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The woman calmed her with her soothing tone of voice.
“What you’ve told me is astounding. Takes a lot of toughness to go through the ordeal you described. I find your resiliency amazing. But…I also sense that there’s something else going on, a subject that you haven’t talked about.”
Shelby was silent. So was Dr. Ramsey, waiting placidly for a long time, until she finally leaned forward purposefully.
“Let’s get to the point, Shelby, I want you to tell me about Padraig Finnian.”
The woman could be so subtle, meandering her way through the minefield of a client’s ramblings, and then there were times like this when she might as well have donned the leathers and zipped up the stiletto boots. She was quiet in her manner, but her words cut right to the core where the broken shards of Shelby’s last three years lay waiting to finally be swept away.
“I loved Padraig. He was a better man than I’ve ever known. He’s handsome and sexy and down to earth, so Irish…he tries to hide it, cause he says he’s about being an American now. But the Irish slips out in such beautiful ways. I thought it might work out between us…but then Vienna happened and he appeared from out of nowhere after I was rescued. But he didn’t belong in Vienna…”
“He didn’t belong? I don’t understand. He came to bring you home and you say he didn’t belong?”
“It didn’t feel right from the moment I saw him in the hotel. I always assumed he knew nothing about my relationship with Clive…that he knew nothing about my bizarre sexual desires. But then when I got home, the truth started falling into place. What I thought to be true about Padraig was a lie. He belongs to Clive Darcy. Not the way I belonged to him, but he was one of Clive’s agents. Here I was thinking that I’d cut my ties with Clive and the man who steps in as my boyfriend turns out to be on Clive Darcy’s payroll. He even knew that the man was sending me to Vienna…that I was about to be arrested and swept into the underground slave market…” She spoke angrily, her body shaking, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Do you know this for a fact? Are you sure he knew what would happen in Vienna?”
Shelby was silent then, drifting off, sobbing quietly.
“Shelby, answer me,” Dr. Ramsey’s voice took on a stern edge. “Do you know this for a fact?”
“What else am I to believe? He’s on Darcy’s payroll, why wouldn’t he know everything?”
“For the same reason that you didn’t know everything. Clive Darcy is a schemer…
what’s to say that he didn’t set Padraig up along with you? Did you have any reason to suspect Padraig before? Any reason?”
“No.”
“Did he admit to knowing what would happen on your trip?”
“No.”
“And the last time you saw him…what happened?”
“I told him about some of the things that happened with Jessup and the Madame, and how it wasn’t all that new for me…I told him the truth about what a slut I am. I couldn’t keep it from him anymore…he had to know that the kinky side of me is not going to go away. So what does he do but tell me he already knows – or at least he thinks he knows. He didn’t have to say much, I put it together on my own. I mean, I’d been suspicious all along…since Vienna. So I asked him point blank how he got the money to make the trip. That’s when he told me that he worked for Clive…”
“And…?”
“I threw him out.”
“Without any further explanation?”
“Yes, without any further explanation. I knew what I needed to know. I was furious, more pissed off than when I stormed into Clive’s office. So, I threw him out. I made him leave…I had to…” She made the last sad phrases through gulping breaths, a rush of painful sobs about to overtake her.
Dr. Ramsey sat back and waited for Shelby’s tears to subside and for her to calm.
Shelby blew her nose in a Kleenex and dabbed her eyes.
“And now you regret throwing him out?”
“Regret it?” She looked at the doctor doubtfully, then her tears began again. “Maybe I do.”
“Has he called you since you ‘threw him out’?” the doctor asked gently.
“Snuff…A few times. He’s left messages because I won’t talk to him.”
“And have you seen him?”
