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Bowie continued on. “But it’s never sat well with me. The idea that the guy shot his father. Even if you take out the email about Ace’s birth and the whole paternity test, it’s a stretch. You spend your whole life thinking of this man as your father and suddenly in a matter of days you pick up a gun and shoot him? I just can’t see it. Especially because he is such a decent guy. Tough in business, but fair.”
Nikolas had felt the same and had said as much to Selina in their initial meeting. Regardless of the confusion and shock Ace Colton might’ve been operating under, it was a huge leap to assume that he would pick up a gun and shoot Payne.
“And the plot thickens if somebody’s trying to frame him.”
“Bingo. That’s what Marlowe and Ainsley have been so determined to figure out. Who would have a motive for framing their brother? If they find that, then they figure out who had the motive to shoot Payne.”
Although he hesitated to ask, Nikolas knew the question would only continue to nag at him. “Do you think it could be Selina?”
“Much as the woman gives me the creeps and makes me question Payne’s judgment to keep her around, I don’t think it’s her, either. She certainly benefits if Ace is out of the picture. She probably thinks that she can better direct whoever might be selected CEO in his place. But it’s an awfully big leap to go from calculating bitch to cold-blooded murderess. I don’t think she has it in her.”
Nikolas wasn’t quite so sure about that, but he respected Bowie’s opinion and would add it to his weighing of the situation.
She might be capable, but that didn’t mean she was capable of murdering her ex-husband. Besides, there was something in Selina Barnes Colton that had Nikolas thinking if the woman did decide to shoot Payne, she’d see the deed through rather than leave before knowing if the man was well and truly dead.
She didn’t strike him as a woman who left loose ends.
“What are you two doing out here?” Marlowe found them in the pantry and gestured them back toward the dining room. “Everything’s on the table.”
Nikolas followed Bowie and Marlowe into the room, his mind reverting to where he’d started. A hidden killer couldn’t know about Nova’s connection to the family. She’d already run from danger in New York.
What had she possibly run in to by coming to Mustang Valley?
* * *
Nova clutched her stomach at the laughter that infused the conversation at the table. For all their talk of being a couple of old, boring lawyers, Santiago and Ainsley had kept them all in stitches throughout the meal. Although they claimed to have only met recently, there was a sweet kinship between them that spoke of both bone-deep attraction as well as soul-deep friendship and affection.
It was heady to observe something so private, yet so obviously right.
And she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever find that herself.
The baby kicked and Nova rubbed a discreet hand over the little foot jabbing against her ribs. No matter how sad she felt from time to time about the end of her misguided relationship with Ferdy, she would never regret her child.
Never.
Just as she and Nikolas had discussed, her life was about to change in so many new and amazing ways. Her child was a blessing and she needed to focus on that and not worry about where her next relationship would come from. Or if she was going to have another relationship at all. She wanted to be a good mother and create a good life for her child. That was what mattered.
All that mattered.
Especially with Nikolas warning her off their kissing and everything.
A fact she’d done her damned level best to forget about for the past two hours. Even if she was failing miserably at that by thinking of their kiss oh, about every other minute. Neither did it get any easier each time she looked at him, his strong jaw and juicy lips a constant reminder of just how good he was at kissing.
And how long it had been since she’d actually been kissed.
Shifting her attention back to Ainsley and Santiago and off Nikolas’s lips, Nova was eager to hear more from the cute couple. “How did the two of you meet?”
“Santiago was Ace’s lawyer. Is his lawyer,” Ainsley added. “Since I’m the in-house counsel for Colton Oil, Ace called both of us about the planted gun.”
“And we ran with it from there,” Santiago said.
“And by run with it,” Marlowe added, “they mean they pretended to be a married couple up at the Marriage Institute. It’s connected to the AAG.”
At the mention of that horrible place Nova’s gaze sharpened. “You went there? To the AAG?”
“That’s the last update in the convoluted story of our family,” Marlowe said. “We have l
ittle doubt Micheline was the one to switch the babies.”
