Page 45 of Grift

Patrick

The investigator’s card stares back at me from the table.

“What is this?”

Her cheeks are flaming red, and not just from the cold air or the heat flaring between us minutes ago. Her eyes are shining, with frustration or unshed tears.

“It’s the card of a private investigator my mother uses,” she says, finally. “I asked her for his information and her assistant must have brought the card over. She thinks email is indiscrete. But this was before we talked, Patrick.”

A vein starts pounding in my temple.

“Who were you investigating?”

My mind races, trying to think what I’ve done wrong. Since Jessica came into my life – such as it were – I’ve been faithful to her. Given her no idea to the contrary. Her mother already did the background check on me.

She knows I’m handling the tapes.

Something about the look on her face slows my racing thoughts and hammering pulse. This isn’t about me. But the fact that she’d do this without consulting me, when I told her that I had the situation in hand, feels disloyal.

It pisses me off, too. We talked about this.

“It was before,” she says again. I hear her, but for some reason, it’s not getting through my thick skull.

There’s a spike in my body, a protective urge. I want to keep her safe. Find her enemies. Hunt them down and make sure that she never has to make a decision again that’s driven by some asshole filming her. Or that’s made with her father’s career solely in mind.

Or whatever happened.

But how the fuck do you say that? And I’ve got investigators working multiple angles. But who even knows what they’ll turn up in the end? Until I know more, I don’t want to commit to specific outcomes. It’s important that I keep whatever promises I make to her.

“I had to do something, Patrick,” she’s striving for confident, but her voice sounds small.

Anger surges. Not at her, but at the situation. And there’s an icy edge rising too. All I can think of is the distance between my parents, the complete and total lack of trust. I’d hoped – even given our circumstances – that we could at least be allies.

“I said I’m taking care of it,” my voice is cold.

“I started this process before you and I ever had the conversation in your office, Patrick,” she says reasonably enough, again. “Or later that night.” The logical, rational part of my brain understands what’s she’s saying. Again.

But the animal part, the thick idiot part that I always regret letting take over, keeps pushing. “But you didn’t call it off?”

“There’s nothing to call off, Patrick. I hadn’t actually even talked to the man,” she sounds exasperated. “I can’t exactly call my mother and say never mind, there’s no need for that service we talked about. That’ll raise more red flags with her than asking in the first place. It’s simpler just to take the information and file it away.”

“In case you need it,” I say flatly. In case I don’t keep my word and let you down like the rest of the men in your life have, I think but don’t say aloud.

Her mouth compresses into a line and her eyes snap with heat. “And I’m just supposed to what? Do nothing?”

“You’re supposed to trust me that when I say that I will handle it, that I will handle it,” I fire back. “It’s not always clear who you can trust in this city. Who might be connected, even distantly, to my father or to other people we don’t want involved in this.”

She swallows hard. “I’m accustomed to navigating complex situations, Patrick, and I know how to be discrete. Despite what you apparently think of me.”

From the inflection in her voice, I know exactly where her thoughts go. They go exactly where people have taken them for the last decade, and it makes me want to kill every bastard that’s ever done it. Every asshole that’s ever thrown that in her face and used it as leverage to make their life a little more convenient.

Do I fall into that category? If the Senator’s daughter hadn’t been the beautiful, intriguing woman I’d been flirting with just minutes before everything went down, would I have been so committed to the path of agreeing to marry her? It’s a question that makes me uncomfortable. That’s usually a sign it’s one you need to ask.

I loosen my tie, trying to relax the atmosphere a little.

“I know you can handle yourself,” I say carefully. “But my point is that you don’t have to now.”

What I don’t say, because it sounds ridiculous, is the part where I add “because you’re my wife.”

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