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Unsure of what else to do, Addison shook the hands of the other two women. Caroline, Laura, and Plum couldn’t have been more different. Caroline reminded her of a flower child—long, flaxen hair, sun-kissed skin free of makeup. Laura was slim and perfectly postured, her dark hair in a classic bob. Plum was a full head shorter than the other two.

Oliver helped the waitress pull up a second table, claiming a seat beside Addison.

When the orders were in and the waitress gone, Addison turned back to Plum. “Were you really engaged to my brother?”

Plum nodded, expression cooling. “I was. Didn’t realize I was dating him at the same time as Caroline and Laura here.”

Her brother had been stringing them all along. Addison knew he dated around. Even though he and Harley had never filed for divorce, they had been long over. But to lie to multiple women… to get engaged to one while being married to two others? Her stomach churned.

Addison looked at Mrs. Buckley across from her. “How do you know my brother? Is your daughter dating him? Or are you?”

Disbelief and disgust filled Miriam’s gray eyes. “Me? No. What would make you think that? And neither is Daisy, not anymore. She’s been under my roof this past year—barely keeping herself together. Your brother filled her head with promises. Had her pour her savings into their future. When he said he was moving, she quit her job as a doctor to go with him. That was the last she saw of him.” Mrs. Buckley’s face flushed brighter. “Your brother destroyed my daughter. I won’t stop until he answers for it. She can’t move on. I’ve tried everything. Maybe when justice is done, she’ll find her way back to herself.”

Next to her, Oliver tensed. Addy knew that he understood better than anyone what Daisy was going through.

“He stole from us,” said Laura, her accent British. “From every single one of us. Relieved us of our money, strung us along. Me in London, and Caroline and Plum in the States. All at once. And then simply walked away.”

Multiple women. Multiple countries. What the hell was wrong with her brother?

Caroline played with the edge of the folded cloth napkin in front of her. “He was wonderful to me. Charming, funny. Worked and traveled a lot, but when we were together, I felt like the only person in the world for him. I thought he was about to propose. I bought us a house on Mercer Island. Then the cops show up on my doorstep, looking for him. The watch he said he got for himself to celebrate a deal turned out to be stolen.”

Addison didn’t dare look at Oliver.

Caroline unfolded the napkin, placing it in her lap. “He wasn’t home when the police stopped by. I knew I should have asked him about it first. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation. But all the little idiosyncrasies started to add up, so I decided to go through his things. That’s when I found a second phone in one of his raincoat pockets. Then a third. He had a handful of cell phones, and each one had several women he’d been texting and sexting with. I was shocked. I called one at random.”

“She called me,” said Plum. “I had no idea he was living with someone—two miles from me—much less that he had a whole slew of girlfriends on rotation. He’d proposed to me just the week prior. Things had been hectic for him, and he didn’t get around to introducing me to his family, but he said he wanted me to meet his daughter soon. He kept talking about the babies he wanted us to have. I believed him, like a fool. So I took my bat—”

Caroline laughed. “She really does have a flair for the dramatic.”

Plum’s grin was unapologetic. “I went down to his place of business, ready to raze the place to the ground. Only there was nothing there.”

“What place of business?” As far as Addison knew, Kyle worked from home.

“He said he had his headquarters in one of the downtown high-rises. And there was a high-rise. But no one had heard of him or his startup.” Plum shook her fists in the air. “He’d insisted that we open a shared bank account. Said he wanted to make sure I knew how committed he was. Well, he’d drained it. Not just his money but mine too. A hundred grand, gone.”

Addy wanted to throw up. Her own fifty thousand, Plum’s hundred, the money he’d blackmailed from Roman… When would it ever be enough for Kyle?

“Did you call the cops?” Oliver asked.

“It was our shared account. He had legal rights to it, the bastard. After that, Caroline and I sat together at a café and went through his contacts, one by one. Some women hung up on us. Others were more than ready to talk. One had transferred thirty grand to him. Another, twenty-five. One ended up fired because of him. We found Laura through his WhatsApp. That’s how we found Daisy too, but Miriam answered her phone instead.”

“I was absolutely livid. I had to track him down, for my daughter’s sake.”

Addison looked between Plum and Mrs. Buckley. “Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on?”

“You’re his sister,” said Plum, and the other women nodded.

“When I called Kyle, it’s like he knew about the cops. Sent me straight to voicemail. Texts bounced back. A group of us decided to find him, but we kept running into walls.” Caroline turned to Oliver. “And then we saw on Reddit that you’d landed back in Ireland. We all thought it was too much of a coincidence. Miriam decided to scope you out.”

“You don’t live in the town nearby?” Oliver asked Mrs. Buckley.

“No. I’d drive to you on Sundays, have a good look around, but never turned up anything. We were all confused because you never left the place. Then his sister moved in with you. The plan was for me to stay on longer, see what I could dig up. None of us expected Plum to just show up on your doorstep without telling a soul. Pregnant, with a new name on her.”

Plum chortled. “I was trying to hurry things along. Figured a pregnant ex would get you to open up. I was wrong.”

“Because I didn’t know where he was either,” said Addison.

Mrs. Buckley unfolded her own napkin. “Then we were just going around in circles for a bit. And then I called over with those books, heard you talking about another woman in Galway. His wife.”