by Aly Martinez
There was no time for that.
I had but one objective: keep Tessa safe.
I’d sacrifice my heart, my body, and my soul to accomplish it.
Tonight, it was my body.
Chapter Four
Elisabeth
I awoke the next morning to my phone screaming on my nightstand. Or maybe it was only ringing, but my head was splitting in half from the sound.
“Shit,” I groaned when the night before came flooding back to me. I slapped my hand around until I found the offending device.
I answered only to silence it.
“Mrs. Leblanc?” the man on the other end questioned.
I threw my arm over my face and sighed. “It’s Keller now, but yes, this is she.”
“Oh…sorry about that. Ms. Keller. My name is Detective Rorke, and I’m with the Atlanta PD. I was wondering if you would be able to come by the station today and answer some questions we have for you.”
“Me? You want to question me? I mean… I’m sorry. What kind of questions?”
He chuckled. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Could you be here in an hour?”
An hour sure as hell didn’t sound like it was nothing.
I slowly sat up, allowing my head time to adjust to being vertical again. “Uh…can you at least tell me what it’s in regard to?”
“I’d rather we discuss this in person.”
“In an hour? Right.”
“As soon as you can get here, Ms. Leblanc,” he added kindly.
“Keller,” I corrected then sighed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Perfect. See you soon.”
As he hung up, I jumped out of bed and rushed to the shower.
I shouldn’t have rushed.
Three hours later, I was still sitting in an empty hallway at the police station, no closer to finding out why I’d been brought in than I had been on the phone.
When I’d arrived, Detective Rorke hadn’t been there, so a uniformed officer escorted me to a room that screamed Law & Order more than it did a friendly chat.
Staring at myself in what I was positive was a two-way mirror, I racked my brain for what they could possibly need to question me about. With not so much as a speeding ticket on my record, I was a rule-follower by nature. Trouble and I did not coexist.
After about an hour, a different officer came in and escorted me to a chair in the hallway. More than once over the last two hours, I’d stopped people walking by, trying to get to the bottom of why I was there. But, each time, I’d been shut down by a tight smile and some variation of, “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
But, as my eyes lifted and I saw Roman fucking Leblanc entering the mouth of the hallway, flanked by two men in suits, I knew it was definitely something.
I hadn’t seen him in the two years since the divorce, but it could have been a thousand years and I wouldn’t have forgotten him.
However, with that said, I didn’t exactly recognize this man, either.
The man I’d fallen in love with didn’t parade around at ten a.m. on a Thursday morning in a suit. Hell, my Roman had argued about wearing one to his own wedding. Regardless of where we had been heading, fast food or a funeral, you wouldn’t have caught him in anything but jeans, a T-shirt, and a tattered ball cap.
This guy, though, was wearing that power suit as if it had been custom-made for him. Which, judging by the way it hugged his every muscular curve, it probably had been.
I narrowed my eyes as he strode down the long hallway. It was definitely him, but not even the posture matched the man I’d vowed my life to. My Roman smiled with his whole body and could charm a popsicle from a toddler with nothing more than a wink. He was approachable, funny, laid-back, and gorgeous beyond all belief.
As I raked my eyes over him, I realized that, much to my dismay, the gorgeous part had remained intact, even if the hard set of his jaw and the resolute square of his shoulders tarnished it.
Power and money swirled in the air around him with every step.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew he was successful now.
I’d seen the magazine covers.
I’d heard our old friends talking.
I’d received his checks.
This was the new Roman, and it was so fucking wrong that my heart went into mourning all over again.
Suddenly, his silver eyes landed on me and, with a whoosh, the air became too thick to breathe. It was okay because my breath was trapped in my lungs, unable to escape around the newly formed lump in my throat.
He blinked for several seconds. Then his shoulders relaxed and the façade dissolved, leaving the man I had fallen in love with beautifully exposed in front of me.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled the same way they had when we’d first met.
Back then, I’d mistaken it for love at first sight.
Now, I took it as a warning.
“Why are you here?” I accused in a low voice.
Cocking his head to the side, he returned, “Why are you here?”
His words hypnotically washed over me. He’d always had that effect on me. No matter how wound up I’d get, Roman could calm me with nothing more than a touch or a whisper.
Until the day he’d abandoned me.
I focused on that memory as I shot back, “I have no clue. But I’m starting to think it’s probably your fault.”
The corner of his lips twitched in the most annoying—and sexy—way possible. He pressed his left hand to his chest and feigned, “My fault?”
My mouth dried as the ache in my chest clawed up my throat.
His ring finger was bare.
It wasn’t as though I’d expected him to be wearing his wedding ring after all this time. It was just that I’d never seen him without it. I’d given Roman that cheap gold band twenty-four hours after we’d met, when we’d gotten married at the courthouse without telling a single friend or family member.
He never took it off.
Never.
He’d still been wearing it as he’d walked out of the courtroom the day our divorce was finalized.
I swallowed hard and dropped my gaze to the floor. I couldn’t do this. Not today. Maybe not ever. There was a reason I’d left him. This shit shouldn’t still hurt.
And yet, it did. Agonizingly so.
“Yes, your fault,” I whispered, but there was no resolve in my voice even to my own ears.
Following my lead, he gentled his voice. “I have no clue why I’m here. And, quite honestly, I’m more confused now that you’re here, Lissy.”
The familiar nickname made my head snap up.
As a woman with the name Elisabeth, I had no less than a dozen nicknames. Beth, Liz, Ellie, Biz, Lizzy, Bee, Elle… I’d had them all over the years. Friends, family, people I’d just met—they all abbreviated my name.
But the difference was that Roman pronounced the S.
“I’ll take that,” Roman said, snatching my driver’s license from my hand after I’d been carded for wine on our first date. “Elisabeth with an S, huh?” He smiled, causing my heart to nearly pound out of my chest.
My cheeks must have flashed a million shades of pink, because his smile grew.
I nodded. “My parents wanted to make absolutely sure I never got one of those personalized pencils at the elementary school book fair. They’re evil people like that.” I shrugged. “Mission accomplished.”
He blinked at me for several seconds, sporting the most breathtaking grin I’d ever experienced. Then, finally, he reached across the table and took my hand. There weren’t sparks the way they flourished in romance novels or movies.
No. What I felt when Roman Leblanc took my hand was more than any poet, author, or screenwriter could describe.
It was the culmination of every emotion I’d ever experienced. The high of happy, the depths of sad, and the spine-tingling chill of ecstasy.
He continued grinning at me as my world flashed from black and white to screaming color all ar
ound me.
Then he smirked and replied, “They sound horrible, Lissy.”
Not Lizzy.
Lissy.
I’d lived twenty-six years of life before that night.
But, suddenly, I was alive for the very first time.
I knew absolutely nothing about that man.
But I knew he was mine.
And I was meant to be his.
As I snapped back to the present, anger spiraled through my veins. “Don’t call me that,” I hissed.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocked forward on his toes, but he issued no apology. He just stood there arrogantly grinning at me.
Such was life with Roman Leblanc.
And, as it turned out, life without Roman Leblanc, too.
“Mr. and Mrs. Leblanc,” a man’s voice called from the end of the hall.
Roman and I both looked in the direction as an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a Santa Claus belly approached. “I’m Detective Rorke. I apologize for your wait, Mrs.—”
“Ms. Keller,” I corrected before he had the chance to go any farther. Standing in the hall with Roman was bad enough without someone else joining him in his little name game from the past.
“Right. Sorry,” he said, turning sideways in order to slide past Roman. “Let’s move in here.” He opened the door to the room I’d originally been in before they’d relocated me to the hall.
I stood and waited for Roman and his legal entourage to enter the small room, but he swept an arm in a grand gesture for me to go first.
Always the fucking gentleman.
I rolled my eyes and walked inside. Though I did it with attitude, so flounce might be more accurate.
I heard Roman’s deep throaty chuckle as I passed.
I wanted to give him hell, but more than that, I wanted this to be over with. So I kept my mouth closed and settled in a metal folding chair on one side of the table, being sure to give the chair next to me a hard shove, scooting it to the end farthest away.
Roman didn’t react, but I was positive he’d noticed.
“I see you brought your lawyers, Mr. Leblanc,” Rorke stated, opening a manila folder like he had all the time in the world.
Roman crossed his arms over his chest. “I was called to a police station with two hours’ notice. For questioning in a matter I wasn’t informed about. You’ll have to excuse my caution.” Judging by his tone, he didn’t want to be excused at all.
What I took from that exchange was that Roman got two hours’ notice. Meanwhile, I had barely been able to speed-shower, choke a bagel down, let Loretta out, and then apply makeup in the rear-view mirror on the way over.
I secretly hated him even more.
Rorke nodded, but he didn’t seem placated. “Innocent men rarely travel with two attorneys,” he said, poking the beast.
Roman’s eyes darkened as his face turned to stone. “Good cops rarely drag innocent people in for questioning without allowing them time to find proper representation.” His eyes pointedly flashed down to me then back to Rorke. “So, yes, I do travel with two attorneys, but now, I only have one. Mr. Kaplin is with me and Mr. Whitman will now be representing Elisabeth Keller.” He spat my last name, but that wasn’t what caused me to jerk in my chair.
“What? No, he’s not. I don’t need representation.” And I sure as hell didn’t need to be billed whatever hourly wage allowed Mr. Whitman to buy that expensive—albeit stylish and well-fitted—suit.
“Shut it, Lis,” Roman snapped, never dragging his eyes off Rorke.
Oh. Hell. No.
I snapped right back, “You did not just tell me to shut it.”
Roman continued his stare-down with the detective as he called out, “Whit, advise your client.”
Whit inched over to me. “Don’t say anything. I’ll answer all questions for you.”
“You will not!” I replied. “We just met. You don’t know the answers.”
He arched a challenging eyebrow and dragged a chair over to sit next to me. Then he shot me a cocky grin and said, “I know the law, which means, in this room, I know all the answers.”
My mouth fell open, and I glanced back up at Roman.
He smirked at me, and I’ll be damned if that didn’t cause an unwanted, but very real, flutter in my stomach. Shit!
“I don’t need an attorney,” I informed the entire room.
“Well, now, you have one in case you do,” Roman returned.
“I don’t need an attorney, Roman.”
His lips thinned as he scowled. “Well, now, you have one in case you do, Lissy.”
I clenched my teeth and ground out, “Stop calling me that.”
Vaguely, I heard Detective Rorke clear his throat, but just as quickly, Roman’s hand went up in the air, snapping to silence him. Then, bending at the waist, my ex-husband leaned down until he was only inches from my face and growled, “Sure thing, Lissy.”
Yes. Growled. Like some sort of man-cub raised by a pack of bears.
So, clearly, I had to ask, “Did you just growl?”
The muscles on his jaw ticked as he righted himself and focused on the ceiling, muttering, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
That wasn’t an answer, so I pushed. “Did you seriously just growl at me?”
He groaned and lowered his gaze to mine, stating incredulously, “You’re at a police station for questioning. I offered you a lawyer. God forbid.”
My chair protested against the tile floor as I pushed away from the table and up to my feet. “I don’t want or need a lawyer. I haven’t done anything wrong.” I was moving toward him when I suddenly remembered that we were, in fact, in the middle of a police station with at least three other people looking on—maybe more if you counted whoever could be on the other side of the two-way mirror.
Shit.
Iced by my good manners, I sucked in a calming breath. “What I do want is to get whatever mess you created over with so I can go home.”
Roman barked a laugh. “Aaand…we’re back to this being my fault.”
Rorke took that moment to join our conversation. “Nobody needs a lawyer.”
All eyes swung to him.
“At least, not yet,” he finished. “Now, if you two will please just sit down and shut up, I’ll explain why I asked you to come down today.”
Chapter Five
Roman
Elisabeth Keller.
Fucking Keller.
There were no words to convey how I’d felt when I’d seen her sitting in that hallway. Time had frozen with a single glance.
She appeared tired, too thin, and her hair was still damp on the ends, which caused it to frizz out in a way I knew she hated. But, even with all of that, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. However, that probably had more to do with the fact that she was in my veins than it did her actual appearance. But I’d never, not once, seen Elisabeth with just my eyes. My heart was just as much a part of the way I viewed her as my retinas.
And still, after all this time, my body reacted to her the same way it always had—full alert.
Atlanta was a big city, but in the last two years, I’d never seen her once. And, in the beginning, I’d tried to accidentally-on-purpose run into her more times than I’d ever admit.
Of all the places to find her, a hallway at Atlanta PD was the one location I’d never considered.
Elisabeth Keller’s idea of trouble was pocketing extra packets of sugar at the coffee shop. And, even then, she would have felt guilty, tossed and turned all night, and then promptly returned them the next day.
But there she sat, all wide-eyed innocence staring at me as though she were the one seeing an oasis in the middle of the desert.
Though, as far as I was concerned, she was the mirage. A woman I needed more than water and yet couldn’t reach no matter how hard I tried—at least, not anymore.
Then she had to go and catch an attitude with me. It should have pissed me off. She had no
right to come out of the gate swinging, blaming me for trouble that didn’t exist. But, the moment she let loose, it only made me nostalgic.
It was that same attitude that had made me fall in love with Elisabeth approximately one hour into our first date.
“They sound horrible, Lissy,” I said after a story about her parents. It was a joke, but her entire face lit.
And, with just one glance, it lit something inside me, too.
I’d wanted to strip her naked when she’d opened her front door, but it wasn’t until we were at dinner that I knew I’d face the wrath of a thousand gods just to make her smile.
And worse, I’d burn the world around us in order to keep it aimed at me.
I was lost in her eyes when the server asked if we were ready to order.
I quickly said yes.
She quickly said no.
She adorably narrowed her eyes.
I cocked my head and smirked.
Then I made the grave mistake of ordering for her.
My innocent angel disappeared, but the independent woman on the other side dug her hooks into me even deeper.
Using her menu to block her mouth from the waiter’s view, she whisper-yelled, “I’m not eating chicken parmesan!”
“You said it sounded good a minute ago,” I defended.
Her chin lifted, and she flashed her eyes around the restaurant. “It did at the time, but you have no idea how I eat it!” Again with the angry whispering.
I loved that she was standing her ground. But I especially loved that she was so obviously mortified that she was doing it in the middle of an Olive Garden, where people might possibly overhear her—including the waiter, who was watching our chat with subtle entertainment.
Mine wasn’t so subtle. Therefore, I smiled huge and asked, “There’s more than one way to eat chicken parmesan?”
“There is for me.” She nodded confidently then tucked her long, blond hair behind her ear.
God, she was beautiful.
I sat back in my chair and stared as something inside me broke. I was twenty-seven years old. I’d had my fair share of dates and women, but not one of them had held my interest for any length of time. However, for some inexplicable reason, in a matter of minutes, I knew I wanted to argue with Elisabeth—with an S—Keller about chicken parmesan for the rest of my life.