Mischief 24/7. Kasey Michaels

that.”

      Jade moved to return his handkerchief, but then reconsidered, and blew her nose into it. “It’s all right. It was even fun at first, listening to them, sorting them out. But I wasn’t built to be a society wife, Court. We both know that now. It wasn’t that I couldn’t fit, because I think I could, if I worked on it. I just didn’t want to fit. Country club lunches and charity balls? They’re not my thing.”

      “You were bored.”

      “No, Court, I was being smothered. Melting away, losing myself. There’s a difference.” She looked at him, felt a small catch in her belly and reached once more for the stack of files. Those files were the only things she could hold on to right now. Solving the remaining cold cases, praying one of them led to Teddy’s killer.

      “I was a jackass, only thinking of my own happiness,” Court said, and she sliced a quick look back at him, seeing the hurt in his face.

      Such a handsome man. That’s what had caught her attention at first, his dark good looks, but his innate goodness had been what held that attention. She couldn’t stand to see him hurting.

      “I should have told you I was unhappy—that was unfair of me. And we were both pretty stubborn, as I remember it. You were always gone on business, and Teddy needed help back here until he could replace me. One thing led to another, didn’t it? But that’s all water under the bridge, right?”

      “Is it?”

      “Court, I…” She dumped several files in Court’s lap. “Let’s do this now, clear off Sam’s priceless antique table, sort out what we need and don’t need. I can’t count on Jessica having her head anywhere near the game for at least a few days, and I think we’re getting too close to slack off while she walks around with stars in her eyes.”

      “We’re going to have to talk about this sooner or later, Jade. You do know that. I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

      “Court, please,” Jade all but begged him. “Not now.”

      “Not now. That’s becoming a familiar refrain.”

      “I’m sorry, Court. But I really can’t do this now. Every day that Teddy is believed to be a murderer is one day too many. If we’re…if I’m to have any future, I’ve got to correct the past.”

      “Sometimes that isn’t possible, Jade. Sometimes we simply have to close the door and move on.”

      “Like we have? Our divorce was final almost a year ago. Have we moved on, either of us? Would you be here now if Teddy hadn’t died? Is it time we gave up, Court, and closed the door on us?”

      Court looked at her for a long moment, his deep brown eyes unreadable. “Point taken. Pass me one of those folders.”

      Jade handed him one of the files, blindly, as she couldn’t read the words on the tab through the tears in her eyes, and then pulled another file onto her lap. She opened it, staring at nothing as she felt Court’s assessing gaze on her, burning into her. What was he thinking?

       THE BECKET PHILADELPHIA

       Two years earlier

      IT WAS THREE DAYS after Christmas. Court sat at the hotel bar with Sam Becket, watching as his cousin made a valiant attempt to drown his sorrows with gin and tonic. Clearly not a dedicated drinker, his cousin, or else he’d go for a single malt, neat, and doubled.

      “Tell me again why you didn’t just go after her?” Court said, thinking it might be a good idea to keep Sam talking, instead of drinking. “You know, fly to the Coast, grovel, plead, grovel some more?”

      “I told you,” Sam said, lifting his glass and looking into it, frowning. He set it back down. “I don’t even like gin and tonic. Teddy warned me away.”

      “Teddy. That’s the father, right? Jolie’s over twenty-one, isn’t she? It wasn’t as if you needed his permission.”

      “Jolie’s his daughter. He knows her better than anyone. Obviously better than I do, or I wouldn’t have offered her money.”

      Court picked up his own glass. Bottled water with a twist of lemon, as he had elected himself designated driver, even though he was staying at the hotel and that meant driving Sam back to his own house in the middle of a snowstorm. But these were the sacrifices one made for family. “I have to hand it to you, Sam, that’s unique. Here’s money—marry me. Yet slightly lacking in romance, I’d say.”

      Sam shot his cousin a sharp look. “I offered her money to live on while she waited tables or whatever it is out-of-work actors do to survive while looking for their big break. She threw it back in my face. Literally.” He pushed back on the bar stool. “Damn it, Court, I was trying to help.”

      “But that help came with a time limit. I remember this part. Go to Hollywood, Jolie, fall flat on your face—but eat well while you’re doing it—and then come home at the end of one year and marry me. You ought to think about a career in the diplomatic corps. Especially since, last I heard, she’s still out there and you’re still here, kicking yourself in the backside.”

      “I’m done kicking myself for that one, Court. I’ve done something else since that fiasco. The dumbest damn thing I’ve ever done.”

      “Dumber than the day you pinned a pillowcase to your shoulders and flew off the garage roof?”

      Sam smiled at the memory, rubbing the arm he had broken in the fall into some saving shrub. “I was seven. I had an excuse. I don’t have an excuse for this one. I know a few people out there in La-La Land and I… I bought Jolie’s way into the worst movie ever released straight to video.”

      “Porn?”

      “Very funny. No, Court, a horror flick. You know, kids out for a night of necking in the woods, the obligatory masked madman running through those woods, chopping up teenagers with a souped-up Cuisinart or something. She had a few lines and then got some pretty good close-ups where she had to look scared and scream a lot.”

      “All right, I think I’m beginning to follow this,” Court said, commandeering a bowl of peanuts from the bartender. When you own the hotel, someone is always watching, ready to supply anything you want. “The film bombs, Jolie bombs, and she gives up, comes home to pick out china patterns. So? Tell me about the flaw in this master plan, because obviously there was one.”

      Sam ran a hand through his already mussed dark blond hair. “So this big Hollywood type saw her, said he’d never seen anyone the camera loved more since Julia Roberts, and signed her to a three-picture deal. The first one isn’t out for another month or so, but according to the grapevine, she’s brilliant in it.”

      “Ah, hoist with your petard,” Court said, toasting Sam’s debacle with bottled water. “Or something like that. Now what?”

      “Now I face the fact that I’ve lost and I’ve got to learn to live without her, that’s now what. Now I keep doing what I’ve been doing.”

      “Burying yourself in work,” Court said, thinking of Sam’s legacy separate from the Becket family inheritance, a large import/export antiques empire that had its beginnings nearly two hundred years ago and, in the past few years, a steady increase in high-end retail antique stores. Court had leased him a large area inside this same hotel and many of his hotels around the world. “How’s that going for you?”

      Sam held up his glass. “How does it look like it’s going? But enough of me crying in my gin and tonic. How are things with you? I know you just flew in from somewhere. Where was it this time? London? Paris?”

      “Rome. You’ll be happy to know that your share of our latest acquisition to the Becket family portfolio includes an owner’s suite overlooking Vatican City. It’s yours to use whenever you want.”

      “Sweet,” Sam said, clinking glasses with Court. “I propose a toast. To Ainsley