"Until you cleared the bugs out of your head that make you think I'm stupid enough to let some mad tart do for me. I didn't come down in the last shower of rain, Eve."
"What the hell does that mean?"
He sat back, laughed a little. "Jesus, you make me Irish. Why is that, do you suppose? Come sit down. You don't look as well as you should."
"Don't tell me what to do."
He thought about it for about three seconds. "Ah, bollocks to this." And rising, he stepped to her, evaded the leading edge of the elbow jab, and scooped her off her feet. "There, now stay down." He dumped her on the bench. "We both know I'd not have taken you that easily if you were feeling yourself. I need you to listen to me."
He kept her hands gripped under his, felt the anger and insult vibrating through her. "After you do, if you feel you need to take a punch at me, well, you can have one for free. What I said in Whitney's office was the truth. I'd've done better to come to you so that we could have fought it out between us, but I didn't and I'm sorry. Still, what I said was the truth, Eve."
He squeezed down on her hands until she stopped trying to yank them away. "I'm asking for your help and offering mine to you. She wants to take you apart, little pieces of you sheared off each time she drops a body at your feet. Trying to make you think that you're responsible for putting them there."
"I don't think—"
"No, you know better, in your head. But she made you bleed in that cursed video of hers. In your heart. And she wants to finish you off with me. She doesn't know you. She doesn't understand what's in you, or what it is to love someone. If she managed, through some miracle, to take me out, you wouldn't fall apart. You'd hound her and hunt her. You'd run her to ground. And then, well, darling, you'd eat her alive."
He brought her clenched fists to his lips. "And I'd do exactly the same for you, if you're wondering."
"That's real comforting, Roarke."
"Isn't it?" He said it with such cheer she felt a smile trying to tug at her mouth.
"Let go. I'm not going to hit you. Just let go, and don't talk to me for a minute."
He released her hands, then brushed his fingers over her bruised cheek. Rising, he wandered off to leave her alone.
She sat where she was. The fury had sapped her, left even her bones feeling weak. More than that, she realized, it was the fear that made her weak. The image of seeing Roarke pitch to the floor at her feet, choking, gasping, dying. And Julianna standing there, out of her reach. Just out of her reach. Smiling.
She'd let that happen, Eve admitted. She'd let Julianna plant those weeds of fear, of guilt, of self-doubt. And she'd let them bloom instead of hacking them out by the roots.
That made her ineffective, and it made her slow.
So Roarke had gone for the roots first.
He infuriated her. What else was new? They'd rammed heads countless times in the past, and would ram them countless times in the future. It was part of what they were. There had to be something sick about that, but there it was.
They just weren't peaceful people.
He'd been wrong, but so had she. As a cop, she should have examined and explored the option of using him as bait long before this.
Love messed you up, she thought. No doubt about it.
He came back with two tubes of Pepsi and a greasy scoop of oil fries. And in silence sat beside her again.
"I want to say first that I'm entitled to be prideful when it comes to my work." She dug into the scoop, felt the grit of salt over the grease. And knowing he'd drenched them for her, had to choke back a sentimental sigh. "And second, sometime when you least expect it, I'm going to generate a memo to the top staff of your midtown offices stating that you wear women's underwear under those manly designer suits."
"Why, that's just cold."
"Yeah, then you'll have to strip down at a general meeting to prove it's a filthy lie and my vengeance will be complete." She looked at him then. "She's not just a— what did you call her—a mad tart. She's smart and she's driven. Don't underestimate her."
"I don't. I don't underestimate you, Eve. But I think, for just a bit of time here with one thing and then the other, you've been underestimating yourself."
"Yeah, I have, and I don't like it thrown in my face. Okay. I've got to get home. There's a lot to do in a short amount of time."
* * *
She worked with him first, studying all the data on hotel security and on the event itself that he'd already had at the ready. She pitched questions, and he batted back the answers with the skill of a man who knew he owned the plate.