“The date on the police report.” Cara watched his Adam’s apple bob when he swallowed. “That was right before he told us he was getting married.”
It took a second for the information to process, but as she realized what Luke meant, it felt like all the blood had left her head, and she was suddenly ice cold.
“Fuck.” Declan looked like someone had sucker punched him, and he dragged in a ragged breath. “No. Fuck.Fuck!”
Wes’s eyes ping-ponged among the three of them. “What does that mean?”
“Do you remember when I told you about when my father married Courtney that it was the ultimate break with Declan? How much it hurt that he was finally marrying, and it was to that witch! How Declan and…”
She stopped when Declan swore. “Jesus, Cara!”
Luke, however, was looking at her with a strange soft expression. “You really told him everything, didn’t you?”
Cara’s eyes went to Wes. “Yeah,” she smiled. “He knows everything about me. The good, the bad and the ugly.”
Ignoring her brothers, Wes lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.
“If he married her to protect you—” Luke began.
“You don’t know that!” Declan interrupted his brother.
Luke lifted one brow. “You’re right. It could totally be a coincidence that, days after you supposedly killed someone in a car accident, our father announces that, after sixty-five years of being a bachelor and having numerous love affairs, he is suddenly marrying his current girlfriend.” He held up his hand and began ticking off his points with his fingers. “Look at the evidence. After he announces the engagement, he refuses to discuss it with any of us. Declan and Dad never really spoke again, and then shortly after, we all lost access to him. Courtney’s son is suddenly given a position in the company that he is in no way qualified for, and we now know Courtney knew about the photos.” He paused, grimacing. “It also explains his sudden irrational anger with you, the argument you said he picked.”
Cara frowned. “What argument?”
Her brothers ignored her.
“I can’t accept he married her because he thought…” Declan’s voice broke, and Cara sprang to her feet and rushed to him. At first, he was stiff under her embrace, but eventually, he put his arms around her holding her tight.
“If he did, it means he loved you so much that he would do anything for you.” Cara felt a shudder go through him. “And in the end, he must have known the truth. That’s why he wanted me to be the one to find it.” She pulled back and gave him a crooked smile. “He must not have thought you would listen, or maybe he was ashamed he’d believed it and couldn’t face you. What matters is he wanted to make sure you were still protected!”
Declan put her back a step and patted her shoulder. “Or he still thought they were real and wanted to make sure no one but the family saw them.”
Cara watched helplessly, unsure what to say to make him feel better. Declan tugged at his cuffs, straightening his sleeves, and when he spoke, he was dispassionate. “I’ll have Cecile get the two of you on a flight back to Atlanta.”
Cara frowned. “Declan, we have to plan for what to do next.”
Declan held her eyes for a minute. “We can’t do anything until we find out if the police report is real, and if someone really killed a woman in my car. Then we can work backward and discover how Courtney knew about it, and how she got her hands on the evidence. I’ll convince whoever it is to tell me their connection to Courtney. We could use that as leverage. But we need to know more about what was happening in the house in those last months. How did she make him sick without the doctors figuring it out what was wrong? I’ll call Mrs. Woodson in the morning. She’s our best chance.”
“What about Vincent?” Luke asked.
“I can’t find him,” Declan said. “He took a job doing private security in the Middle East. I can’t pin him down.”
“Who’s Vincent?”
“Head of my dad’s security,” Cara explained, and almost laughed at the surprise on his face. “You see why I’m not sorry that part of my life is over?”
* * *
Cecile foundthem seats on flights out of Ireland early the next morning. Cara and Wes had the earliest flight back to Atlanta, with Luke on a separate flight a few hours later. Declan would return to New York later in the day.
Their last night in Dublin, as they lay in the bed happily snuggled together, Cara broached the question that had been floating around in her mind since she realized that this time the next day she would be back in Atlanta.
“Where are we going tomorrow?”
“Hmm?” Wes asked sleepily, nuzzling the back of her neck. She rolled to face him, tucking her hands under her chin.
“Tomorrow. When we get off the plane, where are we going?”
