"By some," he said testily.
"I take it you're not too keen on the idea of marrying her."
"There's no chance in hell that I'm going to marry her."
"Have you told her that?"
"Twice."
"Apparently she doesn't take no for an answer either."
His temper snapped. Scowling, he said, "I'm pouring out my guts here, trying to explain things to you, and all you can do is make these snide little remarks."
"Your romantic intrigues might be fascinating to some women, but I don't see what your problems with this Susan have to do with me."
"I'm getting to that."
"Please do."
"Last week Susan volunteered to lie to the authorities, saying that she had slept with me the night of the fire."
"In exchange for a wedding ring, I suppose."
"Bingo."
"To which you said…?"
"Nothing. I didn't take it seriously. I thought maybe if I ignored her, she'd give up and go away."
"No such luck?"
"No such luck. Today she called and insisted on seeing me."
"What happened?"
"She's threatened to tell another lie. Only this time she says she'll tell them that I outlined to her my plan to torch our garage and use the insurance money to pay off the bank note."
"They would never believe her."
"The hell they wouldn't. To their way of thinking, she would be making an ultimate sacrifice. She's willing to squander her reputation as a Goody Two Shoes by making it public that she's been sleeping with me."
"Has she?"
He could tell that she regretted asking the question almost before she'd completed it. That gave him a glimmer of hope. She cared enough to wonder about his other lovers. Could she also be a tad jealous?
"No, Devon. I've never slept with her. I swear." His eyes bore deeply into hers, trying to impress the truth into her mind. Her next question indicated that she had been persuaded.
"Then what have you got to worry about?"
"Plenty. Susan can be very convincing. Hell, this afternoon, I almost believed her myself when she began to cry and say that she couldn't hold in her ugly secret any longer. 'I can't go through the rest of my life with this on my conscience,' she said, or words to that effect. She was talking like it was fact, going on and on about how unhappy I'd made her by confiding my nefarious plan to her."
Devon's fingers absently trailed up and down the stem of her wineglass while she pondered what he'd told her. "I presume that the only way Susan would be happy again is if you proposed marriage, in which case she would conveniently forget that you're an arsonist."
"That was the implication, yeah. If we were formally engaged, she would switch her stories to 'protect' me."
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"At the same time protecting your business from bankruptcy."