Fatal Series 01 - Fatal Affair

had, how I’d never had that before with anyone else. I thought he was my friend.” She took a deep, rattling breath to stave off the pain circling in her gut. “He’d remember that. He’d know you were important, a real threat. The first real threat since he and I broke up.”
    “He’d be jealous enough to want to kill us both?”
    “Destiny Johnson handed him the perfect opportunity with her tirade in the paper yesterday,” Sam said as the whole thing clicked into focus with such startling clarity she wondered how she could’ve missed it. “If it had worked, the cops would naturally blame her or her friends. No one would’ve thought to look at him. It was so easy. He wouldn’t have been able to resist.” The pain gnawed at her insides, making her sick and weak.
    “Would he know how to build a bomb?”
    “You can get how-to instructions for just about anything on the Internet these days.” She winced at the claws stabbing her gut. “Higgins said the EDs were crude. I guess we were lucky Peter screwed it up.”
    “You’re in pain.”
    “Just need to breathe,” she panted.
    He loosened his hold on her. “What can I do? You’re scaring me, Sam.”
    Clutching her midsection, she looked up at him. “I’ve dragged you into a nightmare.”
    “I’m exactly where I want to be—where I’ve wanted to be since the night I met you. And if I get my hands on that ex-husband of yours before you do, I’ll be sure to let him know that he might’ve sent us on a long detour but we found our way back to each other.” He kissed her, gently at first and then with more passion when she responded in kind. “Despite him, we found our way back, and nothing’s going to get in our way this time. Nothing and no one.”
    “Especially not a couple of bombs,” she said with a weak smile.
    “That’s right.” He returned her smile. “How’s the belly?”
    “Better,” she said, surprised to realize it was true.
    “We’re going to do something about that. As soon as this case is closed, you’re going to see my doctor friend Harry.”
    “You and what army will be taking me?”
    “You’ll find out if you don’t go on your own.”
    Her heart hammered in her chest as she studied him. “There’re things…about me…that I need to tell you, stuff you should know before you decide anything.”
    Cradling her face in his hands, he looked down at her with his heart in his eyes. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me not want to be with you. Nothing.”
    “You don’t know that—”
    His mouth came down hard on hers, stealing the words, the thoughts, the air and every ounce of reason. When he had kissed her into submission, he said, “I do know that.”
    “But—”
    “I love you, Samantha. I’ve loved you from the first instant I ever saw you across a crowded deck at that party and for all the years since. Having you back in my life is the single best thing that’s ever happened to me. So there’s nothing, nothing at all, you could tell me that would change my mind about you or what I want from you.”
    Sam rarely found herself speechless, but as she looked up at his beautiful, earnest face—the face she had dreamed about during her miserable marriage—she simply couldn’t find the words.
    Without breaking the intense eye contact between them, he brushed his lips over hers in a kiss so sweet and undemanding that her knees went weak.
    “Later,” he said. “We’ll have all the time in the world. I promise.”

Chapter 27
    They borrowed Celia’s car to go to Arlington. After an upsetting day, the neighborhood had returned to tranquility, and the media had thankfully moved on to the next story. At Nick’s house, the windows had been repaired, but broken glass crunched under their feet in the foyer and upstairs in his bedroom. “I’ll still be cleaning up glass a year from now,” he joked, attempting to make light of it since he could feel the distress radiating from her.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t go there, Samantha.” He threw jeans, sweaters, underwear, T-shirts and socks into a large duffel bag. With the funeral scheduled for Monday, he packed a dark suit, dress shirt and tie into a garment bag and tossed a pair of wingtips into the duffel. In the bathroom, he grabbed what he needed as fast he could, not wanting her to be there any longer than necessary after what happened earlier.
    He’d told her he loved her. Just blurted it out because he thought she needed to