Page 45 of Secrets & Desires
“I can copewiththat.”
Nox studied her. “You have no idea what they’re like. Vultures. They’ll dig up anythingonyou.”
Livia shrugged. “I have noskeletons.”
“Then I have to warn you,” Nox said, his handsome face serious, “they’ll make some up, just for you. Things really are about to getcrazy.”
Odelle thankedthe doorman as she made her way into her apartment building. He called her back. “Mr. Saintmarc is waiting upstairsforyou.”
Odelle nodded, her face impassive. “Thankyou,Glen.”
She took the elevator up to her penthouse and stepped out into the atrium. Roan was slumped against the wall. He looked up at her, desperation in his eyes, and Odelle’s plan to send him away evaporated. She had never seen him look so desolate. She crouched next him. “What is it, Roan? What’s thematter?”
Roan began to sob as he blurted out the words. “They’re going to say it was me, Odelle…they’re going to say it was me…that girl, Pia…I was with her the night she was killed…and they’re going to say itwasme…”
ChapterNineteen
The police investigationbrought up nothing, and as it drew nearer to Christmas and the weather finally turned cold, Livia and Nox holed up in his mansion. Livia only left for work or school, and Nox for any business meetings he couldn’t do from home. Neither of them said it, but the self-imposed nearness seemed to have opened up a new element to their relationship, a new intimacy—a closeness they had not known wasmissing.
Of course, their more adventurous sexual exploits had now been restricted to their bedroom. Odelle had hired what appeared to be an army of protection for Nox and Livia, and even they were a little stunned by how much of their lives wererestrictednow.
“I can’t send them away. Odelle would kill me…and I like to restrict being murdered to just once a year.” Nox grinned at Livia, wholaughed.
“It does get in the way of stuff, doesn’t it? I mean, I was just murdered the other day, and I had a whole bunch of laundrytodo.”
“Howinconvenient.”
“Isn’tit?”
They had been joking with each other like this since Odelle had told them about Roan. He had been sleeping with Pia and had been with her the night she was killed. Odelle had persuaded him to go to the police and speak to them. He had been questioned and then charged on suspicion of murder. Odelle had paid the two-million-dollar bail money, and now Roan was locked away in her apartment until thetrial.
Neither Nox nor Livia could believe the turn of events. Worse, when Roan was questioned about the night Nox and Livia had been attacked, he couldn’t provide an alibi. The police, desperate to find someone guilty for Pia’s murder, had used Nox’s rejection of Roan’s business proposition asmotive.
“Their case is weak,” Roan’s lawyer, William Corcoran, told them when they met at Nox and Sandor’s offices, “but at the moment, he is the only person with motive and we know he was with the girl. I understand you have arranged a twenty-four-hour guard on him, Ms.Griffongy?”
Odelle, pale and drawn, nodded. “He’s not going anywhere, Mr. Corcoran. He wants to be provedinnocent.”
Livia took Odelle’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re here for you, Odelle.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that she was there for Roan too—she could well believe that he would hurt Nox, and Pia, to keep her from telling Odelle about their affair. Odelle looked shattered and Livia’s heart went outtoher.
“We never did get our girl talk, did we?” She said in a low voice to Odelle as Nox and Sandor were talking to the lawyer. “We should dothat.Soon.”
Odelle nodded. “I’ll come by your restaurant around lunchtime tomorrow, ifthat’sokay?”
“Sure.”
The next day,Moriko and Marcel gave her a hard time and she couldn’t blame them. She had called them from the hospital, but wouldn’t allow them to visit. She told them it was because Nox had too many visitors already, but truthfully, she didn’t want Moriko and Marcel on the killer’s radar any more than they already were by associating with her. Pia had barely been a part of the circle and now she was dead. No onewassafe.
Moriko took one look at the cut on Livia’s head and her mouth set in an angry line. “And you didn’t mentionthat,either.”
“I slipped on some water at the hospital. No biggie.” She hadn’t told them about being attacked. Marcel shook his headather.
“This is serious, Liv. I don’t wantyouhurt.”
Livia nodded back at the two huge bodyguards sitting in the restaurant. “It’s okay, those two are always with me—unfortunately.”
She dumped her bag in the backroom and went into the kitchen to wash her hands. She felt tired and drained, but at least she was back to doing something familiar. Nox had been reluctant to see her back at work, but couldn’t dissuade her. “I haveresponsibilities,baby.”
Now she tied her apron around her dress and went out front. The restaurant was quiet, the lunchtime rush a way off yet, and Moriko and Livia polished wine glasses and chatted as they laid out thetables.
