A Billion Little Clues (16 page)

When I lowered the menu, I found myself transfixed by Roman's eyes. He had also set his menu aside, and was gazing at me with a deep look in his eyes that was both vaguely disconcerting and intensely arousing. "So, Melinda," he said in his deep voice. "I don't think I know very much about you."

I opened my mouth, but my voice dried up as he reached across the table and picked up my hand, my fingers sliding into his. As he rubbed one thumb back and forth along my palm, I had to struggle to keep control. Focus, Melinda, focus! Don't think about ripping off his shirt. "Well, I'm nothing special," I said, my voice sounding high and awkward to my ears. "I've just been working for Panther Worldwide for the last year or so, in the marketing department. I was originally a secretary, but I'm going to get promoted any day now. Or at least," I revised, "I was, before I ended up going to your party."

"I don't think you're nothing special," Roman softly told me. His thumb was still tracing little soft circles on my palm. "I think I'm very lucky that you happened to be at my party."

My mind conjured up a sudden vision of that balcony at Roman's house where we had first met, before I had realized who he was. How he had spoken so strongly, with such conviction. How he had wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm as he'd pointed out the stars. How, even in the near-complete darkness, his lips had perfectly leaned in to find mine.

My memory was interrupted by a clink of glasses, as one of the waiters, with impeccably bad timing, set down our champagne glasses in front of us. "For your appraisal, sir," he commented to Roman, presenting the bottle.

Roman clearly didn't want to take his eyes off of me, and just waved a hand in approval. I had to hold back a giggle at the slight flash of irritation that danced across his face at the interruption.

Undeterred, or perhaps simply determined to do a good job, the waiter uncorked the bottle with a pop and poured some into a glass. "For you to taste, sir," he prodded Roman.

This time, the giggle came spilling out of me as Roman audibly sighed. He released my hand and picked up the glass, tossing the contents back in a single swig. "Great!" he announced loudly to the waiter, his eyes still narrowed a bit in irritation. "Good body, a nice fruitiness, dry finish, no loss of carbonation from recorking. We'll take it. Thank you. Goodbye!"

The acidic comments rolled off the waiter's back like water off a duck. Showing not the slightest inclination to hurry, he slowly poured us each our glasses. More giggles kept on slipping out of my mouth as I watched him take care in making sure our glasses were equally filled with the bubbly liquid. And although Roman still looked a little cross, by the end of this I could see him struggling to keep his lips from quirking up in a smile as well.

Finally, the waiter gave us a short little half-bow and set the champagne into an ice bucket beside our table. "Oh, thank god," Roman sighed as the man vanished back to wherever he had come. "And now, perhaps you could tell-"

"Your oysters, sir?"

This time, as the man leaned in between both of us to set down the plate of half-shell mollusks, I really couldn't hold back my laughter. And when I finally looked up, I saw that Roman was similarly losing control. He was leaning back, his head thrown back as his entire body shook with laughter.

We laughed together for a good minute before finally managing to regain control. The waiter, obviously confused by our mingled laughter, quickly made himself scarce after depositing the platter of oysters.

"Oh man," Roman finally got out, reaching up with the tip of his napkin to wipe at the tears still streaming from his eyes. "This is just really not going quite how I expected, is it?"

I loved how the man could laugh at himself. Despite all of his money and power, he still could laugh when things weren't working - and he wasn't trying to control everything, but instead just rolling with it. "Not quite," I had to agree. "And can I tell you a secret?"

The billionaire leaned in, blinking the last couple of droplets of moisture away. "Anything," he said in an undertone.

My eyes flicked down to the plate of oysters between us, and then back up at Roman. "I actually really, really dislike oysters," I confessed. "I tried them once, and they're terrible! I'm fine with you ordering them, but god, they're just awful!"

"So the whole thing..." Roman began.

I shook my head. "We could have skipped them and that would have been fine with me."

Roman chuckled again, but he was still leaning in towards me. "Let's skip the rest, then," he suddenly announced.

"Wait. What?"

He reached forward and grabbed my hand, his fingers immediately giving it another one of those tingling, exciting little rubs. "Come on," he urged. "We don't need the oysters, and we don't need the rest of this meal. Let's just get out of here right now."

Was he actually suggesting what I thought he was? It only took a single glimpse at his dark but sparkling eyes to show that he was serious. My heart leapt up into my throat, and I felt myself starting to break out into a sweat. Come on, brain! Get it into gear!

"Yes," I finally stammered out, my voice barely above a whisper.

His grin broadening, Roman stood up from the table, pulling me up with him. His arms once again swept around me, pulling me in for another kiss. I swore that, even through his dark suit, I could feel his tight body, itching and begging to be unleashed. And from the hungry way that he kissed me, his tongue delving deeply in between my lips, he couldn't wait to get me in private and let his tongue slip into other... much more private places!

As soon as he released me, Roman's hand ducked into his jacket pocket, pulling out a couple of bills. He dropped them down on the table without even bothering to look at them, already tugging me away by the hand. "That should cover those damn oysters," he whispered to me.

As we made our way back out of the mess of tables, however, there seemed to be a commotion from the front of the restaurant. I was behind Roman, so I couldn't see much past his broad shoulders, but I realized that something was wrong when the man began to slow down, no longer pulling me forward.

As we came to a stop, I stepped around the man, looking past him. "Roman, what are you-" I began, but the words died in my mouth.

A stern-looking woman in a long coat over a business suit, flanked by two uniformed police officers, had entered the restaurant. The three police officers were slowly but purposefully making their way in towards us! Their eyes were locked on us.

No, not on us, I realized.

On Roman.

"Roman Wayland?" called out the woman in the suit. One of her hands sat lightly inside her open coat as she approached. It was with a shock that I realized that her hand was resting lightly on the butt of her weapon at her side; she didn't have the gun out, perhaps out of deference to Roman's status, but she was ready to act if he tried to run.

Roman wasn't running. "Yes?" he replied.

The woman stepped up to him, nearly a foot shorter than him but not looking intimidated in the slightest. "Put your hands behind your back, please," she ordered. "You're under arrest for the murder of Geoffrey Silvers."

And right there in the middle of the restaurant, she cuffed my date and led him away!

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

This was literally my worst date ever.

Worse than the time that the guy stood me up... two hours away from my hometown, after I'd driven out to see him. Worse than the guy who greeted me at the restaurant by telling me "Don't worry, I've got plenty of condoms tonight"... on the first date. Even worse than the time when, after we'd made out for a good ten minutes in his car, he told me how I smelled just like his mom.

All of those had been terrible, sure. But this time, it was absolutely the worst - because it had been going so well, up until it all fell apart.

At least, that was how I explained it to Rachel, sitting at home and trying to hold back my tears by attempting to finish an entire bottle of wine on my own.

"And now he's gonna be arrested and go to jail forever, and he'll never get to carry me off to a fancy hotel room!" I wailed, as my roommate hurried to grab the bottle of wine and top off my empty glass.

Reaching out, Rachel rubbed one hand along my back. When I got home, I hadn't bothered to change out of the dress. The fabric was probably ruined and wrinkled by now, marred by tears and a couple drops of wine. But somehow, getting into different clothes was the furthest thing from my mind.

"Didn't you even say something about how you had everything finally all figured out?" Rachel asked, perhaps hoping to distract me from my crying.

I nodded, but the tears just kept on coming. "We did, but they still arrested him!" I sobbed, punctuating this sentence with an especially big gulp of wine. "But we don't know for certain, and they probably have tons of evidence against Roman by now! And he's going to go to jail forever!"

This was about the flow of conversation for the next hour or so. Rachel did her best to tug me up and out of my quickly worsening depression, but there was little that she could do to stem the onslaught of tears. Eventually, when she ran out of things to suggest, she resorted to using the refuge of the television. Along with a big bowl of popcorn and some hastily whipped up chocolate pudding, we watched chick flick movies and I wept along with the characters on screen.

Fortunately, by the end of the credits on the second movie, my little crying fit was beginning to subside - and I could also see that Rachel was having trouble even feigning consciousness. She was lying on the couch opposite me, her legs tangled up in mine, and she kept on shifting back and forth as she attempted to burrow deeper into the cushions.

As the TV began to advertise whatever late night programming was coming up next, I lifted one foot and gave her a prod. "Hey, wake up," I whispered to her.

My poke only provoked a soft moan in response, so I gave it to her again - this time a bit harder. "Hey!" I hissed down the length of the couch. "Wake up! You have to go to bed!" Even as I said this, it sounded a little ridiculous to me, but it was true nonetheless.

Groggily, Rachel struggled back to semi-wakefulness. I noted with a hint of sourness that, even as she stretched her arms up over her head and yawned, she managed to look irresistibly cute. How in the world did the woman make everything seem sexy? Next to her, I felt like a frumpy mess.

But that was the wine talking. Mostly.

"Off to bed with you," I told her when she finally opened her eyes and looked at me. "If you fall asleep out here, you're going to have all sorts of lines and marks from the couch on your face when you wake up."

My roommate nodded, but she wasn't going anywhere. Eventually resigning myself to my fate as her caretaker, I struggled up to my feet and reached down, hauling her up - and nearly taking a tumble myself in the process. But after a couple wobbles, I got her up, and slid her down the hallway into her room.

As soon as we were inside Rachel's room, she immediately pitched face-first down into the comforter of her bed. I considered trying to help her out of her clothes, but decided against it. I was drunk too! I was supposed to be the one getting comforted and cared for! She could handle getting undressed on her own.

I, on the other hand, was now stuck in that frustrating limbo between feeling awake and feeling ready for bed. I was tired, sure, but not quite ready to climb between my own sheets yet to pass out.

So instead, I returned to the couch, staring blankly at the muted television. Even despite the wine, I couldn't help but think about Roman getting arrested. It was totally unfair! And not to mention, it was wrong - I knew that he was innocent, that he couldn't have been the one to kill Silvers.

But our other suspect, Carrie... it just felt too flimsy to me. Sure, she had reason to be angry at Silvers, but a budget crisis wasn't enough for her to want to commit murder, surely! And wouldn't she want to try every single other option before resorting to bludgeoning the man in the head? She could have at least gone to Roman himself about this issue. They had apparently known each other for a long time. And if this missing money was a problem ever since almost a year ago, her anger should have cooled, not suddenly flared up after all this time.

A year ago. Wait a minute. Something about that felt familiar.

Wasn't someone else saying something about a year ago? I tried to think back, to remember, but the wine was blocking my thoughts. I reached up and rubbed a hand along my head, not caring about how it totally messed up any remaining sense of smoothness in my hair. I knew that it was something!

My eyes were heavy from the effort of trying to think. Maybe I was more tired than I felt. I let my eyelids droop down, letting them close for just a moment...

#

I sat bolt upright. Wait a minute. I had it.

For a moment, I felt totally disoriented. The room around me was pitch black, and I had no idea where I was. My memory was currently focused on one specific thought, a little wiggling snake attempting to escape. I knew that, if I let go of this thought for even a single second, it would get away and I'd have lost it.