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“Well, look who we have here,” a female voice purred.
It took a second for Nico to place the voice. But when he finally did, he spun around so quickly he almost knocked Lacey over.
What the fuck was she doing here?
“Marietta?” He couldn’t believe it was her. He’d forgotten how tall she was. Wearing a pair of habitual bright-red high heels, Marietta could look him directly in the eye. Long curls of sleek auburn hair fell down over her shoulders, accentuating her perfectly tailored dove-gray suit jacket and pants. Shit. He fumbled for Lacey’s hand, needing to ground himself, needing to let her know that everything was going to be okay.
“If it isn’t the delectable Nicolas Favreau. So nice to finally see you again, husband.” She put a loud emphasis on the last word.
“What?” Lacey scoffed. Her hand clasped his so tight it almost hurt and he knew she must be wondering who this strange woman was. “Who the hell are you?”
Oh, holy fuck. This wasn’t good.
“I’m Marietta Favreau, and he’s my husband. We’re still married, didn’t you know?” She looked directly at Nico, a lazy smile unfurling on her face, making her look exactly like the cat who just got the cream.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU’RE MARRIED?” THE question fell from her lips. They were words that she’d never thought to say. Nico couldn’t be married. He would have told her. She would know. They told each other everything. He knew all about her broken family, and she knew all his deep secrets about his father who’d come back from the grave. How could he have kept this from her?
The little bakery seemed to swirl around her, Jayden a blurry figure in the background, watching with wide, curious eyes. She tried to make sense of who this glamorous stranger was, of what she was saying. This couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.
“No, I’m not,” Nico ground the word out between gritted teeth. He was still holding her hand she realized, and she snatched it away. But her eyes refused to focus on his face. On his familiar, imperfect face that she loved so much. He was denying it was true, but her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise.
“Oh, yes you are, lover.”
Lacey swung her gaze to the tall woman who towered over her. This spectacular woman, who looked effortlessly stylish and had the body and hair of an Amazon. She was smiling at Nico. A smile that spoke of intimacy, of shared secrets, of a familiarity a stranger wouldn’t have had. And in that moment, she felt utter betrayal. This woman had known Nico, had perhaps even been married to him as she stated. But it wasn’t that fact which shattered her heart. It was the fact Nico had never told her.
“No, I’m not,” Nico repeated. “We signed the divorce papers eleven years ago.” Even as he spoke, he turned to face Lacey, imploring her with his eyes to believe him. She took a step away. Then another.
“No, you didn’t,” the woman assured him.
“I’ll see you back at the station,” Lacey said, urging her feet to take her out of the store. Her legs were like jelly and the pavement seemed to roll beneath her feet, as if she could no longer find stable ground. But she had to get out of here. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think straight.
“Who is that, Nico?” she heard the other woman ask in a sexy, seductive voice. “Is she your current piece of ass? A little work fling on the side?” The woman’s voice faded as she strode away, but her words cut like knives.
Then she heard the sound of running behind her, and Nico’s arm came around her waist, tugging her into him, forcing her to look up into his indigo eyes. “Lacey, don’t go. God, I’m so sorry. I never…” he became lost for words as he stared into her eyes. But she could barely hear him over the crashing cymbals of pain radiating through her body.
“I have no idea what she’s doing here. I’m so sorry,” he said again. “I should have told you about Marietta. We were only married for a few months until I figured out she was using me to gain citizenship. Then I divorced her. I promise, I divorced her.” His eyes were so full of anguish. He was nearly as shocked and hurt by this as she was. Nearly. But nothing could equal her pain right now.
Maybe he had obtained a divorce. But that wasn’t the point. The point was he hadn’t told her he’d been married in the first place.
Her mind was still spinning with this news, but one thing she definitely understood was that the middle of the main street of Burnie wasn’t the place to have this discussion. It wouldn’t do for Burnie’s detective sergeant and his constable girlfriend to be airing their dirty laundry in public.
She shrugged him off and straightened her uniform. “I’ll see you back at the station,” she repeated, keeping her gaze averted, not wanting to see the torture in his eyes. Not wanting him to see the agony in hers. She began the slow climb up the hill to the Burnie Police Station, not glancing back even once.
He didn’t follow her.
But by the time she finally reached the main front doors, she was no better off. She couldn’t seem to grasp a single thought for more than a second. Her whole life had just been turned upside down. What was she supposed to do now? She needed time to think. Time to process. Work was the last place she wanted to be. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate. And wouldn’t know what to say to Nico when he finally came to find her. Nico. Oh, what had he done? But even as she tried to put him out of her mind, part of her wondered what he was doing now. Was he telling that woman to get out of town and never come back? Escorting her back to her car and running her out of town? She really, really hoped so.
Making a sudden decision, she jogged up the steps and through the front door. The young officer on front-desk duty buzzed her through, and she strode down the corridor to the small open-plan office she shared with three of her peers. Gorman looked up in surprise from behind his computer, and Lacey belatedly remembered he was researching the small bracelet charm. Sally-Ann was nowhere to be seen, which was probably a blessing, because that woman would’ve seen straight through Lacey’s thin layer of disguise. Hopefully she could pull the wool over Gorman’s eyes long enough to make her escape.
“How did it go?” he asked. “Did you—”
“Good,” she replied hurriedly. She didn’t have time to answer his questions; she needed to be out of there before Nico returned. A little distraction was hopefully all she needed. “We just saw the phrase practice makes perfect on a huge sign inside the Somerset Gymnastic Club. Look that one up, it might help you.”
Gorman blinked in slight confusion, before saying, “Wow. Thanks, I’ll get onto it.”
Lacey was already packing her work laptop into her backpack. “I’m going to sit with Linc,” she stated. It wasn’t up for debate, she needed somewhere quiet to escape, but she was still on duty, so she couldn’t escape completely. “I’m going to do some digging into the gymnastics club while I’m there,” she said. She wanted to add that Gorman wasn’t to tell Nico where she’d gone, but she couldn’t involve him in their personal problems, so instead she said, “Can you tell Nico I’ll be back in a few hours?”
