Seeing it now wasn’t any less painful, which didn’t make sense. It shouldn’t still hurt like this. Not after all this time. But it did.
Masochist that he was, Matt actually took the time to study the picture more closely. He hadn’t done that before.
Wearing a long, traditional white dress and veil, Kat smiled for the camera as she held a large bouquet of roses in one hand. Her other was wrapped around her new husband’s bent arm.
The roses struck him as odd, because she’d always told him they were her least favorite flower. They didn’t last very long, she’d say.
She told you a lot of things back then.
With another deep breath, Matt continued his assessment, forcing himself to look at the man she’d married. Brian Anderson was handsome in a preppy, I’ve-got-money sort of way.
His sandy blond hair was perfectly parted, not a single strand out of place. The man’s straight, white teeth shone for the camera, and his posture was spot-on as he stood next to the woman Matt was supposed to marry.
To the untrained eye, they seemed like the perfect couple. But as Matt looked more closely, he realized something was off. It was the way Kat was smiling that nagged at him, and the longer he focused on that damn picture, the clearer it became.
The smile spread across young Katherine’s face wasn’t the one he’d seen looking back at him all those times they’d spoken of building a future together. No, this was the very same smile Kat always used while speaking to her father or his rich, important friends.
Unlike the one he’d dreamed about endlessly, this smile didn’t reach her dark, beautiful eyes. Like a two-by-four, it hit him. Kat’s smile that day was fake as fuck.
His gaze slid to the groom’s, the breath in his lungs damn near catching when he found the same signs of deceit on the young man’s face.
Matt knew what his expression would’ve looked like had it beenhimstanding next to Kat that day in place of this silver-spooned bastard. Anyone looking at him would’ve seen nothing but pure joy if he’d been the one to marry Kat. But this guy…this guy looked as though he would rather be anywhere else in the world.
How did I not see this before?
The answer to that question was simple. He’d been so sick at heart, he hadn’t taken the time to see it.
Gut screaming, Matt sat the folder down onto the coffee table and began shuffling through the remaining pictures and documents with more urgency. Derek had printed off several photos from Anderson’s social media account, so he started with that.
The first several were of him at social gatherings. Katherine wasn’t in any of those, but that wasn’t surprising. Derek had been sure to print off any comments people had left below the pictures, as well and after a quick perusal, Matt realized those pics were mostly from company parties.
He learned from the pictures and comments that Brian Anderson was a second-year lawyer on the fast track to making partner. Kat said he shot himself two years after they were married, but Matt hadn’t bothered to ask anything more. Frankly, he hadn’t wanted to know.
Now, all of a sudden, Matt wanted to know everything he could about the man she’d vowed to spend the rest of her days with.
As he continued his search, he realized nothing glaring stood out. Nothing except the change in Brian’s smile.
In the pictures with his co-workers, he appeared to be genuinely happy. But in almost every single one he’d posted of him and Kat, not so much.
Kat’s were a different story, altogether. Her social media posts were few and far between, but even in the ones with her and what appeared to be a few girlfriends, her expression was the same. That dull, forced happiness Matt knew was far from the real thing.
He went back to Brian’s posts. With an operative’s eye, he examined them more closely. Now that he was in the right mindset, he could see it. Or at least, he had a high suspicion of what he thought the real story was.
There was one common thread in all the pictures where Brian Anderson seemed to be truly happy. Another man.
At first glance, Matt assumed they were nothing more than co-workers. Friends, even. But upon closer inspection, his trained eye picked up on the things most people would miss.
Their close proximity to one another. The way they were looking at each other in some of the pics. Their hands centimeters apart, as if they wanted to link fingers but knew they couldn’t.
Matt opened his phone and accessed his Facebook app. As fast as his fingers would work, he did a quick search for the other men tagged in Brian’s photos until he found the one he was looking for.
It only took a minute for him to confirm what he’d been thinking. The other man, Chad Winthrop, was a proud, openly gay lawyer at Brian’s firm.
Brian shot himself six years ago.
Holy. Shit.
Matt’s wheels were spinning so fast he feared the centrifugal force would cause his brain to shoot straight out of his ears. Over the next hour, he went through every single document in that file.
