Marie
He’d seen them. The pictures of her and Liam. The constant reminder of her own failure that she kept up as a way to remind her never to be that naïve again.
“I’m not stupid!” Garath roared. “I’m not going to be swindled when the evidence is right in front of me. They’re up on the wall like a shrine. You love him!”
“No,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. “That’s not what it is.”
Garath sneered. “Right. Then why are they up on the wall like a shrine to him? Hidden away where I wouldn’t find them, because you knew if I did, I’d leave you. Well guess what, I did find them, and I am leaving you.” He shook his head sadly. “Not like there was anything to leave in the first place I guess. You were always his.”
“I’m not his, Garath,” she said, feeling stronger now as her own stubbornness kicked in. It was not going to end like this. “Not anymore.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that. You’re going to have to tell me all you know. Tell me everything that’s going on.”
“There’s nothing going on!” she shouted. “What do you want me to say?”
“To tell me the secret that you’re hiding.”
Marie gasped. How could he know that? He couldn’t. There was no way. She’d never even hinted that she knew anything. Something clawed at her there, a thought trying to make itself known to her. Try as she might though, it didn’t crystallize, remaining just out of reach of her consciousness.
“I can’t,” she said when Garath tilted his head sideways, prompting her to speak. “Because I don’t know one.”
It was a lie. She did know a secret about Liam. A major one. But she couldn’t tell him. Not with Colonel Mara there. If the government found out what Liam really was, they would do things to him, hunt him down, and worse. Marie hated him with all her heart, but she wasn’t a cruel person. She couldn’t subject him to the experiments they would put him through when they caught up with him. Liam could stay hidden from her for now, but the government would find him far quicker.
Then they would put him in a cage and never let him free. She wanted to see him suffer, but not as a lab rat. That was too mean, even for her. That’s why she had to lie to Garath. Not like he would believe her anyway.
“What secret?” The officer sitting with Garath spoke up. Marie recognized the colonel, albeit barely, though she didn’t know her name.
“I don’t know a secret!”
“Then explain the pictures,” Garath replied, ignoring the colonel.
The pictures. How could she explain them? What, that she kept them up like that so she could go down there and be miserable with herself for failing her father? For letting her asshole of a dragon-shifting ex steal the car he’d prized, and left to her in his will? That she went down there to cry and beg for forgiveness several times a week?
Garath wouldn’t listen to that. He was searching for something else, something she didn’t know about. It sounded like he suspected some sort of plot going on between her and Liam. But she hadn’t seen him in over a year. Not since he’d left her and taken the car.
She knew that she should just tell Garath the truth, to explain to him what was going on. A part of her questioned that, calling to light the fact that he’d just walked out on her without answering any phone calls or texts, his apartment empty as well. She’d been worried sick, and yet here he was having dinner with the colonel and her husband, or pet, or whatever the hulking behemoth who went everywhere with her was. Eating with them like nothing was wrong.
Clearly he didn’t care about her. Nor, then, did he actually care about the truth. Whatever it was, she’d been naïve to think that he actually cared for her. If he’d been as crazy about her as he pretended to be, then why would he have left her alone without a word? While perhaps not as bad as the way Liam had left her, it still hurt. It wasn’t something you did to a person you cared for!
“If you wanted to know the truth,” she said coldly, her own defenses settling into place, “then you should have asked me instead of running off.” She smiled at him. “Though I suppose I should thank you for that.”
His perfectly arched eyebrows came together, the gray eyes cloudy. “And why is that?”
“Because. You revealed to me your true nature. The real asshole underneath. If you hadn’t, who knows how much longer I might have stayed with you before it came out. So thanks for doing it early.”
She walked away, leaving him at the table. This was why she hadn’t dated anyone since coming to Barton City. Men were all the same: they were all assholes. Whether they were shifters, like Liam had been, or human like Garath, they were all assholes.
And she was done with them.