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She closed her eyes and rubbed wet hands over her face It wasget answers that will help to keep you as far out of it as I can because I do care And I can’t stop trying to think of ways I can use you because of your connection with Towers And your connections, period It’s hard for me to do both”
“It shouldn’t have been so hard to simply say it,” he itimate—now—because there’s no need for it to be otherwise It runs well, ht think I’e in cri attorney on h to do so”
Because she believed hihtness 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’ 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 keepI can handle that uilty or unco that I could be useful to you in the investigation”
“I’ll let you knohen I figure out how you ht be” This time she only arched her brohen 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 hierously at the lip of the ledge “Oh, I think we can e just fine on our own”
And he covered her grinning mouth with his to prove it
Late in the night when she slept beside hih the skyover the bed Worry he hadn’t let her see was in his eyes now Their fates had intertwined, personally, professionally It was ether, and ers 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 tooHer career defined her He was very much aware of that
Both of them hadthey had been He was a ht 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 caht 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
S, 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