Page 85 of Over Her Dead Body

“Could what?” I ask. “Give it a go until Sarah calls again?”

He looks away. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly it does.”

“Hale got you on a plane without asking,” he says. “I can’t even finish a sentence.”

“Owen, you’ve had a very long time to decide what Sarah is, and somehow I’m supposed to believe you worked it out on the way to Bellini’s.”

He folds his arms. “You’re about to ruin your life by getting on that plane, and we both know it.”

“By doing my job?” I reach for the zipper. “I have an assignment. I got Celeste to keep the partnership vote on schedule if I take it. That matters to me.”

“I know it does.”

“Then stop acting as though I’m going over there to stand beneath his window.”

Owen watches me.

“I know what the vote means to you,” he says. “I’m still telling you not to get on that plane.”

“And when Celeste fires me?”

“Tell her there’s a conflict. Let someone else handle it.”

“She requested an explanation. I didn’t have one I could give her.”

“You could try the truth.”

By which he means tell Celeste I’m involved with a client. Something embarrassing but believable. Owen will accept that I’ve lost my judgment over a man. Apparently, recognizing the one I married is asking too much.

I zip the suitcase closed.

He carries it downstairs.

The drive to the airport is quiet. Owen brings the sandwich along. I don’t touch it. He waits until we reach departures to mention Martin again.

He sets my suitcase beside me. “Men like Hale don’t need stupid women. They need smart ones with one thing they want badly enough to ignore the obvious.”

“And what do I want?”

Owen closes the trunk. “The very thing you know you can’t have.”

I pull my suitcase toward me. One wheel catches against his shoe. I keep pulling.

“You should know better, Emma. You’ve seen enough.”

I look directly at him. “You’re right. I have.”

“Whatever you think is waiting over there, it isn’t worth what you’re doing to yourself.”

He gets back into the car before I can respond.

Inside the terminal, I clear security, grab coffee, and follow the signs toward my gate.

Reid is sitting beneath the Lisbon departure screen, one ankle resting over the opposite knee, his phone loose in his hand.

When he sees me, his attention drops to my suitcase.