Page 45 of Power Games

“We don’t have to complicate this more than necessary. When I’m asked, I’ll tell them that I found you very handsome then—and that nothing happened at all between us. You and Izzy were together.”

That sobered him. Izzy. His wife. His corpse of a wife.

“I can’t do this.”

“You will.” She closed her eyes. “Wewill. We must, now.”

She was right. They had no other choice.

“Two years ago, you saw a lawyer about a divorce.”

He almost asked how she knew that, before recalling that he’d told her himself.

“Did you discuss it with Isabella before backtracking?”

He nodded, slowly.

“Good. She would have talked of it with her closest friend, in that case. That may be useful. So, you wanted a divorce; but with the elections coming, you both decided to delay the proceeding. That explains where I come in.”

Charles was shaking his head. “They’ll find my sperm. Inside her. I was with her the night she was killed—earlier, right before the benefit.”

Vanessa didn’t so much as raise a brow. “Well, youweremarried. We’ll make it clear that our association was purely platonic. I was a friend you sought comfort from, when things were difficult at home. Nothing more.”

He laughed out loud. “Who’ll believe that, Vanessa? Who? You look like every man’s wet dream, and you’re twenty-seven. You, simply being my buddy?”

Vanessa didn’t bother to point out that it was the truth. They were friends. This discussion wasn’t about facts as much as perception. Their whole world was about what people thought of them.

She shrugged again. “I have, on a number of occasions, publicly said I’d never fuck a man before marriage. So yes, they’ll trust that we weren’t…involved. They’ll also understand the semen issue, should it arise. We’ll say that, recently, youweretrying to patch things up. That night, you had sex, then she broughtmeup, again, although you’d told her a thousand times that I was simply a friend.”

Charles watched the woman, closely, studying her features. They betrayed nothing. She didn’t know. Of course, she didn’t, how could she?

Don’t pretend I’m the problem,Izzy had hissed.I’ve seen you, staring at that posh slut all night. You haven’t looked at me that way for a decade—that’s our issue.

He’d denied it. She hadn’t been wrong, though. Their problem hadn’t just been her; not anymore. He’d wanted an out, he’d wanted more than their dysfunctional, destructive, cold relationship.

Now he had it, and it made him feel sick to his stomach, because Izzy was dead.

Oh, God. Actually dead. And he had been the prime suspect, before Vanessa stepped in.

“After that argument, you needed a breather, and you came to me.” Vanessa grinned as she improvised. “We spent the night watching Star Wars re-runs and fell asleep.”

“StarTrek,” Charles argued, in an attempt to somehow lighten the conversation, although he felt the ground beneath his feet open up, swallowing him whole. Because surely, if this facade did work, he was bound for hell, and so was Vanessa.

Back to reality, he protested her suggestion. “They could interview any boyfriend of yours and that entire theory would crumble.”

“No one will have a word to contradict me, I assure you.”

He swallowed with difficulty. Was she saying what he thought she was? Fuck. Twenty-seven, and built for sin, with her long legs and her perfect ass. How on Earth was she still a fucking virgin?

He didn’t question it out loud, because he knew why. She’d told him a long time ago. He’d just expected that she would have changed her mind by now and spread her legs, like any other woman out there.

First mistake. Vanessa had never been just any woman. She never would be.

“The best lies are laced with truth. Didn’t your mama tell you?”

“My mother forbade me to lie at all.”

Vanessa tilted her head, her long dangling earrings sparkling in the dim light of dusk.

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