In Death 02 - Glory in Death

because there's no need for it to be otherwise. It runs well, makes an acceptable profit. And though you might think I'm arrogant enough to engage in criminal acts with a prosecuting attorney on my board of directors, you should know I'm not stupid enough to do so."
    Because she believed him, the tightness that she'd carried in her chest for hours broke apart. "All right. There'll still be questions," she told him. "And the media has already made the connection."
    "I know. I'm sorry for it. How difficult are they making it for you?"
    "They haven't even started." In one of her rare shows of easy affection, she reached for his hand, squeezed it. "I'm sorry, too. Looks like we're in another one."
    "I can help." He slid forward so that he could bring their joined hands to his lips. When she smiled, he knew she was, finally, ready to relax. "It isn't necessary for you to keep me out of anything. I can handle that myself. And there's no need to feel guilty or uncomfortable for considering that I could be useful to you in the investigation."
    "I'll let you know when I figure out how you might be." This time she only arched her brows when his free hand snaked up her thigh. "If you try to pull that off in here, we're going to need diving equipment."
    He levered himself to her, over her, so that water sloshed dangerously at the lip of the ledge. "Oh, I think we can manage just fine on our own."
    And he covered her grinning mouth with his to prove it.
    Late in the night when she slept beside him, Roarke lay awake watching the stars whirl through the sky window over the bed. Worry he hadn't let her see was in his eyes now. Their fates had intertwined, personally, professionally. It was murder that had brought them together, and murder that would continue to poke fingers into their lives. The woman beside him defended the dead.
    As Cicely Towers had often done, he thought, and wondered if that representation is what had cost her her own life.
    He made it a point not to worry too much or too often about how Eve made her living. Her career defined her. He was very much aware of that.
    Both of them had made themselves -- remade themselves -- from the little or nothing they had been. He was a man who bought and sold, who controlled, and who enjoyed the power of it. And the profit.
    But it occurred to him that there were pockets of his business that would cause her trouble, if the shadows came to light. It was perfectly true that Mercury was clean, but it hadn't always been true. He had other holdings, other interests that dealt in the gray areas. He had grown up in the darker portions of those gray areas, after all. He had a knack for them.
    Smuggling, both terrestrial and interstellar, was a profitable and entertaining business. The truly excellent wines of Taurus Five, the stunning blue diamonds mined in the caves of Refini, the precious transparent porcelain manufactured in the Arts Colony of Mars.
    True, he no longer had to bypass the law to live, and live well. But old habits die hard.
    The problem remained: What if he hadn't yet converted Mercury into a legitimate operation? What he saw as a harmless business diversion would have weighed on Eve like a stone.
    Added to that was the humbling fact that despite what they had begun to build together, she was far from sure of him.
    She murmured something, shifted. Even in sleep, he mused, she hesitated before turning to him. He was having a very difficult time with that. Changes were going to be necessary, soon, for both of them.
    For the moment, he would deal with what he could control. It would be very simple for him to make a few calls and ask a few questions relating to Cicely Towers. It would be less simple and take a bit more time to convert all of those gray areas of his concerns into the light.
    He looked down to study her. She was sleeping well, her hand open and relaxed on the pillow. He knew sometimes she dreamed, badly. But tonight her mind was quiet. Trusting it would remain so, he slipped out of bed to begin.
    Eve woke to the fragrance of coffee. Genuine, rich coffee ground from beans cultivated on Roarke's plantation in South America. The luxury of that was, Eve could admit, one of the first things she'd grown accustomed to, indeed come to depend on, when it came to staying at Roarke's.
    Her lips were curved before her eyes opened.
    "Christ, heaven couldn't be better than this."
    "I'm glad you think so."
    Her eyes might have still been bleary, but she managed to focus