Everyone's assuming that she'll turn up in rehab.I thought she meant the media, but she meant law enforcement. She was talking about everyone who’s working on the case, including her.
“Oh,” I say, finally understanding. “I swear, I had no idea. How could I? And more importantly, why does it matter?”
She doesn’t find my attempt to ease her worries even remotely charming. In fact, it just seems to anger her more. “Of course, it matters.”
Dragging a hand through her wild tangle of hair, her agitation grows, rapidly approaching panic as she fumbles around the sheets for her underwear, which are still dangling from the doorknob.
“This is so inappropriate. Fuck!” She glares at me, cheeks flushing, when I helpfully tip my head toward the door, and she spots her panties hanging there. “Years, I spent years trying to get your Dad. We still have old cases we’re trying to connect him to. This is a massive conflict of interest. Jesus, I shouldn’t even be telling you that.”
When she scowls at me, scooting to the edge of the bed with the sheets clasped to her chest, I close my eyes and listen to her tiptoeing across the carpet.
“Oh god, someone might have seen us downstairs! What was I thinking?”
Not sure whether she actually wants me to answer that, I open my eyes in time to see her angrily stepping into her panties, holding them out with one hand and hopping on one foot as she tries to keep her balance while simultaneously gripping the white sheet under her chin.
“What if they say we were in cahoots? That the reason I could never catch him was because I was in a relationship with you?”
I get that she’s spiralling, but that doesn’t even make sense.
"I didn't know you were a cop. Didn’t know you at all until today." It comes out harder than I intended, but my bear’s anger is bleeding through.
The look she gives me is scathing. “That’s not the point. Even the mere suggestion of impropriety, just a whisper about an investigation or any wrongdoing on my part, and my career is over.”
She stops abruptly, mid-way through shimmying her panties up her thighs.
"Is that why you’re here? To discredit me. So that I’d be thrown off any case to do with your family?” Her porcelain skin turns even paler as the idea that this was my cunning plan all along takes hold. “Oh my god, oh my god.”
She’s so pissed off now that all attempts at modesty are forgotten as she flings away the covering and snatches up her jeans.
“You’re the one who didn’t want small talk, remember?” I snap, throwing my hands up at my sides in disbelief. If it weren’t for the very real scent of fear coming off her, I’d swear this was a joke.
“Oh well that’s convenient,” she sneers.
"Convenient? Are you for real?" I stare at her, irritation growing that she’s ruining this for no reason, while her heat and scent still linger on my skin. But she’s not listening.
I stagger back, stunned she could think that after what just happened between us.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask, resting my hands on top of my head as I watch her wriggling into her jeans and shoving on her top inside out in her haste to escape. My brain is struggling to catch up. “My father is in jail. The case is over. And I’m nothing like him. No criminal record. Never even been arrested.”
“Yet,” she snaps, immediately looking shamefaced but too het up to apologise.
I’ve worked my entire life to escape the legacy my father left for me, yet he’s still ruining my life, or at least, his name is.
But actually, no, in this instance, he’s not. She is. Because I am a good man, and I’ve done nothing wrong.
“Just stop. Please. Everything that happened tonight was real. We’re…"
I take a step toward her then stop. The word I was going to say catches in my throat because saying it out loud will make it real when it’s just about to be over before it starts.
“You’re making a mistake,” I say quietly, fighting back the anger that’s building inside me. It isn’t supposed to be like this. "BecauseTHIS, this doesn't happen to me."
I drag a hand through my hair before gesturing back and forth between us.
“No, I don’t think I am,” she says, looking me dead in the eye, before muttering, “I knew this was too good to be true,” to herself as she belatedly finds her bra and shoves it into her purse. She slips her feet into her shoes and tucks her purse under her elbow, eyes on the door, clearly itching to get out of here.
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” she insists, chin held high, awfully haughty for a woman with her unmentionables sticking out of her handbag. She looks nothing like the woman who was moaning in my arms ten minutes ago. This is the detective, stern and bossy, but not in a fun way like before.
Narrowing my eyes, I feel my temper rising. I’ve faced this shit all my life, and it pisses me off.
