A Brutal Betrayal(3)

“Don’t sweat it, Dec. Remember, she wants help. She wants to beat this. Just help her along. You can always consult me if you need to. I’m here.”

“Thanks, Chuck.”

They talked some more, mostly small talk, and then hung up.

Declan had a few hours before his next patient, so he sought out Alice, his secretary.

“Hey Alice, Chuck just called and told me about a new patient he sent over.”

“Oh, hmm, let me think. Oh, yes, Shirley called yesterday, I think it was. Scheduled an appointment, now, let’s see, what day was it?” Alice was a great secretary. She handled everything he needed, she was sweet, and a little older, so she was very motherly to Declan, but she was scattered. Material things, she could organize like nobody’s business, but to Declan, it seemed like her own mind was always stuck in the clouds. “Oh, yes, tomorrow at eleven in the morning,” she said as she pulled a piece of paper from the pile.

“Chuck said he was sending over some files for her, can you give them to me when they get here?”

“Sure thing. Oh, wait, I think something came through a few minutes ago.”

She pulled up some files on the computer. “Megan? Megan Verona?”

“Yep, that’s her.”

She printed out the information and handed it to Declan. He saw the police report, and he knew he should read it in detail, but after the first few images were branded in his brain, he could barely read the details. He had always prided himself on being able to separate his patients in his mind. He could read details on paper as if it were just that—details on paper. He never associated the things he learned with an emotional response. It was all clinical. He wasn’t heartless—quite the opposite, actually. Things tended to affect him too much, which was why he needed to pretend like he was reading a novel, something fiction, in order to truly help his patients. But, as he glossed over the brutal and violent details of the crime Megan had been through, he was having a hard time distancing himself. He put the police report down and decided to focus solely on the here and now. He read through Chuck’s notes several times until he thought he had a handle on things. Come tomorrow, he would work on helping Megan. And if he had to get the details of the crime, he’d get them from her. It would be like listening to a story rather than looking at cold hard facts. That would be so much easier. Yeah, right, who am I kidding? It didn’t matter, when the time came, he would get his emotions under control, just like he always did.





Chapter 2

Declan heard a soft knock on his door before Alice poked her head in. “Miss Verona for you,” she announced. He stood up and walked around his chair just in time to see whom he presumed to be Megan walk in. Now, Declan was a professional, schooled in manning his emotions, but he was taken aback at the sight of Megan. He was a therapist, first and foremost, but he was only human. And a red-blooded man, at that. There was something so incredibly enchanting about her. Sure, he had seen plenty of beautiful women in his lifetime, but she was something else. She was girl next door meets elegant class. Her jet black hair was a sharp contrast to her flawless pale porcelain skin. Like it was painted to be just that color, there was a hint of color on her cheeks, as if she was blushing. Her deep blue eyes were unlike any blue eyes he had ever seen. He’d seen ocean blue, clear blue, green-blue, but hers, they were so dark, they were almost black, deep navy, like the ocean when you are far from a beach with only the waves to comfort you. The most endearing part was that they held a hint of sadness, a hesitancy. And given the fact he knew what caused that, it made him feel like a jackass for even thinking it was endearing in the first place.

He gave himself a mental shake and held out his hand. “Declan Connors, but please, call me Declan. And you must be Megan.” He smiled, hoping the sincerity of his smile would egg on her own. It didn’t.

She stared at his outstretched hand, seemingly pondering the situation. Would she not even shake his hand? She exhaled a breath and hesitantly reached her own hand out to touch his.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Connor, er, Declan. You came highly recommended by Mr. Hodge. I trust he informed you a little bit about me. I told him that it would be okay.”

“Yes, he did, please have a seat.” He motioned for the chair and was surprised to feel slightly sad at the loss of contact. As she turned, he caught a whiff of vanilla and jasmine, and something inside him liked it. It felt almost familiar.

Declan always allowed himself a moment to scrutinize his patients as himself and not Declan-the-therapist. And he did just that with Megan, maybe taking a little longer than he normally did. He wasn’t unused to seeing various types of people when he studied under Chuck. Therapy didn’t discriminate. There were young patients, kids, teenagers; there were couples, married, engaged, divorced; there were beauties and those who would be deemed “average”; there were every type, you name it. Since Declan hadn’t been practicing on his own very long, he had mainly worked with men in their twenties and thirties, but he had a few exceptions. So, Megan was truly different, from her breathtaking beauty to her reason for being there. While he was still himself, his mind wandered. What would I do if I had seen her on the street? Would I have allowed myself to approach her, and ask her for her name and number? It didn’t matter anymore, she was his patient. Slipping on his therapist authority, he pondered how he should handle this case. How could he get her to trust him, to open up to him?