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“Too many of the right people don’t believe they have a responsibility to do good in the world. The richest sixty-two people on the planet have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population. That’s more money, property, and resources than nearly four billion people. There are individuals who are richer than entire countries who don’t pay tax or give to charity. It’s obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few while inequality traps hundreds of millions in poverty.”
Okay, there was inequality, but this was, this was… “How do you get away with it?”
“Because the world is full of people like John Alington and Alex Astor who are greedy and opportunistic, who believe they deserve all the rewards and live above the rules. The easiest mark is a person who thinks they’re too clever to be conned.”
Cal put the laptop aside. He didn’t try to touch her, and she tried not to lash out at him. She burned to push him, hurt him for the lies, the filthy lies.
“You can con almost anyone, Fin. Lonely people are particularly susceptible, the elderly and anyone who has suffered misfortune. We only con the very rich, the very arrogant, and those who don’t pay their way either by doing dirty things to avoid what they owe or deliberately trampling on other people.”
“The briefs.” They always told her how much money a target had and listed all the other not so great things about them. But what kept bouncing around in her head was Cal saying you can con almost anyone.
“You conned me. You had me working for you when you were stealing. You made me help you scam other people. Oh my God. Tell me I’ve got that wrong.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t break any laws. You didn’t do anything bad, and you’re not in any trouble. I told you I would keep you safe, and that meant keeping you ignorant.”
But she wasn’t ignorant now. She was on fire with the truth. “What if I go to the cops or a lawyer or a newspaper? What if I turn you in?”
“You could try,” he said softly.
She stood and moved across the room. “Which means you’d make it so no one believed me, a failed actor, a flaky little wannabe who never finished anything and couldn’t keep her own charity alive.” Oh, he was diabolical. “I see.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle to try hold herself together when all the world was coming apart. It would be her word against the whole of Sherwood with its shiny office and its A-list access and pristine reputation. She’d come off like a grasping social climber or a disappointed lover. A nobody with a grudge.
And he’d picked her from the beginning for all those reasons.
“I have a responsibility to my family to keep them safe, too. The less you knew, the safer everyone was. But I was also prepared. The clothing I had for you at Beacon, it wasn’t Rory’s. It was put together for you. A go-bag. I have passports in fake names, money, credit cards to use in the very extreme case we ever had to run.”
She stifled a gasp with her hand. Run like they were fugitives. She pulled herself together to ask the obvious question. “Why tell me this now? Why tell me at all?”
“Because I love you and I want to get on my knee and ask you to marry me, and I can’t do that unless you know the truth.”
She turned her face away, a bitter taste flooding her mouth. “I like the lie better.”
“I understand.”
He moved to hug her, and she held him off. “Don’t.”
He wasn’t her Cal anymore. She didn’t know who he was.
Who she was.
He backed off, immediately. “Whatever you need.”
What she needed was to feel like a zombie, to move like one, brain dead, limbs operating on muscle memory. She left the room, went to the kitchen, made a pot of tea on autopilot. Tea was useful for thinking end of the world thoughts. It had better be, because this felt like the end of the world as she knew it.
Cal was nothing but a low down, dirty liar and a rotten thief hiding behind a social justice agenda, and he’d used her, paraded her around like a fancy fishing lure while he noodled his big fish and netted his whales. He’d even taught her his lie detection and manipulation skills, and she’d learned them well. Did that make her a con artist, too?
The tea didn’t give her any answers. It didn’t ease the pain in her chest. Cal had fooled her so easily from the moment she’d sat beside him at the Blarney. Here’s a gullible rube I can hook. I can use her. She’s too stupid to work it out.
How inconvenient that he fell in love with her.
If he did?
Because how could she believe that? She couldn’t believe anything he said or did—it was all an elaborate, fetid charade. He was an emotional cheat, a love vampire exactly like Win, and she’d learned nothing, been taken in again. Humiliation rushed through her like a fever.
How would she tell Lenny? It would devastate her. What about her parents? They’d been proud for the first time in forever.
Somewhere in this house was a go-bag filled with money, clothing, and passports in fake names. Maybe she should take it and run. Disappear and never have to deal with this. It was, after all, who she really was—a quitter, someone who never stuck at anything, who cut and ran when the going got tough.
