Addison Fox - Tempting Target

With that fresh in his thoughts, he gave her space, returning to the gaudy chair. He kept his gaze level, focused on hers. “Cassidy’s right. I can look it up. But I’d rather hear it from you.”

The convivial baker who kept things light and breezy with a smart mouth and airy confections was nowhere in evidence as Lilah seemed to sink into herself. Even the pink streak in her hair seemed duller somehow. As if the color were a mood ring to its owner.

Ignoring the inane observation, Reed kept his focus on Lilah.

“I was married to Steven for almost two years. We met when I went to work in one of his restaurants.”

Reed nodded, encouraging her to continue. He knew the name DeWinter, but until she said restaurants , he hadn’t made the connection with the popular local restaurateur who had risen to near-stratospheric heights in the past few years.

“He was temperamental and moody and an amazing creator. His star was on the rise then and I was hooked. All that temperamental moodiness focused on me. Directed toward me. It was amazing and passionate and fiery and I fell for all of it.”

Reed would confirm the timing later, but based on what he knew of the women’s ages, he assumed Lilah was no more than twenty-two or twenty-three when the relationship took place. And while he knew no one was immune to a heady dose of passion, it was especially alluring at that age.

“There’s nothing wrong with caring for someone.”

“No.” She shook her head, her eyes dark with memories and pain. “But there is something wrong when you make excuses for the bastard every time that passionate moodiness turns dark and twisted.”

“Lilah—” Cassidy reached for her friend as if to pull her close, but Lilah was already up and off the couch.

“It’s a story as old as time and I fell for it. Bright-eyed innocent in love with an older man.”

Before either of them could stop her, Lilah was already down the back hall toward the kitchen, hollering over her shoulder, “The rest is in a nice fat juicy file at the Dallas PD. I suggest you look it up.”

Reed watched her go before he turned to Cassidy. “I’m sorry to have to dig underneath all this. I know it’s a sensitive subject.”

The slim redhead hesitated and Reed gave her the space. He knew her reluctance for what it was—loyalty to a friend—and he only admired her more for it.

“Sensitive. And incredibly raw, despite the passage of time.”

“I take it you haven’t shared your connection theory with her before.”

“No.” Cassidy shook her head. “I didn’t even put it together until Tucker and I were talking last night. And if you weren’t here, I’d likely have waited to bring it up until Violet was back and we could tell Lilah together.”

“What connection do you think there is?”

She cocked her head, interest sparking in her gaze. “You’re a Dallas native, aren’t you?”

“A dubious honor, but yes.”

“Then you know, for all its size, Dallas is a small town. Social circles overlap other social circles and all that.”

Not if you hopped circles .

Reed thought about his own childhood. The friends and life of his youth had absolutely nothing to do with the social circle cultivated for him after his mother remarried.

Brushing off the stubborn old memories, he forced his attention onto the present. “From Lilah’s comments it sounds like she met DeWinter after she went to work. I’m not making the connection with your broader social life.”

“Steven knew my late brother-in-law, Charlie.”

Seeing as how the man was still lying in the morgue, an image of Charlie McCallum rose easily in his mind. “By all accounts, DeWinter was a rising star and your brother-in-law wasn’t. What was the connection?”

Cassidy’s smile was gentle, but her voice remained flat. “It’s amazing how often wastrel behavior is excused on youth. It was only after Charlie married Leah and he maintained his inability to keep a job that we began to figure it out.”

“I still don’t follow the connection to Lilah and DeWinter.”

Cassidy shrugged. “It’s just one of those odd social-circle connections. Leah had already met Charlie and they were dating. Lilah was just out of school, working for DeWinter and crazy in love. I hadn’t met Robert yet but had heard his name mentioned a few times. And then one Friday afternoon on a rare day off for all of us, we made the connection over margaritas in Uptown.”

Reed ignored the irrational spurt of irritation at the idea of Lilah crazy in love and focused on Cassidy instead. “DeWinter and Charlie were friends?”

“Very distant cousins, actually. They had been distant as kids and then started hanging out together as they got older.”

Reed sat back, the plush velvet of his chair sucking him in just like the damn twists and turns of this case.

Who were these women?

And how was he ever going to get to the bottom of what was happening to them if the sands kept shifting?

* * *

Lilah had no interest in her fondant leaves, and after ruining half a tray with her distracted thoughts, she finally wrapped what was left and vowed to work on them later.

Lazy.

Incompetent.

Unwilling to give the work your all.

She shoved the tray into the fridge as the words looped through her mind, whip quick, and delivered in the deep male voice of her nightmares.

Steven.

Her hands fumbled over the edge of a carton of eggs as she grabbed the box, then a large container of heavy whipping cream. Still trembling, she set both on the counter and slammed the fridge door closed with her hip.

This was her kitchen. Hers.

She fought to remember that as the battle with her memories increasingly took over.

His criticisms had started in a kitchen. His kitchen.

She’d been surprised at first, hurt even, but she knew he ran his restaurant with an iron fist and had already observed how he spoke to the rest of the staff and crew. She certainly shouldn’t be immune because they were sleeping together.

So she’d worked harder. Come in earlier. Tried more elaborate creations.

And when she’d won an award as one of Dallas’s premier up-and-coming pastry chefs, Steven had exploded instead of being excited for her. He lamented her suddenly large head instead of focusing on the increased prestige that drove even more patrons into his restaurant, all determined to add several expensive desserts to their already-sizable dinner checks.

Still, she’d soldiered on. Their wedding was only a month away and their nerves were all frayed. The daily grind of the restaurant, his distracted focus with the new location he was opening across town and, of course, the four-hundred-person guest list would take a toll on anyone.

But it was the hard slam into their Sub-Zero refrigerator in their gleaming dream of a kitchen three weeks after they got married that finally began to open her eyes to the man she’d bound her life to in marriage.

He’d apologized, of course. Had told her it was an accident and he’d slipped on the floor and fell into her and, besides, he was so tired. So worn-out. So full of the work and the stress of their new life together that she had to know he hadn’t meant it.

And she’d believed.

Lilah methodically cracked and measured egg yolk after egg yolk into her mixing bowl, their rich yellow breaking on contact with the hard, ceaseless paddles. Sugar followed, blending with the eggs and thickening the mixture into a thin paste.

Not only had she believed he’d changed, but she began to believe him when he told her a new crust she’d perfected wasn’t very good. And she’d trusted when he told her he was going to get some good press when he brought in a guest pastry chef for a few weeks to create a bit of buzz around the restaurant. And she’d blindly followed when he told her he wanted his wife by his side each night greeting his guests in his restaurants and not in the kitchen.