She hadn’t asked whether he was guilty, because she’d assumed he was. She’d looked at him with accusation, with blame, with betrayal in her eyes. How could you do this to me?
Miles shook his head.
“You’re telling me that out of all the people you’ve told, no one has taken your side?”
“I’m telling you I haven’t told anyone.”
“People at work?”
Miles shook his head. “It all happened so fast. Board calls me into a meeting, and blam! Suspicion of embezzlement, police involved, unpaid leave. I’m apparently lucky they didn’t fire me.”
“But surely you’ve sat down with your staff and talked about it …?”
That look on Deena’s face. As if he’d slapped her. Then the worst part. He’d drawn a deep breath, down to his toes, because who could have told him, before he’d experienced it, how much balls it would take to claim your own innocence? Who knew how much it would feel like a confession of guilt?
“I didn’t do it,” he’d told her.
There had been a split second after the words came out of his mouth when he’d believed they’d make a difference. That she’d trust his words when she hadn’t been able to blindly trust his character.
She’d looked down at her feet, and he knew: It would always sound like too much protest, too late.
“The first time I sat down with my lawyer, he told me, ‘Innocent until proven guilty is a legal concept, not a guarantee that the average Joe will give you a fair shake.’ ”
“Maybe she’s not the average Joe.”
They both knew Owen was talking now about the woman at the New Year’s Eve party. There’s nothing average about her, Miles thought, and then, I spent fifteen minutes with her. That doesn’t make me an expert on who she is.
“Okay. Maybe she’s not. Seriously, though: I’m going to pursue this girl when I have nothing to offer her except a long-distance relationship and a criminal investigation? That’s appealing.”
“Can’t you let her be the judge of that?”
Miles crossed his arms. “Can you leave it alone?”
Owen clamped his mouth shut and leaned back in his seat.
Miles felt bad. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. And I’m sorry because I know you were probably going to go home with that blond woman and I blew it for you.”
“I’m not worried,” Owen said serenely. “I have her phone number.”
A group of travelers hanging off one of the poles broke into “Sweet Caroline.” It made conversation nearly impossible, which was not such a bad thing, because it gave Miles a few minutes to think. Mainly about the feel of her mouth against his, soft and yielding and then not yielding at all. Hot and wet and aggressive as hell, which he liked, along with those roaming hands. Christ, he was getting hard again.
“I wouldn’t be ready for anything, anyway,” he told Owen when “Sweet Caroline” had run its course. “Deena moved out only two weeks ago. We were together for more than five years.”
Owen just looked at him.
“That’s a long time. We lived together, our possessions mingled. Everything I did was all caught up with her.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why are you being such a dick about this? It would obviously be a rebound thing.”
“Maybe I think you need a rebound thing. And you’re punishing yourself by not letting yourself have one.”
“I’m not punishing myself.”
“Are you sure?”
“What would I be punishing myself for?”
“Letting this embezzlement thing happen on your watch.”
Fucking Owen, who knew him too well. “Look. The point is, I don’t have her name and number, and it’s probably for the best.”
“I can get it for you. I can find out.”
“How?”
“I’m sure Erica knows someone who knows someone who knows who she is.”
“No,” Miles said.
“Come on, dude.”
“No.”
Because she was too nice to do that to. Too nice to drag her in, drag her down. Make her a quickie stop on the Miles-deals-with-his-pain train.
You don’t even know her. How do you know she’s nice?
He thought of the way she’d chosen to give her smile, to give her self, to the people in the room who needed her most. To him, too. I just know.
The fact that he was arguing with himself, the fact that he was claiming intimate knowledge of someone he’d exchanged a couple hundred words with, danced with for less than a minute, and kissed once, was more proof that he was totally irrational where this woman was concerned and that staying away from her was the best thing for both of them.