Page 16 of The Liar

“I know what you’re doing,” she said conversationally.

I stiffened.

“You’re trying to distract me from thinking about the woman you were with yesterday.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “While I appreciate the delicious meal, you should know that all you’ve succeeded in doing is making me wonder if there really was something to it.”

I tried to take her hand across the table, but she withdrew it out of reach. Suddenly, all of the rich food settled in my gut like a hunk of lead.

“There is no other woman for me.” I met her eyes, silently pleading with her to believe me. “You are the only one I want. The only one I will ever want. Now that I have you, do you really think I’d do anything to jeopardize our relationship?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what to think. When it comes down to it, we don’t actually know each other very well. How can we? We’ve only known each other for four months. We got married after dating for two.”

I grimaced. I should have known that would bite me in the ass. I needed to move quickly for the sake of my job, but the quick progression of our relationship had definitely raised a few eyebrows.

Joanna hadn’t questioned it at the time. At her core, she was a romantic, and she’d been swept away by the romance of it. But she was also pragmatic, and that part of her had finally come to the fore.

“Maybe we don’t know everything there is to know about each other, but we know who we are deep down.” If I sounded desperate, that’s because I was. Even I wasn’t that good of an actor.

“Do we?” She laughed bitterly. “Our work schedules aren’t compatible, so we don’t spend a lot of time together. Even couples who’ve been married for years still learn newthings about each other, so it stands to reason that a couple like us could hide much bigger secrets.”

I caught my breath. Was she suggesting there might also be things I didn’t know about her? Surely not. Between the deep dive my handler did and everything I’d discovered about her along the way, I was confident I knew everything there was to know about Joanna Lee.

“You know me better than anyone.” My fingers curled into a fist. I wished she’d let me hold her hand. I needed the contact to ground me.

She stacked her plate on top of mine and laid our cutlery across the top. “I’m not sure I do.”

“But you do! I—”

“Everything went so fast, we never stopped to think,” she interrupted, not giving me the chance to finish my sentence. “We were swept away from the moment we met at the train station.”

“You liked it,” I accused.

“Maybe.” Her expression became wistful. “But perhaps we shouldn’t have been so thoughtless.”

Ouch. Was she calling our feelings for each other “thoughtless”?

“Do you…” I trailed off, summoned my courage, and tried again. “Do you think our marriage was a mistake?”

My heart was in my throat, and it hurt to look at her, but I didn’t allow myself to lower my gaze.

She bit her lip. “I don’t know what to think.”

I stared at her, her words ricocheting around my mind. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. How could she experience the love between us and not believe it was real?

“Have you always been honest with me?” she asked, propping her chin on her palm.

I hesitated for the briefest of seconds, but it was immediately clear that miniscule hesitation had been enough todestroy her faith in me. She drew back slightly, her expression shuttering.

“Of course I have.” The lie burst from me, painfully loud in the quiet room.

But from the twist of her lips, I knew: I’d been too late.

5

JOANNA

My phone rang as I was going through interview notes related to the Sasha Sloane case the following afternoon. I checked the caller ID, saw that it was Zeke, and excused myself to a private room, eager to learn what he’d discovered. I closed the door and shut myself inside the depressing space with its yellowing walls and gray carpet.

“Detective Lee,” I said briskly.

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