Page 101 of Healing the Heart

“She operates a beauty salon in Beverly Hills.”

“You’re kidding,” Esme gasped. “With that gaudy hair?”

She and Val looked at each other and snickered.

“Ladies, can we leave the catty remarks until after the meeting?” This was Keiran’s suggestion.

“Or not at all,” Eric chimed in.

They quieted but didn’t even try to hide their grins. Glad to have their resounding support, Fiona smiled as she swiveled in her chair back to the screen.

“Her address came as a surprise,” Griff continued. “4360 Amhurst Way in Brentwood.”

She gripped Noah’s forearm as they both stared at him in horror. “But Noah’s at 4364 Amhurst Way.”

“Yep. She’s subletting next door. That’s why her name didn’t show up on the tenants’ list. And I’ll give you one guess as to the name of her houseguest for the last two months.”

“Jordano Parra,” several of them stated together.

“Impossible. We would have noticed him on surveillance.” This affronted statement came from a man Fiona hadn’t met. Like the rest of the Rossi men, he was strikingly good-looking and made like a wall of muscle, accentuated by his monochromatic black T-shirt and black jeans. His head was shaved and, though she preferred a little something she couldrun her fingers through or hang on to in the heat of the moment, smooth looked sexy on him.

She leaned in to Noah, so only he would hear. “I don’t think I’ve met him.”

“Vic is usually manning the command center. He was out the day I showed you around.”

With the flu inflicting his entire family, Tristan had said. Fiona gave him one more appreciative look. “That explains the seven kids.”

Noah’s hand curled around her thigh. “You were the one who wanted to hear this. Are you going to behave?”

She nodded, whispering, “sorry.”

“This answers how he could set off those smoke accelerators in two locations at once without a timer on the devices, and cut the power,” Keiran surmised.

“And knock out our cameras and alarms,” Griff added. “Next door, they could keep tabs on Fiona and Noah’s movements.”

“But why didn’t the fire department find him, or Fiona, when they did the building sweep?” Noah asked.

“They don’t always check under the beds,” Detective Owens supplied. “Fiona was unconscious, and Parra had a mask. He waited until they gave the all clear, and, with surveillance offline and the power out and no alarms to go off when he picked the locks, he moved her to Noah’s.”

“Why would Naomi help him?” Fiona inquired.

The detective had an answer for this, too. “After questioning her at length, where she was very forthcoming, it was obvious she was jealous.”

“Of me?” Noah balked. “I’ve shown no interest in her. She volunteered for a demonstration years ago. The scene was mediocre at best because there was no spark. Since then, we’ve barely spoken.”

Val offered her theory about this. “Some submissives have trouble with boundaries. One scene with a dom, and they mistakenly think he belongs to them.”

“But their scene was years ago,” Eric offered. “To cling to a fantasy for years isn’t healthy.”

“I didn’t say it was healthy, and it’s not a majority of submissives. But some get swept up in the power and the fantasy and have a hard time letting go.”

“This may be true,” Owens put in. “But I didn’t get the impression this was Naomi’s issue. I think she was jealous of Fiona.”

“What? Me? Why?” she squeaked. “I’m straight.”

There were a few chuckles at her reaction, and Owens smiled. “So is Naomi, as far as I know. She was jealous of you and more than a little obsessed because she wanted tobeyou.”

Fiona snorted in disbelief. “She called me fat, and other words I really don’t want to repeat. You were there, Val.”

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