The List Read Free

papers were sitting on their dining room table, anchored in place by an expensive paperweight that was a wedding present, and a framed screen of two eighteenth-century silk-embroidered robins. The skin at the nape of his neck hummed with awareness, a sensation he’d long ago learned to respect. He didn’t believe in coincidence, or in rescuing damsels in distress. Tilda didn’t need rescuing. She needed someone to stand next to her, toes over the abyss, while she took a good, long look.
    He had two problems. The first was obvious. Making an appointment with a marriage counselor was a knee-jerk impulse that proved to be the wrong thing to do. The second was that Tilda thought they were wrong for each other, that six months of marriage proved not lifetime compatibility but fundamental, irreconcilable differences. Which meant he’d misunderstood something.
    He hated not understanding something.
    The direct hit to his ego landed in his gut. He’d built his reputation as a cop, FBI agent, and a man on taking puzzles apart, piece by piece, datum by datum, and reassembling them so they made sense. But when it came to his marriage, he’d missed something big, something bone-deep, something life changing about Tilda Davies.
    That was on him. The end of the marriage wouldn’t be. He needed to think. He pulled out his phone and sent a text to their mutual friend Louise, who came from old New York money, and was the most down-to-earth person he’d ever met.
    Can I borrow your terrace tonight?
    The reply came almost immediately.
    I’d suspect you’re going to propose to Tilda except you two lovebirds already got married. I haven’t forgiven you for eloping, but of course you can borrow the terrace. Will leave key with doorman. Come over anytime. xx L
    He needed time, and space, a literal and metaphorical distance from his current life so he could think things through. In order to get answers, he would have to go back to where it all began.

– TWO –
    June, 1 year earlier
    “L ady Matilda?”
    Oh my, that was a lovely voice, licking at her skin like a cat’s tongue and sending a shiver down her spine. She forced herself not to turn and look for the man who owned that voice. “It’s Tilda,” she said, and tipped back her bottle of beer. Early in her days in the city some wit in awe of her British accent christened her Lady Matilda; she used the nickname in one specific area of her life. But people who really knew her called her Tilda, and while she wasn’t getting her hopes up, a man with a voice like that might be someone she wanted to know.
    “Okay. Tilda. How about you come back off the ledge?”
    Dull. “I’m fine where I am, thanks.” She looked out over the city. A stiff breeze sent clouds scudding across the full moon, mirroring the unsettled, restless longing inside her and flinging her curls against her cheeks. She needed something new, something exciting, something big.
    She
needed
, and the air was so tempting.
    “It is a little loud inside, Tilda.”
    The repetition of her name in that slow, rich baritone made her pause. She turned to look at the man balanced on the balls of his feet, within arms reach but not so close he’d startle her off-balance. He wore slim jeans, a blue-and-white checked Oxford, and a dark blue velvet blazer that looked as scrumptious as his voice. The Chinese lanterns strung from Louise’s lattice arbor didn’t quite give away the color of his eyes. His blond hair was cropped close, except for a slightly longer section at the front that was styled back off his forehead.
    “I’m not going to jump.”
    “I didn’t think you were,” he said. He had a long face with strong bones—cheekbones, forehead, jaw—and a full-lipped mouth that looked like it rarely smiled. She found herself wondering how his smile transformed his face, if it made it foolish, or charming.
    “Yes, you did. You’re using my name like I’m holding someone hostage, which, if I’m suicidal, I am. I’m