Chapter 39 #2
My life has been a little more exciting than I wanted.
Tomorrow, I’ll head into town. Drop those little velvet bags and the damn box off with Kurt. He can give Declan’s share to him, if he cares that much. I don’t need a fucking dowry, I need a holiday. Somewhere a long, long way from here.
Somewhere with no men.
I order some takeout, eating it in front of the TV, watching a movie without seeing any of it.
Is Kurt right? Do I love Declan Hale? Maddox?
Goddammit, I can’t even get his name right in my head.
And that’s the problem, right there: whoever he is and the man I was developing feelings for are two very different people. I don’t love Declan Hale because he doesn’t exist.
That doesn’t feel right even when I just think it.
Maybe it’s more I do love Declan Hale, and he doesn’t exist.
Damn it.
I do love him.
For the first time in my life, I’ve fallen in love. Not infatuation, misty-eyed foolishness because a guy rolls up on a decent bike, nor a mistake that went off with a friend of mine, but real love.
With someone who isn’t real.
So therefore it doesn’t count, right?
Yeah, that tracks. Genesis fucking Greer and her amazing ability to totally pick the worst possible choice from the available options.
He’s a backstabbing, betraying, lying bastard. Love him? Maybe, yeah. But not as much as I hate him.
It’s not like you’re flawless.
The thought isn’t welcome. Not one little bit.
Yes, I followed him to Thousand Oaks. Yes, I lied to him too. I could’ve told him I’d known all this time.
Yes, I turned up with a goddamn gun to his sister’s house—why did I take that gun? With a child there! I knew she could’ve been there, I just wasn’t thinking.
I hate myself right now. Declan’s in good company. I hate us both.
Angrily shutting off the shower, I wrap myself in a towel, throwing myself onto my bed, cursing his name and my life.
It’s late afternoon when the phone Tasha gave me rings. I’m in the kitchen, the phone’s on the coffee table by the sofa. I stare at it, knowing it’s Declan. That he somehow got my number.
It takes me too long to reach it, but when I do, it’s not him calling at all. It’s her number, the only one stored on there.
I let out a sigh of relief—disappointment?—and answer.
“Hi.” I grimace. I can guess what she’s calling me about. “Sorry for scaring you earlier. Did Kurt sort it all out?”
“Oh, don’t worry.” She sounds chipper enough. “Yeah, he filled in all the blanks. So Declan loves you, huh?”
I flinch. “Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”
“Well actually, that’s kinda why I was calling.”
I so don’t have the emotional capacity for this. “All right,” I say, flopping down onto the sofa and cuddling a cushion to my chest. “Hit me with it.”
“After Kurt called me and explained everything, I got to thinking. You told Kurt that Declan hadn’t resigned, right?”
“Right.”
“So he’s still technically an agent.”
“Exactly. And I can’t imagine him throwing his career away now that I’ve removed his reason to leave.”
“Uh-huh. Funnily enough, that’s along the lines I was thinking, too.”
Finally. Someone seeing things my way. “Thank you, Tasha. That means a lot to me.”
“Dario was here,” she continues like I hadn’t spoken, “getting under my feet and generally being a pain. So I sent him off to Declan’s apartment.”
I sit up, the cushion falling to the floor. “You did what?”
“Not to talk to him. Just to watch.”
“Oh.” I slump back down. “He’s not there.
He’s at his sister’s.” Yeah, sister’s. Not his ex-or-current-or-whatever wife’s.
Likely consoling her after I scared the crap out of her.
She’ll probably be drawing up the paperwork to press charges of brandishing a firearm with intent to criminal menace, and he’d be well placed to advise her.
I can just imagine them working diligently at the kitchen island.
“Well, he was. He got back about two hours ago.”
“Oh.” I huff a sigh, not caring if she hears. “Tasha, not to be rude, but why are you calling me to give me updates on the movements of someone I don’t care about one little bit?”
“Because firstly, that was a blatant lie, and secondly, you need to hear this.”
I roll my eyes. “Get on with it, then.”
“Dario followed Declan to the FBI office in Beverly Hills.”
I close my eyes in pain. Three hours after I told him to go fuck himself, he turns us all in. Damn it, I hate being right. “Does Kurt believe me now?”
“And Declan was in there all of about ten minutes.”
“Okay… then I’m guessing he left at the head of a task force and is currently ripping apart the unit for forensic evidence? So you are where?”
“I’m at home. But no. Instead, Declan crossed the road to where Dario thought he was unobtrusively observing from, and said, ‘Tell her it’s now official.’ Then he rode back to his apartment.” She pauses. “Although, technically I suppose it’s not his apartment anymore.”
I swallow hard, trying to hold onto my anger. “And Dario believed the lying sack of shit?”
“Yes, babe. Dario believed the man who has just given up everything he’s ever had. For you.”
Tears are prickling my eyes, and they have no right to be there. “Yeah, well we all know what Dario’s judgment is like.”
“Solid. Dependable. A little slow sometimes. More reliable when he’s eaten recently.”
All true. Damn it.
“Well, whatever. I don’t see how this has anything to do with me.”
“Of course not, babe,” Tasha says patiently. “Kurt says you’re coming in tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll see you then.”
“Cool.”
“Unless you have somewhere else to be,” she adds pointedly.
“Nowhere else to be.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Meaning?”
“Nothing.”
“Tasha, I really don’t care what Declan does. I’ll see you at the unit.”
“You don’t want to say goodbye to him?”
I was in the process of reaching for the end call button, but my thumb pauses. “What?”
“Well, he’s going to leave, right? He has nowhere to live. Can’t stay here, can he? Where do you think he’ll go?”
“I really don’t care,” I say, enunciating every word, then end the call.
Drop the phone on the floor and pick up my comfort cushion again.
Clutch it to my chest as I stare at the ceiling.
Declan is going to leave.
Good. That’s as it should be. There’s no reason for him to hang around.
Hell, if he even cared about me one iota, he wouldn’t leave. So he doesn’t care. That’s good to know. Closure, after a fashion.
Maybe I should rock up and help him pack.
I wonder where he will go. No job, no apartment. Nowhere to live.
It’s really none of my business. Kurt will give him his diamonds—unless Declan leaves before then, because he doesn’t know they’re coming his way.
Still not my problem.
So why am I feeling guilty?
Shit.
No, it’s worse. It’s not just guilt and a misplaced sense of responsibility. I don’t want Declan to leave.
“Fuck!” I push myself up, throwing the cushion across the room. It bounces off the side of the TV.
I stomp off to bed, even though it’s still early.
That man is the most aggravating, irritating, lying son-of-a-bitch that ever walked the Earth. He can go to hell without his goddamn diamonds, and I won’t lose a wink of sleep over it.