Page 45 of The Criminal

“Tour, of course. This place is impressive.” I turned and absorbed the two-story-tall foyer. A massive chandelier hung overhead, and black-and-white marble gleamed underfoot. A framed oil painting in some crazy modern style hung on the wall across from the front door.

“I love my house. It’s too big, but I justify it by having a holiday party for all my customers every year. I laughingly call this place a marketing expense.” She trailed a hand along the thick casement molding that framed a doorway as we passed through. It was the touch of a lover.

She led me from one opulent room to the next: a library, a living room, and the salon with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked her swimming pool and the golf course. Each room was tastefully decorated in the blend of old world and modern that I’d seen in the foyer.

“Here is where I spend most of my time.” She took my hand and led me into a large family room dominated by a U-shaped sectional and a TV. It was still fashionable but lived in. A discarded blanket lay wadded up on the ottoman, and an oversized dog bed littered with half-chewed toys rested in the corner.

“That’s a hell of a TV.”

“I told you I like my shows.”

There was a long table on the far wall with framed photos on top. I picked up one of her and Ray; it was so familiar that my breath caught. “Did I take this?”

“Yes.” She rushed to me and took the frame, putting it back, a flush on her cheeks.

I looked at the picture again. She was in her all-black teenage goth wear; Ray sported a faded Navy T-shirt. They were standing next to a rusty swing set.

“When was this?”

“His last trip home before… the accident.” She shrugged.

A pain stabbed through my chest.Accident. It never had been an accident. Ray died on a mission. He was a hero, and the Navy had forced me to lie and keep lying about it. I should have told his mother before she died. I should tell Lee right now.

Fuck, I should have told Lee before I slept with her. The desire to confess the truth to her was growing stronger by the second, but I stuffed it down. The truth might set me free, but I couldn’t risk it. This kind of confession could blow our arrangement to smithereens.

I was a selfish asshole.

The day immortalized in the photo came rushing back to me in technicolor. Ray and I searching Atoka for Lee. It had been hot and dusty; the AC in his mom’s old Toyota was broken. Lee and her mother had fought over some teenage stuff and she’d run off. We’d found her scuffing her Doc Martens in the red Oklahoma dirt as she rocked in a rusted swing at a playground. Ray had pushed his brand-new camera phone at me and told me to take some pictures of him and his little sister. It was the last photo they’d ever take together.

“You’d fought with your mom. Ray and I came to bring you home for dinner.”

“God, Mom was such a terrible cook. You should have left me at the park.”

I forced a chuckle. “Ray wouldn’t have allowed that. He was always worried about you.”

She patted my chest and gave me a sweet, sad smile. “I know you think my life would have been different if he’d lived or if you had intervened. But I don’t think so. I wasn’t staying in Oklahoma. I wanted more.” She waved a hand to indicate the house and all it represented. “And I got it.”

“Yes, you did.” I worried if the price she’d paid for success was too high. I thought about turning the conversation back to what we talked about the first day at Oleander when she told me about being a fence and working for a web of criminals. But I’d promised not to. It was hard and getting harder to play by our unspoken rules.

She was becoming vital to my happiness. And only having this tiny part of her was slowly killing me.

Chapter 23

Lee

ItuggedDerekbackto the couch; we’d gone far enough down memory lane for me. One Ray story was plenty.

“Come, food and Netflix!” I had laid out a platter of meat, cheese, fruit, and everything that my favorite gourmet deli had on offer. I wasn’t a cook like him, but I knew how to host.

He looked back at the row of old photos one last time before following. Whenever we strayed close to a sensitive topic, a particular set of fine lines appeared around his eyes. I hated those wrinkles. Every time they appeared, I fought the urge to kiss them away.

What I was asking of him went against every fiber of his being. He was the poster child for a man of principles. Hell, he’d put his life on the line for our country as a SEAL. And I was telling him that to be with me, he had to change, but I wouldn’t. It was a shitty thing to do. But life was like that—unfair. Principles only get you so far. Sometimes you had to compromise to get what you desired.

“You’re not going to poison me?” he asked, looking at the tray of food I had set out.

“That was one time.” I chucked him in the arm with a fist. It had been an honest mistake.

“Who can’t make scrambled eggs?” His sexy smile was back, the one that always made me want to kiss the hell out of him.

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