Grand Passion

point.”
    “Damn it to hell.” Max pinned Cleo with a fierce look. “Is that what's made you so prickly this morning? The fact that I haven't formally asked you to marry me?”
    Cleo did not deign to answer that. She gave O'Reilly a bland smile. “Ignore him. He's got an attitude problem today.”
    “Max always has an attitude,” O'Reilly said. “Can't you tell by the way he dresses?”

    A short while later, fortified with several cookies and a cup of coffee, O'Reilly glanced down at his notebook. He leaned back in the fanback wicker chair and contemplated Max and Cleo, who were seated across from him in the solarium.
    “The bottom line here is that there aren't any obvious suspects. As far as you know, you don't have any enemies. No one's got a grudge against you?”
    Cleo shuddered. O'Reilly seemed nice enough, but she was still having qualms about getting a private investigator involved in the situation. “Not that I know of. I haven't had any run-ins with anyone, unless you count Tobias Quinton.”
    “Who's Tobias Quinton?”
    Max shifted slightly. “Forget him. He's not a factor in this.”
    O'Reilly gave him a level look. “You're sure?”
    “I'm sure. Just a slightly disgruntled inn guest. Stayed one night and left the next morning,” Max explained.
    O'Reilly turned back to Cleo. “Pardon the personal questions, but I need to know the answers. Any possibility you've got an ex-boyfriend who might have become a little too possessive? Especially now that Max is in the picture? Max sometimes makes enemies, I'm sorry to say.”
    “I wasn't in the picture when the incidents started,” Max pointed out. “Nolan Hildebrand was. But he and Cleo had nothing more than a casual dating relationship.”
    O'Reilly peered at him from beneath bushy brows. “You're positive about that?”
    “He wasn't sleeping with her, if that's what you want to know,” Max said coolly. “And before you ask, the answer is, yes, I'm sure of that.”
    “ Max .” Cleo felt herself turn bright red. “I can answer Mr. O'Reilly's questions on my own.” She gave O'Reilly an embarrassed smile. “Nolan and I really were just friends, although I have reason to believe that he might have been thinking of marriage.”
    “That sounds as if things were more than just friendly between the two of you,” O'Reilly said quietly.
    “Well, I never actually knew for certain that he had marriage in mind,” Cleo said, feeling unaccountably reckless, “because he never actually asked me, you see. He had been making certain assumptions , apparently. Just like someone else I could name.”
    “Cleo.” Max's voice was laced with dark warning.
    “The first I knew of Nolan's plans,” Cleo continued, “was when he sort of casually tossed the concept of marriage at me one morning when he was under a lot of stress.” She glared at Max. “Men tend to do that a lot around me, too.”
    “Ignore her, O'Reilly,” Max advised. “She's in a bad mood today for some reason.”
    “Uh-huh.” O'Reilly looked at Cleo. “Maybe we ought to talk a little more about Nolan Hildebrand.”
    Cleo shrugged. “As I told you, there isn't much to talk about. He was very upset when he found out I'd written The Mirror , but only because he felt that it disqualified me from being the wife of a future senator.”
    “He wasn't weird about it, then?” O'Reilly asked. “He didn't act like he had been assigned some holy mission to rid the world of people who write sexy books?”
    Cleo blushed again, but she kept her voice cool. “No, just annoyed at having wasted time dating me. Trust me, the only thing Nolan is obsessed with is launching his political career.”
    “What about this Adrian Forrester you mentioned?” O'Reilly asked.
    Cleo wrinkled her nose. “Forget Adrian. My relationship with him was even more casual than the one I had with Nolan.”
    O'Reilly smiled briefly. “Okay. That will do it for now. Once I've had a chance to talk to your staff and take a look around Harmony Cove, I'll probably have more questions, but I've got a few other angles to check first.”
    Cleo, weary from the long, intensive session, straightened in alarm. “Wait, what do you mean? You can't run around Harmony Cove asking questions about me and my book.”
    “Why not?” O'Reilly asked.
    “Because no one here knows I wrote it,” Cleo said impatiently. “I told you I did it under a pen name. Only the family knows I'm the author.”
    “That's not true, Cleo,” Max