She didn’t mirror the relief. Not one bit.
In fact, when the couple met each other in the middle of the room, the tension that had fallen from Mitchell seemed to be freezing up into Eve. Like he had passed the buck through simple eye contact. Her shoulders were straight as a board by the time she reached him.
For the third time in the span of seconds, Darius was surprised.
Instead of some kind of intimate embrace or kiss, Eve simply reached her hands out and grabbed his.
Then she patted them.
It reminded Darius of a grandparent trying to assure a child who had just been scolded by a parent. Protective and loving.
She’s not in love with him.
The thought flashed into Darius’s mind in the steps between the doorway to his usual chair at the table. By the time he was settled into it, he decided the unprompted suspicion was, in fact, true.
Even if Eve hadn’t asked him to stop the wedding, he would have drawn the same conclusion.
However, adding in the wedding itself: the social, easy-to-talk-to Eve had had no friends standing at her side; the bridesmaids were associates and hand-me-downs from Scott Keys; her family also wasn’t in the audience. No Drake Myers, a father she had loved dearly when they were kids. No aunt. No cousins. No one.
Just a room filled with fancy outfits and concern at the interruption.
But not concern for Eve.
Even now, her fiancé wasn’t the one offering reassurance.
It was Eve who was comforting him.
Darius didn’t know what it could possibly be, but he knew then that Eve was up to something. Given her genuine shock atGary Whittaker’s death, he didn’t think a homicide was a part of whatever she was doing.
The jury on Mitchell Keys, however, was still out for Darius. It was why he and the sheriff had made sure that at least one of them would be in the room when the two reunited. Something that Mitchell didn’t seem to mind at all. His gaze was glued to Eve’s.
“How are you holding up?” she asked the groom. “My phone died, or else I would have already called.”
Mitchell shook his head. While the sheriff had spent most of his time talking to the man, Darius had introduced himself at the library. He hadn’t been verbose or charming then. Just simple.
Now there was a softness to his words. There was affection, but again, it wasn’t what Darius had expected from a future husband.
“Scott was holding my phone for the ceremony, and I didn’t get a chance to grab it back before he went off with the sheriff,” he explained to her. “When I tried to call from one of the phones here, they wouldn’t let me.”
Darius switched his gaze to Eve at that.
Her shoulders stayed tight.
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be fine.” Eve gave one more hand pat. Instead of pulling away after, she kept her hand right on top of Mitchell’s. From her profile, Darius could see her open her mouth a little and then close it. She waited a beat, then finally chose the words she seemed to want to say. “Everything we were going to do? We’re still going to get it done. This only pauses our plans, not ends them, okay?”
Darius felt his eyebrow rise.
Mitchell nodded.
HisOkaywas just as soft as before.
Darius would have expected more talk between them, but Eve turned to face him, dropping Mitchell’s hands in the process.Her voice changed yet again. This time, it was a tone he recognized.
Determination.
Pure and true.
“We have things to do,” she said. “So what do we need to give you before we can leave? A written statement?”
