Page 26 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

“ S o, are we good?” Luke asked her as they entered the already packed lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

Perhaps she was just tired of being mad at him—or maybe it was the way he’d whispered those words in her ear, sending shivers down her spine—but she no longer remembered what had irked her so much.

“We’re good,” she said. She was normally quite adept at talking things over and analyzing whatever had happened so the relationship could continue to thrive. But she was perfectly aware that what she and Luke needed at the moment weren’t more words.

“I think I know why you didn’t want to come to this thing,” Luke told her, his arm around her waist and his lips close to her ear, looking ahead of them. Her hair was gathered in a simple knot at her nape, and she could feel his breath and each one of his words on her exposed skin.

“I hate parties. Plus, I wanted to have an early evening to scour the internet in search of a hotel room for us,” Sol told him.

“That, and you probably didn’t want to see her.” Luke pointed to Claudia a few meters in front of them. But before Sol could make a sudden one-eighty-degree turn and avoid her, the editor was already walking in their direction.

“Sol Novo! I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Claudia said in her high-pitched voice.

“Well, I wasn’t planning on coming,” Sol told her in what she thought was probably an equally high-pitched tone, but she was feeling a bit nervous.

“You never got back to me about that job offer,” Claudia said, her tone only slightly reproachful, and she stared at Luke. “But, of course, in the end I guess you decided to leave me for such a gorgeous man.”

“Can you blame me?” Sol decided there was nothing else to be said. Not to Claudia, anyway.

“Luke, I know your case has been keeping you busy with new commissions. But we’re so absolutely devastated about Jason,” Claudia seemed compelled to say, even if she didn’t necessarily look devastated. “It’s completely heartbreaking. A terrible loss. And now that he’d finally found the courage.”

“The courage?” Sol asked, both because she was curious and because she knew Luke also wanted the answer to that question.

“To divorce her! It was no secret his marriage had been in shambles for years. Rumor around town,” Claudia said, lowering her voice and leaning closer to them, “was that he’d met someone else. You remember him from his days at Performance Weekly , right?”

“Barely,” Sol said, and it was true.

“He’s been a miserable grouch for years! Absolutely unhappy with her—and everybody else because of it. Very open about it too,” Claudia explained.

“Why didn’t they divorce before if the marriage was so troubled?” Sol genuinely couldn’t comprehend why someone would stay in a relationship that made them miserable.

“She’s loaded. He liked the money,” Claudia said.

“Ah.” Sol felt a bit na?ve for ever thinking that a senior editor’s salary could stretch to a house like Jason and Emily’s in Hancock Park.

“Ah indeed,” echoed Claudia. “But, sadly, I need to let you and Luke go momentarily. I see that Ryan Gosling just arrived, and I have to harass him so that he gives us an interview for the home page.”

“Good luck,” Sol told Claudia as the editor walked toward Ryan Gosling like a predator in search of dinner.

“She offered you the job again?” Luke asked Sol when they were alone.

“She basically told me the job was as good as mine,” Sol admitted.

“But I don’t want to work with her again.

And I don’t want to move here again.” A mere month before, she would have also added And the last thing I want is to live in a different neighborhood than you.

There’s no fucking way I’m going to live in a different country and one ocean away. But she didn’t.

She rationalized the decision not to tell him.

They were hardly in a private setting. Those were words better said alone and in confidence.

But not that deep down she knew that she was also starting to have too many doubts.

And all the chatter around her about divorce wasn’t helping her.

Remembering her last failed relationship wasn’t helping.

Luke’s attitude the last few days wasn’t helping.

So she hardly felt like exposing her feelings for him even further—especially when she didn’t really know if she truly had the energy for another Relationship with a capital R.

“Victor Lago is at the bar,” she suddenly told Luke as she got a glimpse of the director drinking alone.

And she felt vindicated in her decision not to have told Luke all that she was thinking.

They were there for a different purpose than having a heartfelt chat about the state of their partnership.

They made a fast approach in the direction of the bar, or as fast as humanly possible, considering Sol’s shoes and how packed the room was. “I’m going to make an introduction and be all nice with him so that he talks to you, but promise me you won’t leave my sight,” she said.

“Why would I leave your sight?” Luke then seemed to remember something she’d said. “What happened when you interviewed him?”

“He asked me where the magazine had been hiding me all this time, because he hadn’t seen me around before,” she explained. “And that was a pity.”

Luke stopped in the middle of the room and stared at her. He seemed to be grappling with what she’d told him, struggling to find the words to express whatever crossed his mind.

“Does that happen often? Do random blokes try making advances with you in a professional setting?”

“You’d be surprised,” Sol said. “But less and less since I turned forty, I guess. So I hope by the time I’m fifty, I’ll be completely transparent.”

“Not to me.” Her knees went weak at his words. “Is it possible I saw him checking you out during the party? I’ve never been one for violence, but do you want me to, I don’t know, punch him or something?” He sounded serious.

“Gods no! That would solve nothing, and we still need to talk to him about his possible involvement in the case. But would you just keep me very close to you the whole time you talk to him?”

“Gladly,” he said, and he tightened his grip on her waist .

“Victor, how are you doing?” Sol asked the director when both she and Luke stood in front of the filmmaker.

“Marvelous!” the director said, a glass of an amber-colored beverage in his hand as he directed his gaze to Sol. “So good to see you!”

It all happened in slow motion then. Victor Lago, who Luke would have said was quite drunk, recognized Sol.

He probably couldn’t remember her name, but he appraised her figure with a mixture of letch and amusement in his eyes.

Victor made a move toward her, his free arm extended in what looked like an attempt at a hug.

Sol’s expression shifted to horror. She recoiled, attempting to take a step back, only to stumble into someone else standing at the bar.

That’s when Luke cut in. He threw his body between Sol and Victor, extending his hand to the director in a firm handshake.

“And you probably remember me as well,” Luke told a somewhat-puzzled Victor.

“Uh,” Victor replied.

“This is my partner, Luke,” Sol told Victor, sheltering behind Luke’s body and peeking only part of her head around him. “I don’t know if you remember him from the awards ceremony.”

“Not really ...” said Victor, as if he was now realizing Sol hadn’t been alone at the party the other night.

“I was hoping to have a chat with you,” Luke told the director.

“I see. You’re a fan of my work, are you?” Victor’s whole face lit up.

How do you politely tell someone that you haven’t seen a single one of their movies and don’t feel like it because your partner fell asleep watching their last film? But also, why did Luke have to be polite with Victor after what he’d told Sol ?

“Not really,” Luke said. “I’m investigating the disappearance of Simon Smith, the poisoning of Travis Wise, and the death of Jason Zit.”

“Good for you, I guess!” Victor said. Why did his accent sound different all of a sudden? It was now giving less artificial British notes, more broad New Yorker. “But I have no clue who any of those people are.”

“Two of them were seated with all of us during the awards the other night,” Luke said, and he could smell the lie in Victor’s words.

“Look, mate, I don’t recall you and pretty much anyone else from the other night.

The only one I remember seated at my table is her,” Victor said, directing his gaze toward Sol in an admiring way.

Luke had to restrain himself from growling at the director.

Victor Lago had managed to awaken his most basic, primal side, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He still drew Sol closer to him.

“You don’t recall the person who was taken from the table on a stretcher?

” Luke asked. He knew such a direct approach tended not to yield good results.

Especially since Victor Lago seemed to be the only person in Los Angeles immune to Luke’s accent and his charms. But the filmmaker was grating him the wrong way.

And he wanted him to stop looking at Sol. He also knew Victor was lying.

“That’s one of the chaps you’re investigating? I thought he had a heart attack!” Victor said, and why did he have to keep using British slang?

“He was poisoned,” intervened Sol. “I told you about it when I interviewed you a few days ago.”

“Food poisoning?” Victor kept playing confused.

“Cyanide,” said Luke, and he watched Victor’s reaction. First there was the processing of the information, then the understanding of what had been said, and finally .. .

“What, you think I’m the one who put the cyanide in his food?” Victor’s accent sounded once again New Yorker.

“What makes you think such a thing?” Luke feigned ignorance. “I was just wondering if you saw something unusual during the party or someone getting close to Travis’s food.”

“As I’ve already mentioned, I don’t recall much from that night.”