The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [167]
Her voice hitched, but she bore down, let the rest spew out. “So yeah, you took a hard and nasty slap, and it sent you reeling. But what did you fall into? Right into gold. What else is new?”
He didn’t stop her when she strode from the room. Didn’t go after her when she charged up the steps. At that moment, he couldn’t think of a single reason why he should.
5
THE GYM SEEMED THE OBVIOUS PLACE FOR HIM to work off steam, and he had plenty of it. His shoulder was still weak from wounds he’d incurred a few weeks before, helping his infuriating wife on the job.
It was all right, apparently, for him to risk his bloody life, but not—according to the Book of Eve—to get rid of a fucking blackmailer.
Bollocks to that, he thought. He wasn’t going to stew about it.
It was time, he decided, to punish his body back into shape.
He went for weights rather than one of the holomachines, and programmed a brutal session of reps and sets.
Her solution, he knew, had she headed downstairs rather than up, would have been to activate one of the sparring droids. Then beat the bleeding hell out of it.
To each his own.
Knowing her, she’d be pacing her office, kicking whatever was handy, and cursing his name. She’d have to get over it. Never in his life, he thought as he pumped his way through bench presses, had he known such a rational woman who could flip so quickly and so stupidly into irrational behavior.
What the bloody, buggering hell had she expected him to do? Give her a shout and ask her to pinch that ridiculous Texas fly off his neck for him?
Well, she’d married the wrong man for that, hadn’t she? Too bad for her.
She didn’t want to be protected when she damn well needed protection, didn’t want to be looked after when she was blind with grief and stress? That was too fucking bad for her as well, wasn’t it?
He ripped through the session, taking dark satisfaction in the burn of his muscles, the ache of the healing wounds, and the drip of his own sweat.
She was exactly where he’d assumed she’d be, doing precisely what he’d assumed she’d be doing. She stopped pacing long enough to give her desk three hard kicks.
And the hip she’d injured battling beside Roarke protested.
“Damn him. Damn him! Can’t he stay out of anything?”
The fat cat, Galahad, padded in, plopped down in the doorway of the kitchen as if prepared to enjoy the show.
“Do you see this?” she demanded of the cat, and slapped a hand on her sidearm. “You know why they gave me this? Because I can handle myself. I don’t need some—some man charging in to tidy up my mess.”
The cat angled his head, blinked his dual-colored eyes, then shot a leg in the air to wash it.
“Yeah, you’re probably on his side.” Absently, she rubbed her sore hip. “Male of the fricking species. Do I look like some wilting, helpless female?”
Okay, maybe she had, she admitted as she resumed pacing. For a couple of minutes. But he knew her, didn’t he? He knew she’d pull it together.
Just like he’d known Lombard would come sniffing around him.
“But did he say anything?” She threw her hands up. “Did he say: ‘Well now, Eve, I think perhaps the sadistic bitch from your past will likely be paying me a visit?’ No, no, he did not. It’s all that damn money, that’s what it is. It’s what I get for getting hooked up with a guy who owns most of the world, and a good chunk of its satellites. What the hell was I thinking?”
Since she’d exhausted a good portion of her energy with her anger, she flopped into her sleep chair. Scowled at nothing in particular.
Hadn’t been thinking, she admitted as the worst of the blind, red rage faded. But she was thinking now.
It was his