Free In Death 02 - Glory in Death by authors_sort

she wanted it.
    Pushing away from the monitor, he paced to the window. He wasn't used to this struggle, this war to balance his needs with someone else's. He'd grown up thinking of himself first and last. He'd had to, in order to survive and then to succeed. One was every bit as important to him as the other.
    The habit was difficult to break -- or had been, until Eve.
    It was humiliating to admit, even to himself, that every time he went away to see to business, a seed of fear rooted in his heart that she would have shaken herself loose of him by the time he returned.
    The simple fact was, he needed the one thing she had refused him. A commitment.
    Turning from the window, he went back to the monitor and forced himself to read.
    "Good morning," Eve said from the doorway. Her smile was quick and bright, as much from the pleasure of seeing him as from the fact that her trip to Armageddon didn't have the consequences she'd feared. She felt terrific.
    "Your bagels are stale."
    "Mmm." She tested by trying a bite of the one on the table. "You're right." Coffee was always a better bet. "Anything in the news I should worry about?"
    "Are you concerned with the Treegro takeover?"
    Eve knuckled one eye as she sipped her first cup of coffee. "What's Treegro and who's taking it over?"
    "Treegro's a reforestry company, hence the overly adorable name. I'm taking it over."
    She grunted. "Figures. I was thinking more of the Towers case."
    "Cicely's memorial service is scheduled for tomorrow. She was important enough, and Catholic enough, to warrant St. Patrick's Cathedral."
    "Will you go?"
    "If I can reschedule a few appointments. Will you?"
    "Yeah." Thinking, Eve leaned back on the counter. "Maybe her killer will be there."
    She studied him as he scanned the monitor. He should have looked out of place in her kitchen, she mused, in his expensive, meticulously tailored linen shirt and with the luxurious mane of hair swept back from that remarkable face.
    She kept waiting for him to look out of place there, with her.
    "Problem?" he murmured, well aware that she was staring at him.
    "No. Things on my mind. How well do you know Angelini?"
    "Marco?" Roarke frowned over something he saw on the monitor, took out his notebook, entered a memo. "Our paths cross often enough. Normally a careful businessman, always a devoted father. Prefers spending his time in Italy, but his power base is here in New York. Contributes generously to the Catholic Church."
    "He stands to gain financially from Towers's death. Maybe it's just a drop in the bucket, but Feeney's checking it out."
    "You could have asked me," Roarke murmured. "I would have told you Marco's in trouble. Not desperate trouble," he amended when Eve's eyes sharpened. "He's made some ill-advised acquisitions over the past year or so."
    "You said he was careful."
    "I said he was normally careful. He bought several religious artifacts without having them thoroughly authenticated. His zeal got in the way of his business sense. They were forgeries, and he's taken a hard loss."
    "How hard?"
    "In excess of three million. I can get you exact figures, if necessary. He'll recover," Roarke added with a shrug for three million dollars Eve knew she would never get used to. "He needs to focus and downsize a bit here and there. I'd say his pride was hurt more than his portfolio."
    "How much was Towers's share of Mercury worth?"
    "On today's market?" He took out his pocket diary, jiggled some numbers. "Somewhere between five and seven."
    "Million?"
    "Yes," Roarke said with the faintest hint of a smile. "Of course."
    "Good Christ. No wonder she could live like a queen."
    "Marco made very good investments for her. He would have wanted the mother of his children to live comfortably."
    "You and I have dramatically different ideas about comfort."
    "Apparently." Roarke tucked the diary away and rose to refill his coffee and hers. An airbus rumbled by the window, chased by a fleet of private shuttles. "You suspect that