I glare at Silvano, and he looks away and takes a sip of his coffee.
“I am being cautious with good reason,” I growl.
He smiles. “I have other good news.”
I raise my eyebrows expectantly. He sets the mug down on my desk and pulls a piece of paper from the inside of his suit jacket, passing it over to me.
“This is a report from our insider source in the investigation against you,” he explains. “They’ve shelved the case for the time being.”
I take the notice and read through. “I’m confused.”
“Yes.” He nods. “I was too. I had some men look into it and found that a couple of the investigators, including Ruby Flint, have received some troubling threats.”
I frown and look up. “Now I’m more confused. I haven’t ordered any intimidation. Not yet. None of my men should have done anything without my express order.”
“I know. And none of your men did.” He takes another sip of coffee. “According to my sources, the threats came from a woman.”
I don’t know why Silvano considers this to be good news. The only woman I know who is capable of such a thing is Felicity Huffman, and if she is behind this, it means she is planning something worse than jail time.
“Do you want to hear what our mystery woman told Ruby Flint?” Silvano asks, lip quirked at the corner. “It’s quite entertaining.”
I sigh. “Go on, then.”
After I send Silvano away, I leave my office, intent on hitting the gym for a while to clear my head. He has given me a lot to think about. It’s suspicious to me that Alexis passed all of his tests with flying colors. It’s suspicious to me that suddenly I am a free man. None of it is sitting well.
I head for my bedroom to get changed first but stop when I hear voices around the hall corner. Alexis is speaking to someone in a stern voice. Is she on the phone? I press to the wall and listen, just as a female voice replies to her.
“Ms. Wright, I promise I wasn’t—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Lupe,” Alexis replies in a flat voice. “I saw you looking in my jewelry box. There’s nothing to clean in there, so why would you be doing it unless you were checking out the goods?” She sighs. “Listen, you have a family. I understand that. But I also know you’re paid well here, so there shouldn’t be any reason for you to be skimming off the top. If there is, if you’re in trouble somehow, please come to me so I can help you. So are you in trouble?”
“No,” Lupe says in a quiet voice.
“Okay. Because you do have a family, and because you’re going to promise me that you won’t do it again, I won’t tell Gabriel what happened. I am going to tell the head housekeeper, though, and you will be searched at the start and end of your shifts from now on until I feel that you’re no longer a threat. Do you know what happens if you get caught even thinking about stealing again?”
“No.”
“You don’t just lose your job, Lupe. You lose everything. You’ll probably have to leave the city. You do understand how privileged a position this is, right? You’ve seen things. You’ve heard things. That’s why you’re so well-paid, and that’s why you’re only valuable to us as long as you can be trusted.”
“I won’t do it again,” Lupe says with a quaver in her voice. “I promise. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Okay. I believe you.” Alexis lets out a sigh. “Get back to work.”
I hear footsteps heading in my direction, and Lupe rounds the corner. She lets out a strangled cough when she sees me, eyes wide with fear. I nod amiably, as though I didn’t just overhear their conversation, and continue on to my bedroom.
I’m proud of how Alexis handled the situation. She was stern but fair, and I believed the promise of retribution in her voice. I have seen this side of Alexis a few times, and it never fails to impress me.
I get changed into my gym clothes, wondering if maybe this is not the first time this week that Alexis has spun threats around a potential enemy.
I ask Alexis to join me for dinner in the evening. It is the first time we have dined together since she came back to the mansion, and as such, I employ Victoria to craft a specialty menu of Alexis’ favorite foods.
Alexis comes down for dinner wearing a gorgeous red satin dress that clings to her curves and a skeptical expression.
“This feels a lot like a date,” she comments as I pull her chair out for her.
“So?” I pour a glass of wine for us both and take my seat at the other end of the table.
“So, you’re up to something.” She evaluates me over the top of her wineglass, ruby-red lips pulled into a tight frown. “You’ve made it very clear that we aren’t together the same way we used to be. The fact that you’re wining and dining me now is suspicious.”
Victoria brings through the appetizer—baked camembert with cranberry sauce. Alexis stares down the table at me while Victoria places the plates in front of us, eyes narrowed in challenge. I can tell she is expending considerable effort not to dive face-first into her food. My lip tugs up at the corner.
“I have a question to ask you,” I say simply, picking up my fork.
Alexis stabs into the cheese with more force than necessary. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Did you intimidate the detectives working on my case?”
Alexis pauses mid-chew, eyes snapping up to meet mine. She finishes chewing and swallows carefully.
“I might have had a few words with them,” she says, and picks up her napkin to dab the corner of her mouth.
“Why would you do that?” I ask.
Alexis sets her fork down and licks her lips. “Because I fucked up,” she says. “I thought that getting them to stop investigating might make amends for the damage I caused.”
The air thickens between us. Something stirs in my chest, and I lean back in my chair, resisting the urge to pull her into my arms.
I take a long sip of wine, and when I set my glass back down, speak in a deliberately measured voice. “You told Ruby Flint that if she kept investigating, you were going to expose her affair on the front page of the Union with full-color photos.”
Alexis shrugs. “It’s not my fault that she’s indiscreet,” she says, smirking. “And into some weird stuff, too.”
I hold her gaze. “You also told her that once you’d done that, you’d slice an inch of her skin for every day I spent in prison.” Suppressing a smile, I add, “That’s cold.”
“I learned from the best,” she retorts, and lifts her glass in salute.
I mirror the gesture, and we hold eye contact for a good time before finally drinking. The wine has never tasted sweeter.
“What do you think happens now?” I ask.
Alexis scoops up some camembert and forks it into her mouth. She chews, taking her damn time, and finally swallows and speaks. “I don’t know. I know what I want to happen, but whether you’ll allow it is another thing entirely.”
“What do you want to happen?”
Alexis takes a breath. “I want in, Gabriel. Like it or not, I’m a part of this now. And so is Harry. I want us to be a family, and I want you to be completely honest with me. I want to help.”