Heat crawled into her neck, knowing he was referring to what she’d revealed earlier. But knowing he was just as attracted to her as she was him, Ro put it aside to focus on the here and now.
“Clayton?”
A gentle nod. “Not sure it’ll ever go public, but it turns out that revolving bedroom door of his doesn’t exist.”
Yeah, he told her the man’s secret because she’d fucking earned the right to know the truth. To know Yorke may just be innocent, as she’d been claiming.
“What do you mean?”
Ro sat quietly and listened as Brody shared the unbelievable bomb-drop that Clayton had confessed to him and the others. It was almost impossible to reconcile a man who’d come on to her so frequently—often blatantly—with the one Brody had described him being tonight.
Scared. Weak.
Gay.
That was a bomb she most definitely hadnotseen coming. She had absolutely no problem—or judgement—with the lifestyle. It was just such a shockingly stark contrast to the playboy persona he’d led her and the rest of the world to believe.
All of a sudden, the gut feeling that had driven her away from him as a suspect made perfect sense.
“How long do you think it will take Liam to access the event center’s security footage?” Ro asked in the quiet of the night.
“He texted just as I was coming out of the shower. Video footage supports Yorke’s story.”
“So Liam could see this Tommy guy go backstage like Clayton said?”
“Unfortunately, yeah.”
“Why is that unfortunate? I thought proving Clayton’s innocence would be a good thing.”
“Being gay and meeting Carrigan backstage before the shot was fired doesn’t prove he wasn’t the one behind the gun,’ Brody pointed out. “But it does raise a lot of questions that, unfortunately, we don’t have the answers to. Namely if Yorke really isn’t our guy, then—”
“We have no idea who is.”
“Exactly.”
A stretch of silence passed before a promising thought struck. “Hang on. If the footage caught Clayton’s secret boyfriend sneaking behind the stage, then wouldn’t it have also picked up the real shooter?”
“That’s the hope.” A slight tilt of his handsome head. “But right now, we have no idea when the shooter arrived, how long he was waiting back there before pulling the trigger…” His deep voice trailed off. “It’ll take a day or two for Cutler to go over it all, but I promise you, once he’s finished, he’ll have combed through every inch of every angle from every camera mounted in that place. If the shooter’s on there, he’ll find him.”
“And in the meantime, I get to sit here, knowing someone out there wants me dead.”
Shivers that had nothing to do with the beautifully shirtless man sitting inches away raced through her.
Scooting even closer, Brody shifted his body to face her more fully. In a move she was starting to love, he reached up and cupped one side of her face.
“We’re going to catch this guy,” he promised as if there were no other option.
Because there wasn’t. Not if she wanted to live.
Leaning into his touch, Ro told him truthfully, “I believe you. I just wish I knew why this was happening.”
“Me, too, Princess.” A feathered brush of his thumb across her cheek.
“So what now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”