Page 72 of Sinful Seduction
“Even when I’m threatening to choke your baby brother out?”
He snickers and backs away, swinging the door wide, then he leads me out of my office and into the elevator. “Even then.”
“Even when I’m pitching a fit because someone used the last of the coffee. But it turns out I’msomeone. I was the coffee thief.”
Turning back to face the doors, he slings his arm over my shoulders. “Especially then.”
“Even when I was engaged to Tim that one time? It was only for a minute. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Absolutely. You can keep tossingeven whensat me, and you can include your lack of cooking, abuse of caffeine, short fuse, bossinessinside and out of the bedroom, and your refusal to move to a perfectly good house when we have one sitting right there, empty and waiting for us. None of it will make me not love loving you.”
“Good to know.” I cuddle into his side while we have privacy. For the moment it takes for the elevator doors to slide closed, and then for theneutral-cube-of-something-somethingto move from the ninth floor to the ground. “And yes. I’d like to go on a date with you tonight.”
He leans back, peeking down and meeting my eyes. “Yeah?”
“Mmhm. But can we order takeout and have our date in our bedroom? There are fewer people there, I won’t have to dress up, we can bang before we eat, I can infuse after, and then I get to fall asleep snoring on your chest.”
“Sounds perfect.” He drops a noisy kiss on the top of my head, pulling away in the exact moment the doors open and the security guard waiting behind the main desk glances up. “Wanna stop in and see Steve on the way past?”
“You don’t mind?” We move together, our steps in sync and his arm slung over mine despite being in public again. But none of that matters in my mind, because my eyes go to poor Mrs. Beecroft, still perched in her chair.
Still grieving.
Still waiting… to figure out what the hell she’s meant to do with the rest of her life.
Dammit.
“Hang on.” I peel myself free of Archer’s grip and gesture toward security for the second night in a row.Call a car. Do whatever it is you did last night. “Mrs. Beecroft?” With a gentle sigh, I step around her chair and lower into the one somehow dubbed mine. “You really shouldn’t be here, Donna. It’s not?—”
I stop and frown, tilting my head to the side. She looks like she’s asleep. Her eyes gently closed, her chest relaxed and still. “Mrs. Beecroft?” I carefully drag the purse from her double-fisted grip and set it on the floor, then I take her wrist in my left hand, placing my fingers where I should feel a pulse.
“Everything okay?” Archer meanders closer, his brows pinching together. “Minka?—”
“She’s gone.” Giving up on her wrist, I search for a carotid pulse instead. Just to make sure. “She’s already cold.” Shaking my head, I keep my hand on her shoulder, propping her up when her arm falls heavily to the side, and look back to security. “Come over here, please.”
“I’m calling a cab, Chief. I’ll stay with her till?—”
“No need. She’s deceased.”
His face drains dangerously white.
“You need to call the…” Jesus. The morgue, I suppose.And that’s us. “Call an ambulance, please. Have the paramedics pick her up.”
“D-dead?” he stammers, dropping the phone and stumbling around his desk. “She’s dead, Chief? Are you sure?”
“Kinda my job to be sure.” I search the woman’s face, the soft lines marking countless years in love, and the peaceful acceptance that makes death look almost beautiful. For the first time since we met, she looks something other than defeated. “Call an ambulance,” I repeat. “That way, they’ll put her in the hospital morgue so she can be near Theodore.”
“This is technically an unattended death, Chief.” Archer stops behind my chair, not shaky like my oversized security guard. “There’ll have to be an investigation.”
“Luckily, I know the local detectives. I’ll submit to all questioning, Detective.” Standing again and moving around Donna’s chair, I hug her from behind and lift, grunting, so I can carefully lower her to the floor. “Security cameras in every corner.” I point each one out with an easy flick of my wrist, then I cushion Donna’s head and delicately lower it to the tile. “Investigation and autopsy are likely to conclude natural causes. Heartbreak.” Drawing a deep breath, I straighten my legs and look down at the woman who simply loved too hard.
She didn’t have access to an arsenic pill, but she made do with what she had.
“This is what happens when people fall in love, Archer. It’s what happens when it all comes undone and one penguin can’t live without the other.”
He takes my hand, tangling his fingers with mine and pulling me in just close enough that our hips touch. But not so close that we’ll become a topic of speculation when camera footage lands on a detective’s desk.
“You won’t be able to run this case.” While the security guard flaps around in a panic, talking to himself, talking to the desk while he searches for his phone, I tilt my head and lay my cheek against Archer’s chest. “Your CO will need to assign someone else, since this is my building and we discovered her.”
