I could encourage him, and I did. But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t make that promise. The best we could do, the best we can ever do, is try.
At noon, I put on my coat, went downstairs and walked around the corner to the Regency Hotel.
The maître d’ showed me to the table. Noah stood up when he saw me. He was smiling, and while he still looked like he could use some more sleep, he clearly had gotten some rest.
“How’s your wrist?” he asked after I’d sat down and accepted some of the red wine he’d already ordered.
“Not bad. The doctor said I didn’t do any extra damage.”
“Didn’t do any damage? You smashed her nose. Broke it in two places.”
We talked about Blythe and how she was doing and Stella’s arraignment, and about the three women who had died because a daughter had not lived up to her mother’s expectations. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable for a minute, thinking about my own expectations for Dulcie. We talked about the past four days, and about how Dulcie was adjusting to being back home with me.
“She’s going to be fine.”
I nodded, wanting to believe him. “I know I don’t have any control over what happens to her. I just want to help her find her way and make it as painless for her as possible. But I may not be able to do even that. No matter what, she’ll know I loved her. Not some idea of her.”
I was thinking about Stella Dobson and a young woman named Simone whom I’d never met.
“The best you’ve done with Dulcie has been to show her that she’s lovable for who she is. She’ll take that with her out into the world, and that will keep her relatively safe, Morgan. It will.”
I smiled at him.
“So, this is a little complicated,” Noah said, changing the subject.
“Meeting me?”
“Yes, well, what I’m here to talk to you about.”
A waiter appeared with a bottle of wine and topped off our glasses. Noah waited until he’d left.
“I think I’m here to offer you a job,” he said.
The last time we’d been alone together had been five days ago, on that morning that Noah had dressed me, when we’d made love, and afterward, over breakfast, fought for the second-or was it the third?-time about what I couldn’t tell him about Alan Leightman but wanted him to believe me. It wasn’t the first time we’d clashed over his profession and mine and I knew each time it happened it took its toll.
It felt like much more time than that had passed, but not this much.
“A job? Is this a joke?”
He shook his head and looked at me a little sadly. He was sitting close enough to me that I could smell his rosemary-and-mint cologne.
“No.”
“Okay, shoot. Sorry. Bad choice of words.”
He waved away the apology. “The New York Police Department, Special Victims Unit, is looking for a chief forensic psychologist. We have been for more than a month.” Noah’s voice wavered and he cleared his throat. “You have every qualification. We haven’t found the right person to fill the job. Or, I should say we have. You could do it. You’d be perfect. I thought that, at least, I should tell you about it. Not make the decision for you. It seemed to me that you might want a challenge.”
“In a million years, I never would have guessed that you would be talking to me about this.”
“No, me neither.”
The room wasn’t conducive to romantic encounters. It was all business. Clean, hard lines, crisp linens. Men and women in business attire. Noah was probably the most casually dressed man there, in his worn leather jacket, a black turtleneck and jeans.
I looked away. At strangers. Out the window. Anywhere but Noah’s face. The ragged edge of disappointment I was feeling reminded me that no one lives without regret. A splinter of fear cautioned me that loving someone meant a loss of power, and that even though power was sometimes all that kept me sane, it wasn’t always worth holding on to.
A week earlier, I would have thought Noah could read in my eyes all that I was thinking, but when I finally glanced at him, he looked back at me with eyes that were dulled. The electricity was turned off.
“Let me just get this straight,” I said. “If I were to take this job, we wouldn’t be able to see each other, right?”
“Well, we’d see each other, but not in a personal way anymore.” He shrugged. As if that shouldn’t matter to either of us.
“We’d finally stop this push-pull thing we have going on. We’d be friends.”
“Friends.” His New Orleans drawl slowed the word down and turned it into something lesser, something inadequate.
“Is that what you want?”
“It would be easier.”
“Is it what you want?”
He wasn’t going to tell me. He didn’t have to. Impulsively, I leaned over, getting as close to him as I could, put my good hand on top of his arm as if to anchor him there, and then I kissed him.
His lips were closed at first.
And they stayed closed.
I’d lost him. I’d waited too long.
And then…then, finally, he moved forward, his hands came up and cupped my face, he pulled me closer to him, as close as we could get in our chairs, and he kissed me back.
Not the way a man would kiss you who offered you a job.
No, not that way at all.
Acknowledgments
To my incomparable agent Loretta Barrett as well as Nick Mullendore and Gabriel Davis at Loretta Barrett Books for all your hard work and great advice.
To my amazing editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury, for whom I am daily thankful for too many reasons to list.
To Dianne Moggy and Donna Hayes for all your efforts and enthusiasm on my behalf. Thank you.
To MIRA’s editorial department, marketing & PR departments, art and production departments and the entire sales force for everything you do and do so well.
To Mara Nathan and Chuck Clayman for your insight, time and creativity. Any errors in this book are because I didn’t listen to you two well enough.
To Luci Zahray, the amazing and generous “poison lady.” I could never have killed all these poor women without you. You are a novelist’s dream.
To every bookseller who works so hard to get books into the hands of readers but especially my hometown booksellers: Jenny Lawton of Just Books Too and Diane Garrett of Diane’s Books.
To Lisa Tucker and Douglas Clegg for helping when the words didn’t come or this story got stuck.
To all my wonderful friends and colleagues-and those who are both-especially the brilliant and generous ITW gang.
To my wonderful family: Gigi, Jay, Jordan, my father and Ellie.
And always last but also always most important, to Doug Scofield for the laughs, the support, the smarts and the faith.
M J Rose
M.J. Rose is the internationally bestselling author of novels and coauthor of two nonfiction books on marketing. Her work has appeared in many anthologies including Oprah's Live Your Best Life and Thriller. The creator of the first marketing company for authors, Authorbuzz.com, Rose is also a founding member and on the board of directors of International Thriller Writers. She lives in Connecticut with composer and musician Doug Scofield and their spoiled dog, Winka.
