“We have dinner in here more often than not.” He rolled right over her again. “So it’s time we had a more pleasant area for it—likely over there. Table, chairs, part of the space, but in a more defined area. With a table that would expand when we’re invaded by half your department. Which takes us to the secondary workstations and the seating area.”
“‘Seating’?”
He gestured with his wine. “You can go on about not liking visitors in your work space, but the fact is, you often have people in here. Cops, in any case.”
“They’ll never leave if you make it all comfortable.” She rubbed at the back of her neck because, damn it, she could see some of it. And she was still hung up on the idea of a command center. “I’m used to it, that’s all, and then I come in and some redhead in boots is in here humming. And you’re: Here’s what’s going to happen.”
“I say again, nothing would have been changed, been touched without your approval. It’s not just your office, Eve, bloody hell, it’s your
“That’s why I was pissed!” At wit’s end, she yanked at her hair. “It’s my house, too, and it felt like you were just taking over without telling me.”
He paused a moment, poured more wine. “There’s a point. I’ll give you that. And it’s lowered the troubling quite a bit to have you say it. I wasn’t taking over, but laying the groundwork for something you could choose. Or not. Would you like to work with Charmaine?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I haven’t. I brought her in, and would have presented you with some completed options I felt would appeal to you. If none did, she could come up with more, or, again, not. If you liked any, but wanted changes, there’d be changes. Just as we handled the dojo. I strongly suspect if I’d said to you I wanted to have a dojo designed, particularly for you, you’d have said . . .
“Who the hell has a dojo in their house?” he demanded in a snarky American accent that surprised a laugh out of her.
“I don’t sound like that.”
“Close enough. And you should know now she’ll be working up some fresh looks for the bedroom.”
“What? What? Why? It’s nice. It’s—”
“It was designed for me, before I ever set eyes on you. Well before, come to that. Now it’ll be designed for us.”
“I’m fine with it.”
“You’ll have to be fine with any new design before anything’s done. So if you come home unexpectedly, and there’s a redhead humming in the bedroom, you’ll know why, and not react as if I’m about to shag her on our bed.”
Insulted, she jabbed a finger at him. “I didn’t react like that. If I had, there’d be a droid wearing your skin suit. Just ask Peabody because I explained it to her just today.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I spent most of today talking to adulterers. And I do want wine,” she decided, taking his. “And it put me in a mood I came home early to ditch, before I dug back into the work. And Summerset wasn’t even where he’s supposed to be so I could insult him and start the ditching.”
“I was home even earlier, and told him to go out with some of his friends.”
“Corpses don’t have friends, they have other corpses.”
His eyebrows lifted; his head angled. “Feel better?”
“Not really.”
He went to get himself a new glass of wine. “I wanted to do something for you, for the cop, and I’ll circle back here and say again, this isn’t good enough for you. Don’t argue with me on that,” he said before she could. “You’re your own cop, and as brilliant a one as I’ve ever known. You’re also mine, and this isn’t what you deserve.”
It touched her because she knew he meant it, just exactly that. “You’re trying to seduce me with command centers.”
“I am. And the other part of why is purely selfish in that I need you to let this go. I want to know you can.”
“This?” She gestured. “It’s not that. It’s not. Mavis, Leonardo, the kid, the apartment’s theirs. They’ve made it so theirs, there’s nothing of what was mine. I don’t need that—not there, not here. I swear I’m not clinging to that. I’m used to this, that’s pretty big. But bigger, it’s that you gave it to me. You knew me, even then, and gave it to me. That’s what I don’t want to let go.”
She swallowed more wine, muttered, “Dumb-ass.”
He came back to her, trailed a fingertip down the shallow dent in her chin. “I’ll always have done that, when we both needed it. Dumb-ass. Let’s try this, for both of us. And if what you need is to keep this as it is, then it stays.”
“If I say okay, let’s try it, the redhead’s not going toward fancy.”
“Not within miles of fancy, my word on that.”
“Okay. But I’m not apologizing.”
“Neither am I.”
“I guess that works.”
He leaned down, touched his lips to hers. “Did you murder a droid?”
“I wanted to, but I didn’t because I knew you’d ask. I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.” She smirked, then sighed. “But I kind of wish I had. It really has been a pissy day.”
“You were right about the senator. About finding his body.”
