Page 43 of The Billionaire and His Forever

“Well, Detective Hernandez, I’d say that looks an awful lot like a wedding dress,” Krohl offers dryly.

Hernandez pushes on, goading me. “And would you say, Detective Krohl, that the scene we walked into at the Ratliff house looked something like a party?”

“A very fancy party,” he agrees.

“A wedding, even.”

Krohl nods slowly, as if he’s only just now putting the pieces together. “Huh. Now that you mention it, it sure looked like Graham Ratliff was waiting at the end of an aisle.”

They pass this exchange without once looking at each other, but keeping their eyes trained on me, as though they expect me to crack any second. It makes me feel like I’m on a stage and they are the audience, staring up at me, expecting me to put on a show for them. I don’t know what they want me to say.

“I’m not sure what exactly you’re implying, but I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say.

Natasha Ratliff overdosed.Sheis the one who mixed opioids and alcohol and nearly died, but now it’s my life that’s getting destroyed. Even though I had nothing to do with her OD.

I should be back at the estate right now, sipping champagne and feeding wedding cake to my new husband. Tossing my bouquet to my best friend and stealing kisses from Graham in between congratulatory toasts. Sharing dances with my new family.

Instead, I’m sitting here with my hands cuffed in my lap in this freezing room as two idiot detectives berate me about my personal life.

Just because I was going to marry Graham doesn’t mean I plotted to kill his ex-wife first. Is this seriously the best that can be expected from New York’s finest? Buying into gossip rags and salacious headlines, chasing false leads, arresting innocent people left and right?

But as angry as I am, I still can’t ignore the utterly helpless feeling lingering beneath, desperate for someone to just believe me.

Krohl takes a sip of his burnt coffee and sucks his teeth. “The thing is, Miss Montgomery, it appears there’s a lot more to this story than you’ve let on.”

I shake my head, clearing the fear from my throat. “There isn’t. The story is, I was asleep in my room on the other side of the apartment the night Natasha overdosed. That’s it. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Why don’t you take us through that night again, step by step?” Krohl jumps in. “Witnesses say the Ratliffs left the restaurant separately, without you or their child. Did you stay there at the restaurant after the fight?”

“Only for a few minutes. I was trying to distract Jude,” I say softly, picking at my cuticles. “She was upset.”

“And where did you go after that?”

“To an ice cream shop. We got sundaes.” I remember it well. Jude loved having ice cream for dinner, and we sat in the purple booth and had ourselves a great rest of the evening, even though it had started out so shitty.

And then Graham came to me later that night, waking me with his passion. He came tomeinstead of Natasha. Professed his feelings forme. We made love all night long. It was like—

“Miss Montgomery.”

I blink, snapped out of the memory. “What?”

“I said, where was the ice cream shop?”

“It was a Van Leeuwen’s. I don’t know the address. I think it was on—”

Suddenly, the door slams open. A woman I don’t recognize in a very nice suit storms into the room and slams her briefcase down on the table. “Abbie, shut your mouth.”

I almost jump at her brusqueness. “Who—”

“Hush. Now.” She flashes me a tight smile and turns to the cops. “Detectives.”

“Elise Bowen.” Detective Hernandez sighs heavily. “I suppose you’re her counsel?”

Ignoring the question, Bowen says, “I see you’ve been interrogating my client without me present.”

Hernandez shrugs. “She didn’t ask.”

“She didn’t know to ask, and you know it,” Bowen snaps.

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