They’d stopped in front of the deli. Logan sighed, his brows drawing together. “But, with the band apart, it’s hard to know what will happen with the music. Or anything else, for that matter.”
The deli was full of New Yorkers eating lunch. Melody grabbed a table and Logan went to the counter to get their lunch. She pulled the envelope of photos out of her purse, studying the images while she waited.
“Are those the photos Ashton took?” Logan set their lunch on the table.
“Yes. I wanted you to see them.” She handed him the stack of pictures while she bit into her sandwich. He slowly looked through the stack, frowning at some, smiling when he came to the photo of him and Melody. He tapped the photo with his finger.
“Aye. I remember that kiss. You almost inhaled me.”
“Do you notice anything different about that photo? Something that makes it different from the rest? Aside from me being in the picture?”
Logan set the photo of Melody in front of him, looking through the rest of the group again. He pulled out one, setting the remainder aside.
“I’ve seen enough paparazzi photos over time. This one…” He pointed to the photo of him eating dinner with another woman. “This was taken with a telephoto lens. It’s in Paris. It’s from outside the restaurant, through the front window, maybe from across the street.” Logan pointed to the photo of them together.
“This one, of us, wasn’t taken with a telephoto lens and it wasn’t taken from outside. Someone was close to us, probably sitting at the bar. And they didn’t have a camera. Might have used a cellphone.”
Logan looked up from the photos. “I’d say this one wasn’t taken by whoever took the rest. These were taken by professionals but the one of us was taken by an amateur.”
She gathered the photos, sliding them back into the envelope. “That’s what I thought too. I think Ryan took it. I think his obsession for me goes back further than I realized.”
“Are you going to do anything with this?”
She shook her head. “No. They don’t even pertain to your case. I think Ryan did get them from Ashton, for whatever reason, and then planted the one of us, as part of his plan to discredit me.”
They finished lunch and Melody thought the walk back to her building was all too brief. She wanted to keep walking with Logan, enjoying the sunshine, being out with him. Free of all the worries that plagued them, at least for the moment.
“This was nice, Logan. Thank you. It’s been so long since I’ve been out to lunch and being with you was even better.”
Logan planted a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’m thinking less is more as far as kissing in public.”
Melody shrugged. “I guess so. But…” She stood on tiptoe, reaching up to kiss Logan on the lips.
He was laughing when she pulled away. “You’re a brave girl, Melody. Ye never know who might be watching.”
She left him at the curb, getting into a cab. She watched it merge with traffic before she turned to enter the lobby. Her lips tingled from the kiss and her mind drifted back over the previous night, reliving certain moments, fragments of conversation coming back to her. Talk of castles and horses and being his princess. His queen.
In the elevator, she let herself get lost in the daydream. As the doors opened on her floor, she let out a sigh. Imagining herself living with Logan MacKenzie, in Scotland, in a castle…it all seemed too unreal. But reality intruded and she wondered with a start exactly where her law practice would fit into all of this, into any life she had with Logan.
She caught herself sighing again, shook her head and walked toward her office. Victoria was apparently still at lunch, her desk empty. Melody frowned. There was still the issue of Victoria’s remarks from the other day and Melody chided herself for not remembering to talk to Joe Hunter about Victoria’s inappropriate comments.
Tossing the photos and her purse on her desk, Melody stood by the window, looking down on New York traffic. Despite her resolve, her mind went back to Logan and thoughts of Scotland. I’m obsessed with this today. But just for a few more minutes…
A sound behind her made her turn. Victoria was standing at her desk, clutching the envelope of photos in her hand.
“You took these out of his file, out of the office.” Victoria slowly pulled the photos out of the envelope. She ran her fingers over the glossy photos, her eyes riveted on the pictures.
“Yes. I’m not sure why that’s your concern though.” She walked behind her desk. “You can leave them here, I have the case…”
“You’re in this photo.” Victoria was shuffling through the photos frantically now and she pulled out the one with Melody and Logan.
“And again, I don’t think that’s any of your concern.” Melody reached for the photos. “If you don’t mind…”
“I do mind.” Victoria’s eyes met Melody’s and Melody took a step back. “You’re kissing him. No one kisses him. No one but me.”
Victoria’s face had grown flushed, her mouth set in a hard, thin line, her voice cold. Melody wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but the woman suddenly scared her, deeply. She reached for the desk phone, but Victoria grabbed it out of her hand, throwing it to the floor.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Melody tried to walk around the end of her desk to the door, but Victoria blocked her way.
“What am I doing? Something I should have done a long time ago.”
Victoria picked up the sterling silver letter opener from the corner of Melody’s desk. “I should have stopped you, long before now. As soon as I saw this.”
Melody froze, slowly inching her way back behind her desk in an effort to keep the massive piece of furniture between her and Victoria.
“Stopped me from what?”
“This…” Victoria threw the photos on the desk, the picture of Melody and Logan on top of the pile. “I should have stopped this.”
Victoria stabbed the letter opener into the picture, impaling Melody’s image, driving the point of the opener into the top of the desk.
“You’re the one he’s seeing. Don’t deny it. You had lunch with him today…you live with him, Melody. At his hotel. Every night, you go back to him.”
“I don’t…why would you think that?”
“Because I watch…I know things. I have people who watch for me. You’re nothing…just like the rest of these women.” Victoria waved her hand over the rest of the photos before pushing them and a stack of case files off the corner of the desk. Only the photo of Melody remained, firmly pinned to the desk.
“He’s left them all. He’ll leave you too. You’re not good enough for him.”
Victoria’s face changed again, so rapidly Melody gasped. The hard line of her mouth softened, curving into a smile, and her voice had gone soft, almost a whisper. As if Melody weren’t even in the room. “But he won’t leave me. I won’t let him. He’ll love me.”
Melody watched in disbelief as Victoria ran her fingers over the photo, tracing the outline of Logan’s image. “We’re meant to be together. You’re just in the way.”
In an instant Victoria’s face changed, her eyes hard, her lips pressed together, her voice sending a chill down Melody’s spine. “I can make you go away…and then he’s mine.” She grabbed at the letter opener, trying to pull it from the desk.
There was a knock at the door and then a man’s voice. “Melody, there’s no one outside…”
Melody looked up as the door opened. Ryan Marshall stood in the doorway, his eyes wide, mouth open.
Victoria succeeded in jerking the letter opener from the desk, holding it in front of her like a dagger. She advanced around the end of the desk toward Melody.
“Ryan…”
Victoria turned just as Ryan grabbed her from behind. Victoria brought the letter opener down in a wide arc and it slashed through the sleeve of Ryan’s suit. He grabbed her wrist, twisting it sharply, the opener falling to the floor. He kicked it aside.
Ryan struggled briefly with Victoria before pinning her to the floor. Melody scrambled for the phone, dialing security with shaky fingers and managing to make herself understood, her words tumbling over each other, her voice barely audible.
“Help. I need help. This is Melody Lawson. I’ve been attacked in my office.”
* * *
Someone handed her a glass of water. She took it with shaky hands, drinking some, spilling most of it on her lap.
“Here, I’ll take that back.”
She turned. Ryan was sitting next to her on a small couch in an office down the hall from hers. Her body tensed and she tried to slide away from him as he took the glass from her hand.
Everything had been…still was…confusing, shouts and loud noises, bangs and thumps, as security men rushed in and restrained Victoria. Ryan had walked over to her and pulled her up from the floor where she was crouched, bundling her out of her office and down the hall.
The police had finally arrived, and paramedics, and they had taken a hysterical Victoria out of the building, on a stretcher in restraints. Melody heard the woman screaming and had covered her ears, not wanting to hear any more of the woman’s words.
“You’re in shock. Here.” He reached over, pulling the blanket wrapped around her up over her shoulders. She flinched, pulling away from him.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Melody.” His voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
“You’ve been attacked, but you’re safe here. I’m not the person you need to be worried about.”
“But you…how…why are you here?” Her voice was small and flat, odd sounding to her own ears, and her hands were still shaking.
“I came to talk to you about the case. I tried calling, but no one seemed to know where you were, or where Victoria was. So I decided I’d make the trip over. I haven’t seen you in a while. I missed you.”
Melody felt her stomach lurch and was afraid she was going to be sick. Sitting this close to Ryan, after all he’d put her through, was intolerable.
“Could you sit somewhere else? I’m not comfortable with you this close…I’m not comfortable with you even being here.”
Ryan handed back the glass of water, rose and pulled a desk chair next to the sofa. He sat down, regarding Melody carefully.
“Better?”
She nodded and her eyes went to his arm. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket and his white shirt was stained red with blood.
“Oh…Ryan…she stabbed you.” Melody felt the blood drain from her face. She remembered Victoria slashing wildly with the letter opener.
Ryan looked down at his arm, shrugging. “She did. It’s just a scratch. The guy from the ambulance wrapped it up. The jacket is a loss though. One of my favorites.”
She wanted to be irritated by his smug behavior, but somehow it was strangely comforting. At least it wasn’t unexpected. “Why are you here? How did you get in?”
“As I said, I’m here as an attorney representing a client who is involved in a suit with one of this firm’s attorneys. I can be here. I haven’t committed any crime.”