Page 66 of Poison Evidence

“I’m so sorry, Ivy. I tell myself I’m better than your ex, but I’m not. I’m worse.”

She turned to face him, but then couldn’t meet his gaze. She rested her forehead on his chest. “You can’t possibly be worse than Patrick.” At least, she didn’t want to believe it. “If I tell you why I divorced him, will you tell me who is so important to you, you’re willing to abduct me?”

It was unfair, really, this trade. Her story was minor compared, she suspected, to his. But he wanted to know why she left Patrick. Telling what happened was always humiliating, but she’d do it if it meant understanding Dimitri’s actions.

He released her and picked up the fishing pole again. After a long silence in which he tied on a hook and baited it with grubs he’d collected from the jungle, he cast the line into the sea, then planted the pole in the sand.

He dropped down on the towel next to her, then plucked the forgotten bottle of sunscreen from the sand and applied the sun-warmed lotion to her back. He ran his hands over her shoulders—more caress than application at that point—and kissed the back of her neck above the bikini tie.

“I’ll tell you,” he said at last. He leaned his forehead on her back. “I’m no longer certain who is captive here and who is captee.”

“I’m no one’s prisoner,” she said. “From the moment I had the opportunity to shoot you and didn’t take it, I’ve stayed with you of my own free will. Don’t for a moment think it’s been otherwise, or I’ll prove you wrong and leave right now.”

He nodded and took her hand in his. “I don’t want you to leave. And not because of CAM.”

His low-voiced words were exactly what she needed to hear. Patrick had only wanted her for the institute. The Navy only wanted CAM. And the DIA hadn’t wanted her to leave Palau even after she’d been assaulted because of what they’d hoped CAM could find for them.

Even if it wasn’t true, it was nice to think Dimitri was interested in her for something other than what her high-tech little buddy could do.

“You first,” he said. “Tell me what happened with Patrick.”

“The simple version is he was banging one of the interns at the institute.”

“How very cliché of him.”

“I said the same thing when I caught them.”

“There’s more to it than that, or you wouldn’t have remained mum when accusations were flying hard and fast your way. Every reporter covering the story wanted to know why you left him a year before the world learned he was a traitor.”

And here was the hard, embarrassing part. She raked her fingers through the warm sand. She drew a triangle, then another, before wiping them away and looking out toward the gently lapping waves. “After we’d been married for three years, Patrick and I began trying to conceive. The timing was right—I was thirty-three and ready to be a mom.” She stroked her belly. “I didn’t even know how much until we started trying.

“He was in his early forties and had said he wanted to start a family almost from the moment we got married, but it took a little time for my biological clock to catch up with his. For about six months, we were actively trying to get pregnant. The day the test showed two lines, I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to tell him.”

She closed her eyes. The shock of going from ultimate joy to ultimate pain hit her, even now.

“I went to the office to surprise him, and like every bad cliché you’ve ever heard, I stepped into his outer office—it was after hours, and Perry, his right-hand man who was indicted along with him, had left for the day. I heard voices in his office. One shrill, young. I recognized the voice. The intern. Twenty-two. She’d been with us for three months, and I’d thought she had a thing for Perry—who, like Patrick, was too old for her. But she was an adult, and it was none of my business as long as it didn’t interfere with her work.”

She dug her fingers in the sand again. It was grounding, the warmth and texture. She was here. With Dimitri. She just had to accept the pain that accompanied the memory would never fade. “I don’t blame her. She was young. Foolish. Starstruck. Don’t misunderstand—I was and remain pissed as hell at her—but I can cut a small amount of slack for her immaturity. Patrick did have that charisma. He was hard to resist.”

Dimitri’s knuckles turned white. Was it wrong that she liked the outward sign of jealousy?

Probably.

“The news articles always made it sound like yours was a marriage of convenience. The logical choice—a merger of MacLeod and Hill.”

“If only it were that simple.” She closed her eyes. It would have hurt so much less if that were the case. She opened her eyes again and stared out at the turquoise water. “And that right there is one of the reasons I never bothered to set the record straight. They had their own narrative. The truth was irrelevant. The media wanted to paint me as a villain right along with Patrick. They implied repeatedly that anyone cold enough to marry him for his money must be in league with him. If I denied their accusations, they would have said, ‘the lady doth protest too much.’ I couldn’t win. So I said nothing.” She raised her chin defiantly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I married Patrick for love.”

She traced another triangle in the sand, swallowing to fight the heartburn that came with admitting her shameful secret aloud. She’d loved Patrick and he’d…he’d sold CAM to terrorists while she was still in the research and development stage.

“Perhaps the only thing more insulting than the press’s treatment of me was being called a whore by the man I’d just had sex with.”

“I’m sorry. I was so far out of line.”

“Yes. You were.” She wiped away the shape. “No one in the press seemed to care there was noreasonto marry Patrick for a business alliance,” she continued. “MacLeod-Hill had already merged. Jessica—the girl. And yeah, I’m going to call her girl, not woman, because she might have been twenty-two, but she was still such a child.” She shrugged. “The feminist in me has to justify my word choice, even in private.”

“No objections.”

“Jessica was upset. Crying. I’m human, so I eavesdropped. After all, a girl was crying to my husband after hours in a closed office.” She glanced out toward the sea. Her hand curled into a fist. “Patrick told her she needed to be patient because he couldn’t leave me until after I was pregnant. He needed the baby to hold on to the institute, because of the contract he’d signed when we added him to the name. A MacLeod or MacLeod descendant would always be on the board and would have an equal part in all financial decisions regarding the institute. If no MacLeod wanted the task, they could appoint a representative. Patrick was trying to lock up the institute. He intended to steal it from me and use our child to retain control.”

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