Catch Him(45)

“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.

Declan sighed. “I don’t think so. Nothing ever came of it. I think it was just a bit of bad luck. Mary worked at one of the Huntley adjunct law offices in DC. That’s where she met Garrett. While I was relieved, I was still not happy about the situation. I considered removing her from the marriage, but every time I spoke with her she sounded so damn happy and in love. I know now that was an act. My darling sister is a lot like you. Stubborn. To a fault, it seems.”

“She was in love. She didn’t want to admit she’d made a mistake.”

Declan nodded. “Yes, I know. But it cost her terribly.”

There really wasn’t anything more Sinead could say to that. Sinead had been duped. She had been made to feel like an idiot. That was the extent of it.

Mary had to be hospitalized.

“The deal then, is I have to stay here for a while with you, and then you’ll let me go?”

He got up from the couch and set his drink softly down on the table, then in a flash he had her scooped up and over his shoulder.

“Hey, what the hell?”

She grabbed on to his waist to steady herself as he made his way out of the game room, back into the foyer, and up the long, winding staircase that looked like something out of magazine. Chandelier and all.

He apparently wasn’t lying about the money either, because even upside down Sinead could see this place was the bomb.

Finally, he had her in what appeared to be a grand bedroom and he locked the door behind him. Only then did he put her down.

“You’re not getting me, I think,” he said calmly.

“I’m getting you’re a caveman on top of being a fucking dickhead.”

“I love you.”

She flinched. It was still too hard to hear that.

“I want you to stay. With me. Like forever.”

Sinead had to struggle to keep her breathing even. “We hardly know each other.” Of all the excuses she could come up with, it was pretty lame. She knew him deep in her bones. Time wasn’t going to change that.

“Now who is lying? We know everything about each other and you know it. It was only three weeks, but they were the happiest three weeks of my life. I know you’re going to have a hard time believing this, but I was thinking… I was thinking of asking you to come with me.”

Sinead closed her eyes. It was definitely too hard to hear that. Not when she knew she’d planned to ask him that very thing.

“I didn’t know how I was going to work you into my life. I thought I could show you London and maybe make you believe that my business trips… were just that. But downstairs, when I was so deep inside you, I knew that would have been ridiculous. For this to work”—he moved his finger back and forth between them—“us, you needed to know everything about my life. Now you do. There are only three people who know what I do, who I really am. You’ve become the fourth, and if you think I’m going to let you go after three weeks, or three years… you’re foolish.”