Page 59 of Catch Him
“I think I’ll leave you two alone,” Mary said, clearly feeling a shift in the tension between them. “Dinner will be at seven.”
She left the room and Sinead watched as the tiny blonde held her head high. Not easy to do when you had to admit you were duped by someone.
Someone who later turned around and broke your ribs.
“It’s worse for her,” Sinead said when she was gone.
“Yes it was. I take part of the blame for not being around for her enough when she needed me. I think Garrett was simply a cure for her loneliness. She wanted to believe what he was telling her, desperately.”
Sinead looked at him, standing near the bar, his hair still a little ruffled from their sex.
Was that what he had been for her? Had she been lonely, really lonely, without realizing it and he was her cure?
“I wanted to believe everything you told me, too,” she said.
He joined her again on the couch. Pressing up against her. “The only real lie I told you was my name. Which you know. Because that’s how you were able to find me.”
That pissed her off. She popped off the couch, feeling the anger that had been banked during his explanation of things fire back up again. “What about all that stuff about your friends back in London and how jaded you are about everything?”
“All of that is real. Those people are real. That’s who I am back in London.”
“So you’re lying to them, too.”
He looked weary then, she thought. Older.
“I lie to everyone, Sinead. It’s what I do. I didn’t realize how tired I was of it until I met you.”
“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked, more to herself than him. If her father were here, he would tell her to kick him in the balls and get the hell out before he broke her heart even more than he already had.
If her mother were here, she would tell her that love isn’t something that should easily be dismissed. It should be cherished instead.
“How long is this all going to take? I mean before all the bad guys realize Garrett doesn’t have the picture.”
“I believe Huntley Senior was putting together some type of auction. To do that would require having proof. Maybe showing some portion of the picture. When he can’t provide that, things will disintegrate quickly and either they—the bad guys—will take care of the problem, or I have other backup plans in place.”
“Wait.” Sinead stopped him, suddenly chilled by a thought. Which was probably a bad thing if she wasn’t supposed to care for him anymore. “Proof. How do you know they just didn’t take a picture of it with their phone? They could have as many copies as they need…”
Declan shook his head. “It’s not the same. What’s on the drive is the only thing of value to them. That or an actual digital image of me, which as you know…”
“You don’t like selfies,” she said, remembering that night on Fisherman’s Wharf.
“No. I don’t.”
Sinead considered that.
“The bad guys will still know what you look like. If they did take a picture of the photo.”
“Yes, but appearances can be changed. Computer software designed to penetrate those disguises is the true challenge. Which is why digital photos have to be avoided at all costs.”
“You must have been really drunk.”
Declan laughed, but with sadness instead of mirth. “I was shitfaced. And bone tired. And heartbroken. Because I could see it. Even in that one day, I could see how he was with her. Always holding her hand, never letting her go to have a chat with me or her friends. Always within reach of her.”
“Some might have seen devotion.”
“I saw ownership,” Declan said baldly. “Later, when I started to do some research on his father’s law firm, I realized what a bad actor the father was. I wondered if maybe it hadn’t been some kind of setup. If perhaps someone had discovered our connection and Huntley Senior had some plan to use her against me.”
“Is that true? Did Garrett know who she was?” Because that might make it worse. To know the man she fell in love with only married her to be a pawn.
