Page 89 of Caleb
“I fell in love with him,” she confesses, finally looking at me, a tear sliding down her cheek. “And I thought he did too. But I was wrong.” She wipes the moisture away from her face and takes a deep breath.
“A couple of months after the affair started, a few rumors began circulating about Mrs. Murphy growing close with Agent Mark, but I dismissed them as staff gossip. It was only when those rumors finally got to James’s ears that it all went to shit. He was furious at me because I didn’t tell him when I heard about them in the first place, and he punished me for it. He set me aside like I was nothing. Like I’d been nothing.”
Annette battles against a choked sob and loses miserably. She starts crying uncontrollably, and when I try to comfort her, she lifts a hand and shakes her head. She needs space, so I give it to her.
It takes her a while to compose herself, but she achieves it after a few minutes.
“I’m sorry,” she says through ragged pants.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I reply. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah, it’s just that I’ve never shared this with anyone before, and it’s been years holding on to the pain of those memories,” she admits. “It feels good, though, to finally let that out.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
She smiles and drops her forehead against my arm for a few seconds. Takes a deep breath. Sits back straight.
She seems ready to carry on.
“So were they having an affair?” I dare to ask. “Agent Mark and Mrs. Murphy?”
“They both denied it, but James went ballistic either way and fired him on the spot. We were a few months away from leaving for Mexico City. We were in Bern back then.”
“I see.”
“For years, I debated if they’d been involved romantically or not, and I always leaned toward it all being a misunderstanding. But that look on Agent Mark’s face when he left …” Annette shakes her head and looks me in the eye. “It’s the same look I see in yours. Anger. Sadness. Helplessness. Resignation, even.” She grabs my earlobe and pulls at it gently before letting her hand drop over her lap again. “And I know now that’s what a man in love who is hurting looks like.”
I press my lips together and let the information Annette is throwing at me sink in. I’m still clueless about how knowing any of this will put me on a plane to New York. If anything, it’s only discouraging me even further, knowing how becoming close to his daughter probably triggers the ambassador because of what went down between Agent Mark and his wife. But at least I get it now. I get where his uneasiness about me comes from, and I never stood a chance. There’s a certain peace that comes with realizing that. That it’s not all about me but about what I represent and what I remind him of. The only thing he’s forgetting is that Red is not his late wife.
“James ending things with me in the aftermath of all the drama didn’t stop him from asking me to keep my job and come to Mexico,” she continues. “I refused at first because I thought it was going to be excruciating to watch him try to repair his marriage while I stood there watching from a distance. But he offered me a raise. A big one. And he made it impossible for me to say no. Yet another stupid part of me was convinced that he needed me. That I couldn’t leave him when I was the only one who really understood him.”
“That must’ve been very hard for you.” I don’t think Annette has seen a day of peace being with that man.
She pulls out another cigarette but stands up against the window to smoke it. I follow her.
“Losing Agent Mark was a big blow to James’s peace of mind in more ways than one,” she says. “And his plans to focus on his wife and marriage backfired on him.” She gives the cigarette a slow, steady drag. “Because Maria only grew more distant after Agent Mark left. And not only that, but James blames himself and wonders what would’ve happened if Agent Mark had come to Mexico City with us. If he had been in charge of his wife’s security when she got killed.”
Annette takes a few seconds before resuming the story, and I wait for her in silence.
“James regretted firing him and insisted on how Agent Mark, who was always ten steps ahead of everyone and everything, would’ve probably been able to spot the threat before allowing it to go as far as it did. That maybe he could’ve saved his wife. And his daughter wouldn’t have been left without her mother.” Annette’s words came out choked. The situation was messier than I thought it was. “But there’s no way to know that, of course. It just became another obsessive thought that, to date, I don’t believe James has been able to brush off.”
“I can’t believe Aaron never told me anything about this.” I take Annette’s cigarette to my lips and give it a quick hit.
“He made everyone sign NDAs, of course.” She hugs her shoulders to shield herself from the crisp draft sliding through the window. “But not me,” she sings, her brows flying up. “He either trusted me enough or simply forgot to ask me to sign one. But you know what that means.”
“What?”
“That you are free to use this information against him to …persuadehim into reconsidering your position as part of Miss Murphy’s security detail,” she says with the slightest hint of a smile. “This is what I meant when I told you to use me. And the offer stands.”
“You can’t be serious.” I refuse to get excited about this because I need to ensure Annette is 100% on board with this. “You know there’s no turning back from this, right?”
She nods and lets out a slow breath through her nose.
“After Maria died, James was never the same,” she says, her teeth raking her lower lip. “He pretended to care about me at his convenience, and I was always there for him in whatever capacity he needed me. But James never loved me. And he never will. And I shouldn’t have allowed things to get this far. I finally see that now.”
A pause.
“Are you sure?” I ask again. “I need you to be sure.”
