Chapter 27
Luke
The following day, Luke’s bad feeling materialized.
And it was worse than he could have anticipated.
He was well aware that in the very short hierarchy that existed among Sol’s ex-husbands, she’d always preferred and had been more friendly with Ex Number One.
But even if she’d confessed to having an acute allergy against Ex Number Two, who lived in Los Angeles and only recently had approached Sol to try to remain civil, Luke suspected Sol would probably upgrade Number Two as her favorite ex right now. Her least loathed one, in any case.
“I’m going to fucking kill him!” Sol said as they read Miquel’s article on her phone while seated at her kitchen counter. She translated the article to Luke.
The article per se, which was in Catalan and had been published in one of the local online newspapers, wasn’t what was making Luke angry.
It wasn’t good, but by that point in his career he was used to a little bit of bad publicity.
Plus he doubted it got any traction in the international media.
By tomorrow everyone would have forgotten about the factless article stating that stage director Isabel Teixidor was the Bakshi & Contadino Agency’s main suspect when it came to their investigation into the disappearance of Leonardo Pascual.
Fortunately there was no mention of Leonardo and Sandro’s relationship in it, although Miquel mentioned sources telling him about Leonardo having a possible secret romance while he was working in El bano de Edipo and Teixidor claiming she knew with whom.
What had Luke’s blood boiling was the little disclaimer note at the end of the article that Miquel had seen fit to include.
Disclosure: Miquel Oriol’s former wife consults for the Bakshi & Contadino Agency, it read.
The whole thing was written in such a confounded way that it couldn’t be casual.
For one, there was no bloody mention of Sol’s current relationship with one of the partners at the Bakshi & Contadino Agency.
But Luke understood exactly what that line meant and why Miquel had included it.
Ex Number One wasn’t being ethical and transparent about his background.
He was simply flaunting his status as previous holder of the title in front of Luke.
“Arsehole,” he said out loud.
“I’m going to call him and I’m going to fucking tell him what I think about his tasteless article and that note at the end. What the hell was he thinking about?” Sol yelled.
“Cara, don’t call him.” He took his hand to her forearm, and shifted on his stool to look at her. “He called me yesterday clearly looking for a bloody quote, and I only managed not to say anything stupid because you’d warned me and you appeared at the right moment.”
She beamed at him. “He stills deserves being called many insults.”
“He does but let’s do it when we’re not so riled up. I fear he may publish something else.”
“You’re right.” She leaned forward, kissed him. “Who taught you to be so good with journalists?” She’d turned from enraged to perky.
“You did. And I listen.”
“You do. And I love you because of that.”
He knew she did. He’d still said it out loud.
His campaign to make Sol realize he was husband material was back on.
Stronger than ever. If one thing had been clear after reading that piece of journalistic crap—and its bloody disclaimer—was that Luke no longer had any doubts.
Sol and he could figure out the living/location situation when it came to it.
But he was after the bloody title and was going to prove to her he was worthy of it.
“Listen, I know we’ve got a conversation to have,” Luke said.
“I thought you were just avoiding it.” Sol sighed. “I mean, I know I purposely made us not have the whole chat the other night. But that was for legitimate reasons.”
He smiled, mischievously. “Very legitimate reasons. I love you and your methods.”
She blushed, breathed deeply. “But I feel after that, you perhaps didn’t want to talk about whatever is going on…”
“I was just—I suppose waiting for the right moment.”
“And this is the right moment?” Sol asked.
Was it? Luke wanted to come clean. Tell her everything that had been on his mind these past few days.
But he only had one shot at her not flipping out and actually proposing to him.
Was this the right moment to make his feelings known?
Or could he keep working on his husband-material campaign a little longer to improve his prospects?
His lips quivered—he was unsure of what to tell Sol.
She looked at him with expectant eyes. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and was about to say something silly and not well thought out like, “What do I have to do so that you decide you need to ask me to marry you?” when Sol’s phone started ringing.
He sighed, relieved.
Sol
Never a dull moment. They had now reached the halfway point in the solving of a case in which everything took a second-row seat—relationship conversations included.
Sol breathed deeply. Luke had been about to tell her something that he’d been keeping inside for a few days now.
But of course, right when they were about to have a moment alone, her telephone went off.
She’d have ignored it and returned to Luke. But it was freaking Isabel Teixidor calling.
Sol picked up, putting the stage director on speakerphone, even if Luke would only be able to follow the conversation loosely.
“Isabel, hola,” Sol answered in Catalan.
“Have you seen the article your husband wrote?” Isabel also said in Catalan, not bothering with greetings.
“Ex-husband,” Sol was gritting her teeth. She could have sworn Luke had flinched when Isabel used the term marit to refer to Miquel. Then again, the word for husband in Italian was very similar to Catalan. “But yes, I read it. Why do you ask?”
“Well, don’t you find it genius?”
“Genius?” Sol wasn’t following.
“I told Miquel I’m the detectives’ main suspect.” Isabel was gloating.
Sol’s brows drew together. She looked at Luke standing in front of her, confused. She picked up his notebook from the counter and made a note with what Isabel had just said. He read and nodded. “And why would you do such a thing?” she asked the director.
“Publicity of course! Miquel wrote an article, El bano de Edipo gets mentioned plenty of times. This is such great publicity for the play.”
Sol blinked while processing what Isabel had told her. “I mean…it’s not such great publicity for you. Don’t you think?”
Sol added the word publicity on her translation notes for Luke. Highlighted it a few times for effect. He sighed.
“Nonsense,” Isabel dismissed Sol. “You know how it goes. No publicity is bad publicity. At the end of the day, I had nothing to do with Leonardo’s disappearance. But everyone will want to go see the play of the director whose name was accused of doing it.”
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that.” Sol was truly dumbfounded.
“Well, don’t say anything and just write an article about me as well,” Isabel continued. “Look, I know Miquel’s piece will only get so far. But if you were to also write about it for Red Carpet, in English, that would get picked up by many other English-language media outlets.”
Sol had promised her editor at Red Carpet she’d do at least another piece on Leonardo Pascual.
The actor’s disappearance hadn’t yet caused a total media frenzy because of the lid his team—led by Penny Carr—had put on it.
But the right kind of titillating headline and narrative could change things.
Sol wasn’t going to be the one to enable someone like Isabel Teixidor though.
It wasn’t only that Sol didn’t like the stage director’s methods. She didn’t like the woman.
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question,” Sol said.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Isabel huffed. “You know I could call your detective boy toy, tell him you’re having an affair with the ex.”
Luke’s gaze narrowed, his jaw clenched. He’d understood that.
“No need to call me.” Luke told Isabel in English. “And please stop threatening people if you don’t get them to do what you want. Was I clear or should I also tell you that in Italian?”
Sol was melting. Warmth spread through her, heady and slow. Luke’s reaction not only to the intimidation attempt on herself—but also on Sandro—was almost dizzying. She was getting to know Luke in a new, different facet. And she loved it.
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“I thought so,” Luke added. “Bye now.” He ended the call, turned his eyes to Sol.
“As obnoxious and many other objectionable things as Isabel is, I don’t think she’s behind Leonardo’s disappearance,” Sol said.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Luke stared at her with the same extreme intensity he’d used over the past few days. His lips curled up. “I agree.”