Page 12 of Love Her

The books were still perfectly lined up on the shelves, their spines untouched. The handcrafted cashmere throw she’d draped over her couch sat exactly where she’d left it. And I thought I could smell the faint floral scent of her perfume hanging in the air, although I knew I truly couldn’t.

It was just a memory, haunting me like Isabelle’s ghost.

I shouldn’t have asked Lia to come here.

I shouldn’t have been here myself.

But it was the only place where I could be certain no one would overhear us.

Is she coming?

I texted to Sable, who kept tabs on all of Lia’s electronics for me.

Rather than texting me back, she rang, so I picked up. “Rhaim,” she said, in a disparaging tone.

“Is she on her way?” I snapped. Lia was supposed to have been here half an hour ago.

Sable ignored me. “The news has hit—and honestly, if she murders you tonight, I’m going to have to let her.”

“Yeah,” I muttered darkly.

“You knew I take it?” she asked, but then answered her own question. “Of course you knew. Oh, Rhaim—I might have tohelpher murder you tonight. Girl code and all that.”

“Is she being followed?”

“No, but?—”

“How much longer?” I demanded, and Sable sighed.

“I don’t want to betray her, but, she’s been sitting in a car outside the lobby for the past fifteen minutes. Hopefully loading a weapon.”

“Thanks,” I told Sable with maximal sarcasm, before hanging up to take the elevator down.

I didn’t recognizethe car idling outside the apartment lobby, and the windows were tinted—but I knew it was the right one as I crossed the dark stripe between Isabelle’s building and the streetlights outside.

“Are you coming inside?” I asked, opening the door to the backseat. “Or did you want to have this conversation here?”

I was surprised to find Lia, green dress, jacket, and all, just as I’d left her at the party, after I couldn’t take St. Clair’s groping and smugness anymore—or Nero’s crowing about his match having been successful. Not even the promise of obscene wealth could soothe the beast inside me.

“I’m very mad at you,” she said. Her mascara hadn’t smudged—which meant she hadn’t been crying, at least.

I didn’t know whether or not that was a good or bad thing.

“You have every right to be,” I agreed, offering her a hand.

She didn’t take it, but she did step out, placing one elegant silver heel upon the ground. “I’ve tipped you extra—thanks forwaiting,” she told the driver, before putting her phone into her purse.

She stood near to me as we headed back toward the lobby, then zoomed away like a perilous comet once we reached its bright interior, standing as far from me as she could while the elevator arrived—but when it did, she stepped inside it first.

“How long have you known?” she asked me without looking over, crossing her arms.

“Long enough to hate myself for it,” I said, as I tapped in Isabelle’s floor.

Long enough to figure out how to commit two perfect murders, went unsaid.

Now I’d just need to add on a third.

“And you weren’t…going to tell me?” she asked, finally daring a glance.

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