“Lovers?”
“Yes, we were lovers.”
“Were?”
“That’s right. We haven’t been together for about a year now.”
“Why?”
He lifted his hands. “It didn’t work out.”
“Who decided it wasn’t working out?”
“It was mutual. And amicable.”
Eve kept her eyes sharp, her voice pleasant. “I’ve found when people are intimately involved, for nearly two years, say, the breaking it off part is rarely amicable. Somebody’s usually pissed.”
Alex crossed his feet at the ankles and his shoulders moved in the faintest of shrugs. “We enjoyed each other while it lasted, and parted friends.”
“Her work, your . . . background. That would have been a problematic mix for her.”
“We enjoyed each other,” he repeated, “and largely left work—hers and mine—out of the mix.”
“For nearly two years? That’s a strange kind of intimacy.”
“Not everyone needs to blend every area of their lives. We didn’t.”
Getting under his skin now, Eve noted, just a little prick under the skin. She dug deeper. “Apparently not. I spoke with her former partner, her former lieutenant, and we’ve contacted her family. No one mentioned you, her lover of close to two years. That just makes me wonder. Were you really so intimate and amicable, or did you have something to hide?”
Something hardened in his eyes. “We kept it low-key, for the very reasons you named. My familial connections would have been difficult for her professionally, so there was no reason to include them in our relationship—or to involve others. This was our personal life. Our personal business. I’d think you’d understand that very well.”
Eve lifted her eyebrows.
“The lieutenant and I were open about our relationship from its beginning,” Roarke pointed out.
“Everyone makes their own choices.”
“Your father wouldn’t have approved, any more than her superiors,” Roarke speculated as he studied Alex’s face. “No, he wouldn’t have liked his son and heir sleeping with the enemy, unless it was for the purpose of recruiting. That he would have approved of, quite well.”
“If you’re looking to use our relationship to stain Ammy’s reputation, you’re—” He broke off, settled back, but the temper had whipped out, left the sting in the air. “We kept business out of our relationship. And there comes a time when a father’s approval isn’t the driving force in a man’s life.”
“Did Max know?”
“You’ll have to ask him,” Alex said coolly. “You know where to find him.”
“Yeah.” Changing tack, Eve drew his attention back to her. “A concrete cage on Omega. Crappy place, isn’t it?”
“Is this about my relationship with Amaryllis or with my father?”
“Depends. When’s the last time you saw Detective Coltraine?”
“The day before she was killed. I got in touch with her when I got into town. She came here. We had drinks, caught up with each other. She was here for a couple of hours.”
“Alone? Just the two of you?”
“Rod was here. Up in the office.”
“What did you talk about?”