Page 33 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

E ven after fifty-five minutes of sweat, pain, and strength training, Sol was still furious with Luke. And she was furious at herself for giving him so much headspace. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to her appointment in Santa Monica.

“You sure about this?” Lola asked her for the umpteenth time.

“I made you drive me all the way here. You bet I’m sure,” Sol told her friend.

“I wouldn’t mind if you changed your mind. We could go grab something sweet at Sidecar Donuts and have a chat about that eviction you forced at my place in the early morning,” Lola said.

“Luke had been a total ass,” Sol said defensively.

“I’m on your side, remember?” Lola said. “I’m just curious how you got mad at your perfectly supportive—and, let’s not forget, extremely pretty—boyfriend and decided he needed to leave my house. But you’re about to meet someone who we know for a fact is the total villain in this story.”

“I hate it when you make so much sense,” Sol said as the car approached the Palisades Park overlooking the Pacific Ocean in front of the Santa Monica Pier and as she recognized the person she was meeting. “Can you drop me off here, he’s already waiting. I’ll call you once I’m done, okay?”

“Okay. Don’t forget to share your Uber ride link with me. And call me and tell me what happened!”

“Of course,” Sol said, and she kissed her friend on the cheeks before getting out of the car.

As she saw Lola’s car merging into traffic and getting farther away, her heart shrank. She felt a deep apprehension for what was coming ahead. She still knew she needed to do it.

She eyed the man she was meeting a few meters ahead. He was dressed in a tailored navy suit, and his dark-blond locks were perfectly styled. For the first time in almost four years, she surprised herself by having one thought: He was so good-looking. No wonder she’d married him.

“Ah you came. I thought you would stand me up,” the man told Sol in a reproachful tone, and it was as if she was hit by a cascade of ice water. And that was it. She no longer saw any kind of attractiveness or felt any appeal. No wonder she’d divorced him.

“Nice to see you too, David,” she answered, a smile plastered on her face.

“Is it really? Nice, I mean? I thought you hated my guts.”

Sol had already been dreading the meeting even before getting there, but she now felt vindicated in her reluctance. It was going to be hell.

“You see, that was part of the problem. You’re incapable of even trying to appear mildly agreeable for the sake of peacefully co-living with someone else,” Sol said.

“We’re no longer co-living, in case you had forgotten,” David told her.

She breathed deeply to appease her nerves and exasperation. There was no way she was going to make him understand anything. She hadn’t achieved it during the ten years they’d been together. One conversation years after the worst divorce in the history of separations surely would not accomplish it.

“Actually, I don’t understand how you could have forgotten about us no longer co-living. Aren’t you screwing some British bimbo now?”

“Respectfully, none of your fucking business,” Sol said. A smile was still on her lips even if her eyes were now murderous.

“No, no, no, no, ma’am. You made it my business when you gave your fucktoy my phone number, which I thought you had lost because you never answer my calls or texts!”

“Luke is not my fucktoy, he’s my partner,” Sol said, seething.

And, of course, David knew she hated being called ma’am and did it anyway.

“He needed help while investigating a case, and I na?vely thought you could assist him. I know it was a mistake. Your buddy Detective Tom Owens has been giving him the cold shoulder. I hope you’re happy. ”

“I couldn’t care less,” David told her, and she believed him. It would have been easier to understand him if he’d been just jealous, but then again, David had never aimed for ease.

“What do you want, David?” she said, no longer smiling and in a tone that had sounded a bit hostile. But the idea of meeting had been his, and she wanted to know his purpose. Also, she needed that rendezvous to be over. The sooner the better.

“The gloves are finally off. Happy to be with the real Sol. You know I never like it when you filter yourself.”

It had been amply discussed between Sol and her closest friends that one of the things that had precipitated her toward divorce had been discovering David’s tendency toward doing everything in his power to enrage her and then trying to spend as much time as possible with unfiltered, bitchy Sol.

It was exhausting. So she breathed deeply again, reminded herself that he wanted to see her being mean, and made herself smile.

“The gloves are back on. I agreed to a fifteen-minute conversation, and the clock is ticking. Perhaps we could take a beautiful stroll along the park while we watch the views and you tell me what’s on your mind,” she said, and she didn’t even know where that pleasant, fake persona had come from.

But the important part was that she knew it did nothing for David.

He got off on pissy Sol, not pleasant Sol.

After a few minutes of silent walking where Sol could guess all of David’s frustration, he finally said, “You left me without giving me a second chance. I would have tried to make it up to you, but you decided it was over and left.”

For the first time since she could remember, her second ex-husband, whom she had learned to despise, seemed not only inclined to have a civilized conversation about the reasons for their divorce, he even had said something that wasn’t plain odious.

“I know I made a mistake,” David continued, referring to the fact that when they were still married, he’d made Sol believe he’d had an affair with a younger woman with the misguided intention of rekindling their romance. “I wasn’t cheating. ”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

“I had stopped loving you,” Sol said.

“I hadn’t,” he told her.

She was tempted to tell him that one of the parties still being interested wasn’t reason enough to continue a marriage.

She opted for something a bit more constructive in that situation: “Why don’t we put aside all the bad moments and the bitterness and focus on the good moments we had?

Because there were some great moments, remember? ”

“There were,” David admitted, and for an instant Sol thought that perhaps she’d been too harsh in judging her second ex-husband, and she felt guilty about it.

Until he proved her right in her harshness and talked again.

“So, is this how things work with ex-husband Number One? I know you’re still all lovey dovey with Miquel. I wonder how the fucktoy takes that.”

“David, you’re exasperating!”

“Thank you, darling. I’m happy to see I can still elicit something in you.”

“Can we at least try and be civil?” she asked, not ready to be riled so easily. “We spent a decade together, and I hate having to pretend it never happened just because I can’t cope with how things ended. I think that’s why you asked to see me today.”

David seemed ready to reply with one of his sharp retorts.

“Don’t,” she told him, before David could say anything. “Just think about it. Let me know when you decide. I promise to unblock your number and answer the phone. But David,” she warned, “unless you show some maturity and give me an acceptable answer, I’m blocking you right back. For good.”

And with that, she left him standing in the middle of the park and walked away.

When Luke had first met Sol , he’d been assigned to a case where she’d been one of the suspects. He’d surveilled her for weeks without her knowledge. He’d fallen for her then. But he’d also felt like a total creep, stalking a woman who had no idea she was being watched and following her every move.

He was at present reliving all the dread from those days.

By the time he’d driven back from Divya’s hotel—while being interviewed by one of Claudia’s journalists—he hadn’t found Sol at Lola’s place.

The house had been empty. He’d called his colleague, who, after a bit of haggling on his part and his insistence that Sol could still be in a somewhat dangerous position, had finally disclosed Sol’s whereabouts to him.

When he finally got to Santa Monica, he was ready to approach Sol on the streets of the busy coastal city and intone the wise words Divya had ordered him to say.

I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. I won’t pretend to tell you what you have to do ever again, he kept repeating to himself in his mind like some sort of mantra.

He saw Sol getting out of Lola’s car and was walking fast in her direction when he realized she was meeting someone else there.

Sol’s appointment in Santa Monica was actually a chat with David.

Luke recognized the ex from some pictures she’d reluctantly shown him, and he crumbled under the discovery .

He stopped in his tracks and watched Sol from a distance while she had what looked like an extremely pleasant conversation with the man who’d been married to her.

Could Luke have fucked things so gloriously with her that she was thinking about getting back with David?

Was that why she’d been acting so distant since they had landed in Los Angeles?

Was she garnering second thoughts and realizing she made a mistake when she left California—and David?

And then she made another mistake when she started shagging Luke?

Of course not.

But why was he having all those absurd feelings? Since when was he insecure in his relationship with Sol? Since they’d landed in that bloody city, that’s when. And why did Sol look so utterly pleased and enchanted with the ex? It was as if she couldn’t stop smiling!

He got several texts from Alex then and was glad for the distraction. Anything would be preferable to watching Sol be delighted in the company of her ex-husband.

Alex Martín

sending a ton of screengrabs from the house sec cams

that’s def the dude who left Sol’s note yday

Luke opened the pixelated pictures Alex had sent with the texts and saw what looked to be a person of medium build and height, dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses and a cap.

It was hard to see any distinguishable features or traits, but it was the person who’d left Sol the note urging her to read Simon Smith’s manuscript.

They could be seen delivering the note to the house in one of the images, slipping it into the mail slot by the front door.

A couple more messages from Alex arrived then.

Alex Martín

same dude popped up in the footage tday

this is 10 mins b4 Sol left with my mom

Luke opened that last picture nervously and recognized the same person from the previous screengrabs.

“Fuck!” he muttered and started walking in Sol’s direction.

He didn’t care if he was going to interrupt a cozy chat with the ex; he needed to make sure Sol was safe.

But in his haste to reach her, Luke hadn’t realized she was no longer standing in the same spot she’d been for a while and had already left David and started walking decisively in Luke’s direction. It was only after she was almost on top of Luke that he grasped she’d been walking toward him.

“I’m so sorry,” a distracted Sol, who was checking her cell phone, said when she almost crashed into Luke. It was as if an invisible thread had pulled them together, like the two opposing poles of a magnet. She then lifted her eyes from her device and recognized him. “What are you doing here?”

Before she could say anything else or realize that he had been following her, he blurted out, “I love you.”

Sol stopped in her tracks and remained immobile in the middle of the street, her eyes wide open, her mouth agape.

“The only reason I haven’t told you before is because I’m an idiot.

I’m sorry,” Luke continued, taking advantage of her being totally stunned.

“I’m also sorry for pretending I had any right in telling you what to do yesterday.

I just want to make sure you’ll be fine.

I’m terrified at the idea of something happening to you . .. because I love you.”

After what felt like an eternity in which Sol remained immobile, looking him in the eyes, her lips still parted in astonishment, Luke said, “Sol, I need you to tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’ve been trying to say those words to you for weeks,” she told him, her eyes not moving one millimeter from where they were pinning his.

“What words?” he asked, even if he knew the answer.

“I love you.”

“Why didn’t you?” he said, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Because I’m the idiot here. Because I’ve been hurt too many times. Because I didn’t want to say those words ever again and then have to take them back.”

“Let’s make sure we don’t ever have to take them back then,” he said, and he could see the emotion in her when she heard him.

“I’ve just had a somewhat unpleasant conversation with the most obnoxious of all my exes, and I really never want to have a chat like that with you,” she told him. If it wasn’t because he’d never seen her crying, he’d say her eyes were welling up. “Ever.”

“We won’t.” And that was a promise. “But as happy as I am about this turning point in our relationship, we need to leave.”

“What do you mean, we need to leave? I thought you were gonna kiss me and sweep me off my feet!” she complained.

Luke couldn’t contemplate that possibility for even a second as he was receiving a new message from Alex that he didn’t want to ignore.

“Are you seriously checking your phone now ?” If a second ago, she’d told him that she loved him, she sounded like garnering completely opposite feelings at present.

“Please, let’s not row five seconds after we’ve said I love you,” he told her, his eyes still on his cell phone. He grabbed her arm to start moving. “I promise to kiss you and be my most deviously charming self soon. But we need to move.”

“What is going on?” she protested as they both walked at a brisk pace.

“Is there any other friend whose generosity we could abuse?” Luke asked. “I think it’s better if we don’t go back to Lola’s home.”

Sol looked at him intently for a few seconds. Then she grabbed her phone and made a call.

“I know exactly where we’re going. Forget that it’s going to be a fortune. I should have tried moving us there days ago!”