The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  He’d learned how to.

  Matt said nothing in response. Instead, he asked, “Do you still want to talk to Montgomery?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Then let’s go.”

  Chapter 7

  The automatic smile that appeared on Luke Montgomery’s lips as she entered his office, followed by Matt, faded instantly when Natalie confronted him with her first question.

  It was obvious that Montgomery didn’t like being questioned or put on the spot, especially not by an LVPD detective that also just happened to be the daughter of a man who had once scoffed at his efforts to get started in the casino business. Harold Rothchild’s exact words had been that he would look forward to being a witness to his failure.

  A man didn’t forget words like that. They either crushed him or spurred him on. For Luke, it was the latter.

  He absently wondered if the senior Rothchild knew that he was, at least in part, responsible for the influential man he had become. Nothing like wanting to prove someone wrong to make a man become driven.

  “Am I under arrest, detective?” The casino mogul deliberately enunciated her title as if he were an adult humoring a child deeply entrenched in the world of make-believe.

  Inwardly, Natalie bristled at his tone but kept it under wraps. She knew that a display of temper was what he was after.

  “Would you be more inclined to answer my questions if you were?” she countered, a cool, polite smile on her lips. “Because if that’s what it takes, we can do that dance and waste a lot of each other’s time. You can call your lawyer, and he can come down and brief you as to what you can and can’t say to me and I can hang around, waiting. Or we can act like mature adults and get on with it—” Her eyes pinned his. “I’m assuming, of course, that you have nothing to hide.”

  Luke fixed her with a look that would have made a person with less to lose nervously retreat. But Natalie was in this to win, to get answers about her sister, and she wasn’t about to back down.

  “You assume correctly. I have nothing to hide,” he informed her in a voice that was completely devoid of any emotion.

  We’ll see about that, Natalie promised silently. “Great. So what was it that you and my sister argued about last night?”

  “Who said we argued?” Montgomery wanted to know. The look he slanted toward Matt said that, as far as he was concerned, the question was rhetorical.

  “A few of the people who attended the gala last night mentioned that you were less than pleased with Candace and that you both raised your voices at one another,” she told him.

  Her response to Montgomery’s question surprised Matt. He’d fully expected her to tell his boss that she’d gotten the information from him.

  He smiled to himself. Still full of surprises, aren’t you, Natalie?

  For a moment, Luke said nothing, as if debating just how much he was willing to admit to. He might be flamboyant when out in public, but there was a part of him that was exceedingly private. The irony of wanting privacy and running a business in a town like this was not lost on him.

  But, he decided, stubbornly refusing to answer Rothchild’s question would be more trouble than it was worth.

  “Your sister thought we could pick up where we left off. We couldn’t,” he ended simply. “That didn’t make her very happy.” It was an understatement, and they all knew it. Candace had been a drama queen from way back. “Neither did my telling her that she was taking the spotlight away from a very worthwhile charity, and I wasn’t going to allow it.”

  Natalie nodded. Even though she hated to admit it, that sort of thing sounded exactly like something Candace would try to do—upstage a charity event. Sadly, her sister was that shallow.

  “That sounds like Candace,” she acknowledged with a sigh.

  Montgomery rose from his desk, giving every indication that he intended to walk Natalie to the door. “So, are we done?” he demanded.

  Natalie remained where she was. “Just one more question, Luke—you don’t mind if I call you Luke, do you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but continued talking. “Where were you last night from the hours of eleven to three?”

  The look in his eyes told her he really resented having to account for himself. When he answered, it was through clenched teeth. “The first part I was at the gala. Hundreds of people can vouch for that,” he added crisply.

  “And the second part of that time frame?” she prodded.

  Luke’s eyes darkened. “None of your business.”

  Oh, but it was, she thought. She felt Matt move closer to her. Was he going to back her up or draw her away? She didn’t wait to find out. “This isn’t for some blog, Luke. I’m asking as a homicide detective. Where did you go after you left the gala?”

  Montgomery took offense at her line of questioning. “Then I am under suspicion?”

  His voice had risen. She was determined to keep hers level. “Everyone is under suspicion until their alibi is checked out,” she said.

  And then, just like that, Montgomery relented. His voice became almost mild. “I was with a lady in her hotel room.”

  That was going to have to be verified, and they both knew it. “I’m assuming this ‘lady’ has a name.” She waited for him to give it to her.

  Montgomery shrugged. “Most likely. I don’t happen to remember it.”

  Was he deliberately being vague—or was he lying? In either case, Natalie shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. “Not good enough.”

  “But I do remember the room number,” Montgomery added after a beat.

  It seemed to Natalie that he was intentionally playing some sort of a game, wording this so that she was led to assume that he might have had something to do with Candace’s murder. The possibility had occurred to her. After all, it was no secret that Montgomery and her father were less than friendly rivals. She’d heard her father rant about the other man more than once, complaining bitterly that the latter was encroaching on territory that should have been his. It seemed as if the Rothchild fortunes were taking a downturn just as Montgomery’s were on the upswing.

  “Good,” she ground out when he didn’t immediately volunteer the number. “What was it?”

  “Room 1312. Oh,” he added innocently, “and she said something about having to get back to the East Coast by this evening so I’d hurry getting up there if you want to catch her to back up my ‘alibi.’” Montgomery tossed the term at her with a smug satisfaction that told her he was either way overconfident—or he wasn’t guilty of anything more than being arrogant.

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” she responded.

  Natalie kept a poker face despite the wave of acute disappointment. It would have been gratifying to lay Candace’s murder at Montgomery’s doorstep. But that would have been far too easy, and she knew from experience that ninety-five percent of the time, the easy route never led to the right conclusion.

  “Okay, I don’t need you anymore,” Natalie told Matt the moment they hit the lobby. She was striding toward the elevator banks. “You can go back to whatever it was you were doing.”

  He’d been a reluctant participant, but now that he was with her, Matt felt an even greater reluctance to pull away. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stick around a little longer. You might find you need me.”

  “Not in a million years,” she said a tad too vehemently.

  Matt pretended not to hear. What he did hear, as they hurried past the front desk, was the tall, statuesque woman say that she was checking out of her room. 1312.

  Catching hold of Natalie’s arm, he pulled her back.

  “What do you think you’re—?” she demanded.

  He merely pointed toward the front desk. “That’s room 1312,” he told her.

  The woman who was Luke Montgomery’s alibi looked vaguely familiar to Natalie. She made the connection when introductions were made. Her name was Erikka Hanson, and she was a model of some moderate fame, on her way back East for a swimsuit shoot.

  A g
enuine redhead, Erikka was a full head taller than Natalie with a complexion that filled dermatologists with envy. Candace, Natalie judged, would have scratched her eyes out, had it come down to a tug of war for Montgomery. Her sister passionately resented any woman who was prettier than she was, and this model was in a class all by herself.

  As she introduced herself, Natalie had her ID out to confirm her identity.

  “I’m sorry to bother you Ms. Hanson, but I’m investigating a homicide. I need to ask you a couple of questions.” She slipped her wallet back into her pocket. The model, she noticed, was busy checking out Matt.

  Not exactly a one-man woman, are you? she mused.

  “What kind of questions?” Erikka wanted to know.

  “Was Luke Montgomery with you in your room last night after the gala?” Natalie asked bluntly.

  If the model found the question invasive, she gave no indication. On the contrary, a wide smile curved her more than generous mouth.

  “He most certainly was.” Each word vibrated with enthusiasm. Montgomery, Natalie concluded, had to be good in bed. No wonder Candace had been put out when the casino mogul didn’t want to rekindle their affair.

  “What time was he there?” Natalie asked. She had deliberately refrained from mentioning which hours needed verifying.

  “The whole time,” Erikka answered with a heartfelt sigh.

  The woman was obviously not a Rhodes scholar, Natalie thought dryly.

  “Specifically?” she pressed. Then, in case this word, too, was beyond the model’s grasp, she broke it down for the woman. “If you could remember what time he came into your room and what time he left, that would be very helpful.”

  Erikka paused to sign the credit slip the desk clerk submitted to her. Handing it back, she placed the pen on the counter and thought a moment.

  “From the time the gala ended—whenever that was—until this morning.” Her smile deepened. “If you think he did something wrong, he didn’t.” She sighed, clearly reliving a moment or two. “As a matter of fact, he did everything just right.”

  More than I wanted to know, Natalie thought, suddenly feeling like a voyeur. “Is there somewhere I can reach you in case I have more questions?”

  The model looked somewhat impatient, but she foraged through her purse and came up with a card. “That’s my agent’s number,” she pointed to it on the card. “He can usually find me.”

  Or cover for you. But Natalie forced a smile to her lips as she pocketed the card.

  “Thank you for your time,” she murmured, then moved away from the reservation desk. Erikka and her considerable luggage went in the opposite direction.

  Matt found he had to lengthen his stride to keep up with Natalie. She always moved fast when she was agitated, he recalled. “You don’t look very happy,” he observed.

  Natalie shot him a dirty look. “Why should I be happy? I’ve spent all day questioning people, and all I have is a dead end.”

  He’d gotten good at spinning information when it was necessary. “You could think of it as having ruled out several possibilities.”

  She stopped walking for a moment and gazed at him. He was looking at this in a far more positive light than she was.

  “Since when did you become an optimist?”

  Optimist was a lot better label than spin doctor, he mused. “Sometimes, in this line of business, you have to be.”

  They were in the lobby of the casino with its ever-present noise and crowds of people. This was where they should just come to a parting of ways. He knew that the right thing to do would be to let her go back to her home or the precinct or wherever it was she was going. But the frustrated disappointment in her eyes got to him.

  He was never going to be over her, Matt thought, no matter what he told himself.

  “Have you had lunch yet?” he asked.

  An odd little smile came and went from her lips. “I haven’t actually had breakfast yet.” She’d heard the call about her sister’s homicide come in just after hitting a fast-food restaurant. Three bites were all she’d had before her stomach rebelled. She’d thrown the rest away.

  “We need to remedy that,” Matt told her. “Come with me.”

  She began to follow, then stopped. Old habits died hard, but he had no right to take charge like that. “Why would I want to do that?” she challenged.

  He took a couple of steps to cross back to her. “Because you’ve been working hard, and you haven’t had anything to eat. You need to keep your strength up if you’re going to play the part of a bulldog,” he said matter-of-factly, then smiled. “Besides, The Janus just landed a first-class world-famous chef, and I’m told he makes a filet mignon that has you believing you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  “I’m not interested in ‘dying and going to heaven.’ Or eating,” she informed him. “What I’m interested in is—”

  He finished the sentence for her. “Solving your sister’s murder, yes I know. But you can’t continue functioning indefinitely on an empty stomach,” he insisted. Then he added, “Humor me.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. She didn’t want to humor him, she wanted to double up her fists and beat on him. She wanted this damn ache in her chest that came up each time she looked at him to go away. She wanted to have never laid eyes on him in the first place. Humoring him didn’t even make the top one hundred on her list. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because,” he told her patiently, “if we’re going to be working together, there’s going to have to be some kind of give and take.”

  “There already was.” The words spilled out, refusing to be dammed up any longer. “As I recall, I gave, you took—and then you threw it back at me.”

  Was that how she remembered it? “That wasn’t the way it played out.”

  Her expression darkened, making him think of a thunderstorm over the desert. “Oh, wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t want to go into it. Not here, not now. Not ever, actually. But she was forcing him to revisit his actions. “I did what I did for a reason, Natalie.”

  “Right. I believe the term is ‘cold feet.’ All the way up to the neck,” she said sarcastically. “You suddenly realized that you were making a commitment, and it scared the hell out of you.”

  And why did it still hurt so much, all these years later? Why aren’t I over you, damn it?

  Someone jostled him. Matt hardly noticed. His entire attention was focused on the petite spitfire before him. The woman, if the gods had been kinder, who would have been his wife for several years now. Maybe even the mother of his children. “Is that what you think?”

  “Yes,” Natalie bit off. “That is exactly what I think.”

  He tried to take hold of her arms, but she shrugged him off. “You’re wrong.”

  “Then what was your reason?” she challenged. “Why would you leave me that way without so much as a decent explanation?”

  The answer was very simple. “Because if I gave you one, you would have tried to talk me out of it.” He knew how she thought. In her place, he would have done the same thing. But he hadn’t been in her place; he’d been in his and the action he took was necessary. “And what I did was for the best.”

  “Right. For the best,” she mocked. “Whose best? Yours?”

  “No.” Damn it, you little idiot, I did it because I loved you. “Yours.”

  Lifting her chin, she tossed her head defiantly. Her short brown hair swayed from the movement. “I don’t believe you. You’re only saying that because you think it makes you out to be noble. Well, you’re not. You’re a coward,” she spat out.

  He took a firm hold of her shoulders. This time he didn’t let her shrug him off. People were watching, and he didn’t want this getting back to anyone.

  “There’s no point in arguing about it, Natalie. It’s all in the past.”

  No, she thought. Not all of it. She only wished from the bottom of her heart that it was. But her feelings were very much alive and in the present. But that wa
s her problem, not his.

  “You’re right,” she replied in a monotone voice. “It is.”

  Touching her, even so slightly, had awakened so many feelings he was incapable of burying. He found himself not wanting her to leave. “About that lunch,” he prodded.

  Natalie stared at him. “How can you possibly think I’d want to break bread with you after—after—” Frustrated, she couldn’t even find the words to finish her sentence.

  “Because you need to keep up your strength,” he repeated, “and you’re going to have to eat sometime. Might as well be something good and on the house. C’mon.” He nodded toward his right. “The restaurant is this way.” Then, in case she was going to take offense at his leading again, he added, “I know you don’t exactly know your way around The Janus.”

  There was no denying that. Still, she thought of turning on her heel and just walking away. Of letting Matt lead the way only to turn around at the restaurant to find that she had gone.

  But in the end, she followed him.

  This was business, strictly business, she told herself, and to act on her impulse would have been petulant. She did need Matt as long as her investigation took her into the heart of Montgomery’s casino, and she had a feeling that somehow, some way, Candace’s death was tied to her coming here last night.

  The restaurant was only doing a moderate amount of business. It was the lull between lunch and dinner, and the pace was less hectic. The waitress came to take their order barely minutes after the hostess had shown them to a table.

  Matt ordered the meal he’d mentioned earlier, then looked at Natalie who was perusing the oversized, velvet-covered menu. He didn’t want to rush her. “Need more time?”

  “No, let’s get this over with.” It was a cruel thing to say, but she felt herself sinking fast. Agreeing to eat with him had been a mistake. She could feel it in her bones. Natalie surrendered her menu to the waitress. “I’ll have what he’s having,” she told the young woman.

  “This isn’t penance, you know,” he told her, focusing on her first statement.

  She looked at him pointedly. “Isn’t it?” And then she raised her hand, as if to erase her words from an invisible chalkboard. “Sorry. I should be more professional than that. I usually am more professional than that. It’s just that I never expected to see you again,” she confessed. “And it’s kind of thrown me.”