Page 18 of View from Above

She’d worked her whole life to separate herself from her family’s legacy, to have something of her own, but the forced isolation had cost her too much. Friends, family, lovers. Everyone had an agenda when it came to her well-being. But not Payton. He was everything she wasn’t and everything she needed at this point in her life. Powerful. Compelling and independent.

Then he was stepping back. He set his hands over hers to stop her from stripping him down to nothing. “Mallory, I’m sorry. I’ve been up for two days straight. I let my guard slip, and that’s not fair to you. I’m not in the right headspace to even consider something like this.”

Her heart threatened to pound free from her chest. The pain in her arm and at her temple slipped to the back of her mind as a different kind of pain clawed up her throat. Something familiar and consuming. The same kind of pain she’d felt over and over again trying to win the approval of the legendary Roland Kotite. Heat that had nothing to do with arousal flooded into her face, and she righted the slight ride of his jersey up her thighs. She grabbed for some semblance of control as her eyes stung and escape became a priority. She shifted around the desk, the corner scratching against her hip, and pointed to the beautifully antiqued forest green surface. “So you’re not going to take me here on this desk?”

“Or anywhere else in this house.” He reached for the back of his office chair. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No need to apologize.” She shook her head and tried to convince herself this wasn’t about her so much as his principles. He wasn’t going to take advantage of a woman heading straight for a mental breakdown. She should be grateful for that. But for those tantalizing seconds, he’d been the only one steering her away from an internal cliff. She hiked her thumb toward the door and backed out of the room. “I’m just going… I’m just going to try to get some rest. Big day tomorrow. Searching offices, submitting to a tox screen, catching killers. It’s all very exciting and terrifying. Excuse me.” She bolted for the hallway, the tears disobeying her commands to cease.

“Mallory, wait.” His voice followed her, but she wouldn’t stop.

Pressing her back against the closed bedroom door, she swiped her face clear. She couldn’t avoid him forever. This was his house, for crying out loud, but she could ignore the feelings he’d brought out in her. She was good at that. If there was anything her father had taught her over the years, it was to bury her emotions where no one—not even she—could use them against her. As long as she and Payton were partnered on this case, she’d hold her own. No slips. No more mistakes. She’d have to rely on herself to get through the investigation. Just as she’d relied on herself to build her own life without her family’s help. No matter the cost. She’d recruited Payton to help her prove her father’s murder. It wouldn’t go any farther.

She climbed in under the white duvet and closed her eyes. Images of the day—meeting one of her father’s mistresses face-to-face, Virginia Green, suspecting the victim’s daughter of murder, and Payton’s rejection—fell away. Leaving only one crystal clear fantasy behind. Her, finally free of the tyranny Roland Kotite had left in his wake. She held onto that possibility as sleep dragged her under.

What seemed like minutes later, a soft knock registered.

Mallory blinked at the onslaught of sunlight streaming through the single window. She pulled her face off the mattress and bright white sheets, trying to make sense of how long she’d slept. The LED lights of the small alarm clock on the nightstand burned awareness into her brain. It’d been twenty-four hours since Virginia Green had fallen from the roof of the Logan building. A lifetime of memories packed into a single day she’d rather forget.

Movement shifted beneath the crack in the door, and she collected her jeans from the end of the bed where she’d left them the night before. Sliding her legs into the stiff, grating fabric, she buttoned as she headed for the door leading to a mess of embarrassment on the other side. She forced air deep into her lungs, almost sorry to leave the safety of the guest room, and twisted the knob.

Payton wasn’t waiting on the other side.

She searched down the hall. A steaming cup of coffee pulled her attention to the floor with a handwritten note tented beside it. Crouching, she collected both and thumbed open the note. “Meet me in the kitchen when you’re ready. I have breakfast.”

Breakfast was promising. She clutched the ceramic mug tighter and ducked back inside the room. Soft-colored woods, crisp bedding, and aged greenery invited her to forget about the horrors waiting outside these four walls, but her stomach wouldn’t obey for long. She swiped the sleep from her eyes and pinched her cheeks to add a bit of color back into her face, then smoothed down the flyaway hairs around her face. The deep blue jersey she’d borrowed hung off her frame, but the soft knit fabric somehow made her feel sexier than she had in a long time. “You can do this. Just pretend you didn’t throw yourself at him, and nothing has to change.”

The pep talk did nothing to bolster her confidence, but she’d already avoided Payton long enough. They had a case to solve, and she couldn’t let his newly-formed opinion about her compromise the investigation. Mallory took a sip of the rich liquid courage he’d left at the door and slipped from the room. Her bare feet stuck to the hardwood floor as she headed toward scents of maple, bacon, apple, and cinnamon. She rounded into the kitchen.

Back turned to her, Payton took up one of the barstools positioned at the island, one hand gripped around his own mug of coffee. “If you’re thinking about making a break for it, you should at least eat something first.”

“What makes you think I’m going to run?” Mallory pulled her shoulders back, more determined than ever to see this through. She took in the arrangement of crispy bacon, just the way she liked it, sitting next to what looked like apple and walnut stuffed French toast. A rainbow of fresh fruits assorted by color alone would’ve been enough for her to commit to staying indefinitely. “You made all this?”

Payton brought his attention up from the newspaper in front of him. “Figured you could use something more than a shit protein bar from the precinct break room. Real food always makes me feel better after a few days of camping out in my SUV running down leads.”

“I’m impressed.” Her fingers tingled to fork a mouthful of apple slices, bread, cinnamon, and walnuts into her mouth, and her stomach growled. Between hearing the news of Virginia Green’s death yesterday morning and embarrassing herself last night, she hadn’t stopped to eat anything substantial. Neither had he.

“Don’t be. It’s the only thing my mom taught me how to make. Haven’t found the time to learn how to do anything else,” he said.

She pulled a clean plate across the island and loaded up with two slices of French toast, more bacon than she wanted to admit she ate in one sitting, and a couple spoonfuls of fruit to make up for it. She kept a free barstool between them, but the unspoken topic of last night made it hard to enjoy those first precious bites of real food. “Anything worth noting in the paper?”

“You’re not good at small talk, Doc.” Payton’s smile crashed through the forced detachment she’d sworn to keep between them and rocketed her heart to the front of her ribcage. “You’re more of the assertive type. It’s one of the things I like about you.”

“All right. How’s this for assertive?” Mallory twisted her upper body to face him, her elbows pressing into the island butcher block. “I kissed you. You remember that, right? Last night. In your office. You dragged me across your desk. You looked at me with those great big puppy dog eyes and made me think we had something going on.”

“Kind of hard to forget.” He set down the paper, shifting in his seat. “I had a hard time sleeping.”

A thrill chased through her at the thought of him suffering all night while she’d fallen to sleep in minutes. “Good.”

She took another bite of French toast and nearly melted straight off her stool. For a man so rough around the edges, he sure as hell made her warm in all the right places. She speared a strawberry too hard and sent it flying across her plate as another round of arousal bubbled. “You had no right to push all my buttons then not follow through with what you’d started. Loss of sleep is the least of what you deserve.”

“What buttons are those?” His tone dipped an octave, sliding through her annoyance and setting up residence low in her belly. It was all too easy to imagine waking up to that voice every morning and falling to sleep with it in her ears every night.

“Water.” The single word failed on her lips, and she was forced to clear her throat. “Could I have some water, please?”

Sea-blue eyes pinned her in place. “Fridge.”

Her legs wobbled as she pressed herself to stand, one hand on the island as she rounded the far end and made her way to the fridge. But instead of pulling a bottle from the refrigerator door, she wrenched open the freezer and stuck her head inside. Holy hell, she’d lost her mind. She’d known this moment would come. The one where she’d lose her faculties and give into the pressure of listening to dozens of client problems. She just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. Cold air tightened the skin around her eyes and mouth and provided the smallest amount of relief. But she feared it’d never be enough. Not when it came to Payton. She grabbed for the next best thing and pressed a bag of peas to her face before she realized the seconds had ticked by without her notice.

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