Aaron’s, and he didn’t move. At all. His gaze warmed on her. Charlize felt the heat spread through her face and down her neck.
Darcy cleared her throat loudly, her eyes glittering with annoyance. “My tea?”
Aaron took the cup from Charly, his fingers lingering over hers before he passed the cup on. She stared after him, trying to figure out what he meant by being so openly flirtatious. Before this, he’d had a big problem with PDA. He’d wanted no one to know there was anything between them, but the way he watched her now, everyone would guess his feelings.
Charly turned to Dominic. “Tea?”
“I prefer something stronger.”
At a hard look from Aaron, Dominic declined anything, looking irritated. Charlize served the rest of the table, handing out biscuits and jam and scones that were hardly touched before the game began with a friendly nod from Mikey.
Veronica set her cup loudly on her saucer to read: “I can’t imagine why you’ve brought us all here together, Mikey, except to distract us from what’s really happening.” She wasn’t into the game at all. Her focus slid to the sober Dominic, and she seemed uneasy—uncharacteristically so. She coughed into her hand. “You weren’t the only one Darcy was two-timing, Mikey; she was also two-timing Dominic. She had a fling going on with the mayor.”
“I don’t believe it.” For once, Dominic looked to be having fun with his role, though it seemed less to do with the game and more with whatever secret conversation he had going on with Veronica.
Veronica’s face flamed. “You’d think for all the hearts she’s stolen that she’d love one of them back, but it’s money she wants. She’s a coldhearted snake.”
“How dare you!” Darcy spat. Only she actually looked angry. Charlize’s attention ran between her and Veronica and then to a suddenly wary Dominic. Had Mikey guessed there was something happening between them and was using his script to tweak them? But one glance at Mikey’s goofy grin dispelled all her suspicions. He was having the time of his life with his off-the-cuff Murder Mystery.
Veronica turned a tortured glance on Dominic. “Were you jealous?” she asked, almost woodenly. “Is that why you killed the mayor?”
“Nice try, doll,” Dominic rasped. “But I was with Charly on the balcony when he was murdered, so I couldn’t have done it. Isn’t that right, babe?”
His knowing stare lifted to Charly, and her stomach knotted. Why was Mikey torturing them all like this? He couldn’t possibly be hitting every sore spot so accurately on accident, and even though she had no idea about the secrets others were hiding, everything directed at her felt like a punch. “Yeah,” she stumbled over her next words. “He was with me. We were watching the stars together.”
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t working with someone else, Dominic.” Veronica stopped reading with a choke, then took a deep breath and somehow got through her lines. It was painful to watch. “All you had to do was pull the strings and let someone else do your dirty work. The question is, who are you working with?”
“I think I have a few guesses.” That came from Aaron. Charly turned and immediately regretted it when she saw his soft look already on her. She noticed the growth of facial hair on his square jaw, the circles under his eyes. He wasn’t sleeping either. Her heart melted a fraction. “So why were you going to marry Dominic?” he asked her. “You had some sort of deal? You seem too nice a girl to get involved with a guy like him.”
Charly let out an almost unwilling laugh. She enjoyed this forced banter between her and Aaron too much. She wished she could talk to him for real. Sadness threaded through her throat that they couldn’t anymore. She concentrated on her paper. “My—my mother feared for my brother’s life.” Goodness, her character couldn’t get a sentence out without stuttering. Charlize tried again. “She told me I could trust Dominic and... and he was kind to me.”
“Drop the act, Charlize,” Aaron said. “I saw that necklace you were wearing when we first met. That doesn’t belong to some poor farm girl.” Ah, so he was bringing that up, was he? Mikey was a clever storyteller. “Your brother was a worse blackmailer than the mayor,” Aaron continued. “You blackmailed Dominic into marrying you because you wanted some clout in the town. Your brother tried to blackmail you, too, and you had him killed.”
Her eyes widened. What kind of character was