’t used to men and women having that close of a relationship with nothing else going on.
She’d fought those doubts for months and had told herself not to go there, but now that he had the nerve to bring up her past and stick his nose in, why not?
“You’ve been holding onto that one for a while, haven’t you? Fair enough. It’s like she said in the diary you read detective, we were just friends.”
“Why were you so protective of her then, even after her death?”
“Because she was my wife’s best friend. And I thought my wife would be really affected, broken up; I didn’t know….” He broke off what he was about to say, not willing to go back there again.
“When she was alive, she and Niall were going through a rough patch after the baby’s birth, and since I’ve always wanted kids and we were having a hard time having one of our own, I didn’t see any reason not to step in since it was helping both of us.”
“So you were both very close with no strings attached and nothing for your spouses to worry about. But now you’re questioning me about a relationship that has been over for many many years. Don’t you find that to be a bit of a double standard?”
“Not really, no.” He didn’t expound on that statement, and Celia knew she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him on the subject because he’s nuts.
She looked at her watch as she put her glass down on the table. “Oh, shoot, I have to go.” She pushed her chair back and stood from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“I had to put off part of the investigation until later because I wanted to see all the players together.”
She explained to him about the strip club and wanting to question the clientele as well as the workers, and the owner who she’d found out might have ties to organized crime. “Is your partner going with you?”
“No, I told him I’d handle it alone, he can do any follow up we need tomorrow.”
“You’re not going there alone; you know who owns that place?”
“I’m a cop, remember, it’s my job to go there. I can’t not go just because you don’t want me to, or because it’s too dangerous.”
“That’s your deal, not mine. I don’t care what your job is; my woman does not put herself in harm’s way. Especially not if I know about it.”
“Riley, seriously, you can’t follow me around on the job.”
“You’re off the clock, and it doesn’t matter. That place has a reputation; I’m not comfortable with you going there alone.”
Celia took a deep breath and prayed for patience. She couldn’t blame this all on him; during all those phone conversations, it’s not like he’d even tried to hide the fact that this is who he is. She just didn’t expect to see the shit played out in real life. “Riley, if you want this to work…”
He laughed and sat back in his chair, taking a sip of his wine. “What’re you laughing at?”
“Oh nothing, go ahead with what you were saying.”
“No, go ahead, tell me why you were laughing.”
“I like your spunk; I like even more that you think you have a choice in whether or not we’re going to work.”
“I have to go; we’ll talk about this later.” She half expected him to get up to follow her and kept looking back over her shoulder until she reached the door leading inside. “Come here, detective.” She sighed and told herself that she knew that was too easy, but all he did when she walked back to his side was pull her down for a kiss. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
“This one is for the front door, this one is to the side, and this is the backdoor key.” She felt a giddy warmth when she took the keys from his hand, and there was a blush on her cheeks. “Thank you.” As she made her way outside to her car, she realized once again that they hadn’t even discussed his high handedness.
It hadn’t had time to settle in yet that she was now living with him. Forget the fact that the place was worth millions; it was the fact that she had moved in with her crush, the man she’d thought so out of her reach; the whole thing seemed surreal.
