“I think this case is too big and too strange not to catch the eye of someone who will ensure it gets solved.”
“Then you’re more naive than I ever gave you credit for.”
* * *
Satisfaction filled his chest as the barb struck Violet square in hers. She actually sputtered before she caught herself. “I’m far from naive.”
“Then start acting like it. Tripp Lange will be out of jail before any of us can blink. I’m surprised he’s still there.”
“He’s been exposed as a major criminal. He’s got to be under tight supervision.”
Max fought the urge to gently shake some sense into her, the concerns he’d harbored since discovering the cache of jewels in the floor of Violet’s business only getting stronger and more forceful by the day. Violet was the practical one of the women who ran Elegance and Lace, and even with that pragmatism, she clearly had no idea what they were up against.
“Come on, Max. I’m serious. Lange’s in jail and Reed’s requested any and all updates on his case. The danger has passed.”
Max shrugged, his gaze drifting to where the object of their discussion stood. The good detective hovered over Lilah while his new fiancée hovered over her masterpiece of a wedding cake. “Reed’s stepfather has a lot of people in his pocket. People he’s paid good money for. What’s their incentive to start cooperating now?”
Graystone was a good man. A more than solid cop and, from what he’d seen of the man’s interactions with Lilah, as well as their broader group, an honorable soul who believed in the badge.
What did it do to a man to see those beliefs destroyed in a hard sweep of money and corruption?
He knew what it was like to have your faith in something destroyed. Your knees cut out from underneath you, even as you sank in a pool of quicksand.
Graystone would hold up, but he’d pay a price. Thankfully he had the love of a good woman—a woman he saw as his equal—to help see him through.
At the thought of having a woman, Max’s gaze swung back toward Violet.
Damn, but she was a looker. Every time he got within a mile of her, a strange sort of awareness settled itself at the base of his spine, drumming on his nerves with hard spikes. He wanted to chalk it up to simple attraction, nothing more. But as easy as that would be—and nothing about Violet Richardson was easy, in the biblical sense or otherwise—he knew it was something else.
Something fierce and needy that gripped a man in a hard fever and refused to let go.
Despite knowing her for well over a year, since they were first introduced at their local business owners’ meetings, and then getting to know her far better after the break-in at her shop, he still found the woman to be a mystery.
Her business partners were easygoing and friendly, and both had welcomed him into their social circle with open arms. Violet, on the other hand, had railroaded him at every opportunity. Her green eyes tempted, even as the cool set of her shoulders and that pure-as-vodka voice shut him down at every turn.
“You ever think about it?” he asked.
“About what?”
The change of topic added a hint of confusion to her question, but it also went a long way toward cooling the ire sparking at the suggestion she was naive.
He waved a hand toward the ballroom, filled to the brim with laughing people, drinking people, dancing people, many doing all three. “This. Getting hitched. Doing forever with someone.”
“No.”
“Because you don’t want to?”
“Because I’ve never even come close.”
He had figured her for having a swath of old boyfriends, several of whom had made it close to the fiancé stage, so the acknowledgment that she’d been no closer than he to taking a walk toward the altar was a surprise.
He brushed a finger down her cheek, the soft skin more tempting than anything he could have imagined, and he fought to keep his hand steady through the trembling that suddenly gripped him. “That’s a surprise.”
Her breath caught as she stared up at him, and he took it as the smallest sign of victory that she was affected. But when she spoke, it was pure Violet.
Brisk and practical.
“It shouldn’t be. I’m difficult on the best of days. Something you remind me of on a regular basis.”
“I’ve never said that.”
“You don’t have to.”
She stepped back, her eyes wide with awareness and the wariness of cornered prey. “I need to see to a few things.”
He moved into her space again, deliberately blocking her view of the ballroom. “It won’t stop running without you.”
“Let’s not wait to find out.”
He stood still for one moment longer, not sure why he was baiting her and even less sure why he’d chosen this moment. She did have a job to do and was smack in the middle of a major event.
Still, he pressed on.
“I’d like an answer to my question.”
“What question is that? Why I’m so naive or why I keep ignoring you?”
“Neither. I’d like to know what you have against this.” He flung a hand out in the direction of the merry revelers. “Forever.”
The green eyes that usually glittered at him like hard emeralds softened for the briefest moment as she shifted her gaze toward the ballroom. But it was the light, wistful whisper that gripped him by the throat and hung on. Hard.
“You know, Max, I try to be hopeful. But most days I just think happy-ever-afters are for suckers.”
* * *
Violet fought the shaking of her limbs as she strode across the ballroom. Damn Max Baldwin and his all-seeing blue eyes and his freaking questions that cut far too close.
Damn him.
A hard knot of tears thickened her throat, and she swallowed around it. She would not cry here. Goodness, what had happened to her? She was a professional. She owned a business and she was responsible for the event going on around her.
She could cry later.
On a hard breath, she gave herself a moment to collect her thoughts. She’d been doing it for years. Pressing down on the hurt and pain to ensure no one saw the wreck that lived inside. And she’d be damned if she showed that sorry face to the assembled crowd at the Kelley-Gardner nuptials. Over four hundred of Dallas’s elite and she was considering a breakdown.
No freaking way.
Instead, she’d use the anger and the frustration and just work that much harder. Max Baldwin didn’t know anything, and his leading questions were designed to throw her off guard.
“Violet!”
Kimberly Kelley, now Kimberly Gardner, bounced over to her on light feet. The silk creation that wrapped her tall, slender body was as traditional as it was modern. Another Cassidy Tate creation.
Her friend had managed to capture all the gravitas and elegance of a wedding while ensuring the bride still looked fully twenty-first century. Violet made a mental note to have the photographer snap some extra photos for their portfolio with the bride in motion.
“Kimberly. It’s a beautiful day.”
“It’s wonderful and amazing, just like you promised. Jordan and I truly can’t thank you and Cassidy and Lilah enough. It’s the perfect day.” Kimberly smiled as she took in the assembled crowd. “Perfect.”
Although