Page 70 of Catch Him
He lowered his head and kissed the center of her back between her shoulder blades. “I love you,” he said quietly. So that she would hear it and feel it and know it was the truest thing he’d ever said.
“I love you too.”
That was it. No profanity. No anger. Just a realization that her feelings hadn’t changed no matter what he’d done to try and destroy them. Emotion overcame him and for the first time since he’d buried his mother, he wanted to cry. Just hold her to him and cry.
Of course he didn’t. Because he was big bad baddy and all of that. He slid out of her and left the bed.
“Dec?”
“I need to take a piss. I’ll be back.”
He discarded the condom, used the toilet and then turned the water on in the sink. Looking into the mirror, he thought how hard he worked to avoid being seen by cameras. It wasn’t that there weren’t pictures of him. As David Whitmore, he often attended events with paparazzi and press. But it was always the turn of a head. A hand in front of his face. The only time he’d actually been at risk had been on a damn kiss cam at a ball game when he’d had his tongue down Sinead’s throat.
Footage he had to recover himself from AT&T park.
When people asked for selfies, he refused with his standard line about how the camera steals the soul. The truth was Dec had always been glad that there were no pictures of him out there to see. Because when he looked at himself, he tended to only see the dark. He imagined any picture would show the same.
He splashed water on his face a few times and looked again. This time something was different. It was as if he’d been broken and put back together again, and somehow everything didn’t line up as smoothly as it should have. As if he had all these open gaps in him that he feared Sinead was the only one who could fill.
He looked in the mirror and could see her coming up behind him. He realized then he’d been standing at the sink for some time with his thoughts.
She slid her arms around his waist and repeated the gesture he’d given her and placed a soft kiss in the center spot between his shoulders.
“You okay?”
“I’m sorry I did that,” he said, the words rushing from him.
“Got me off?”
“Forced you to say it. I should have been patient. I should have waited until you were ready. I just…”
She pressed her cheek against his back. He thought he could feel her smiling, which was truly a lovely thing. “You are just a softy who needs to hear the words. Like anyone in love. And you didn’t force me to say anything. If I hadn’t wanted to say it, I wouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t joking about how stubborn O’Haras can be.”
Their eyes met in the mirror. “Please don’t break my heart,” he begged her.
“I won’t. If you don’t break mine,” she answered him. “Again.”
“I’m so damn sorry.”
Her face softened and he could see it. Actual forgiveness. He probably didn’t deserve it, but since he was such a softy he would take it anyway.
“You done moping in here?”
He smiled. “We’re Irish…despair is our bread and butter.”
“Well I’m only three-quarters Irish. I’m ready for a little more happiness and a lot less despair. Come back to bed.”
It was a command he had no desire to disobey.
* * *
Mary pouredwater into the coffee pot and hit the button. It was early. Probably too early to be up, but she hadn’t been able to sleep thinking about Garrett’s return. She needed to be stronger. She shouldn’t have been so afraid about seeing him. How was she ever going to recover, fully recover if she still treated him like he was a bogey man?
It wasn’t even a fear he might hurt her again. She knew she could live through that. She had lived through that. It was the sudden transition from charming fiancé, to possessive husband, to monster that frightened her the most.
The night it happened he’d been drunk and hopped up on cocaine. Not that it had been an excuse. It just contributed to his loss of control.
But the signs had been there before he laid a hand on her. Clues that only had surfaced after she said I do.
