The Pretend Boyfriend novel Chapter 47

"You did not rape that woman." Her eyes are shining with some indefinable emotion. She squeezes his forearm hard. So hard that he can feel her grip on his bone.

"They think I did."

"We'll prove them wrong."

"How? The evidence seems to allude that I did it. It doesn't look good."

"I don't know right now," she declares, "but we'll find a way."

He hugs her to his chest.

"I'm not in the right mind to think about anything," he admits.

"You're tired. Get some sleep." She kisses his chest, and then she raises herself up to kiss his mouth.

A strange sensation suffuses his chest, spreading all the way around and about in fragments. He can't describe it, but it's as if his heart has decided to melt into a puddle which is now seeping everywhere else. His gut tightens. A choke enters his throat.

He hasn't felt this way with anyone in, like ... well ... forever.

He swallows and wills it to go away.

"How did it go with Henry Moody?" he says lightly.

"I called his PA today and I have an appointment with him Friday."

"Great." He means it.

"Thanks to you."

"I didn't do anything. He just happened to be there."

"And you just happened to suddenly be partial to opera. You're such a bad liar."

"I wish I was," he says pensively, and she falls silent.

It is early morning. Sam knows that she has to haul her ass to the office, and she doesn't have a clean change of clothes right now in Brian's penthouse. But she's glad she stayed. He needed her, as much as he doesn't want to admit it. She hates to see him like this - a pale shell of himself.

He's sleeping in his bed. After tossing and turning half the night, he finally drifted to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. She didn't wake him when she crept out of his arms.

Brian's clothes are strewn on the floor. No doubt the police have gone through that, she notes in chagrin. She picks them up - a grey wife beater and a pair of crumpled jeans. They didn't look torn. They look as if they have been slipped off deliberately. Brian said he didn't remember taking off his clothes before he blanked out.

Sam sinks onto her haunches, trying to piece together the scene. Such a struggle. Someone had to be hurt real bad.

Maybe it was time she paid Delilah a visit.

A movement at the door arrests her. There are shadows beneath the lower edge. Several newspapers are shoved into Brian's hallway. So he has his newspapers delivered this way in the morning.

Suspicion makes her climb to her feet to pick them up.

The headlines are about the elections. But on the front page of the Tribune, a news item immediately catches her eye.

'PROMINENT BUSINESSMAN, BRIAN MORTON, BROUGHT ME TO HIS PENTHOUSE AND RAPED ME,' CLAIMS VICTIM.

In it is a stock photo of Brian, probably taken some time ago at a businessman's luncheon. He is in a business suit - well-groomed, impossibly handsome, and smiling smugly into the camera.

Brian walks into his office sometime around ten. He has tried to dress up as immaculately as possible. His hair is neatly combed and he is every inch the cool CEO as he strides with his briefcase into the reception area.