Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(29)

“I wasn’t even here yesterday.”

“What else is new?”

“Why are you going to the beach? The weather is lousy.”

“It’s supposed to clear up by this afternoon.”

“Here in the city. You’ll be way out east. The rain is moving that way.”

“Then we’ll be at the beach in the rain,” she replies impatiently. “What do you want from me?”

He looks at Caroline.

“Daddy, please? I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“Don’t worry, Car, we’re going,” Marin assures her. “Please go tell Annie that the car will be here in five minutes and make sure she’s ready. Her asthma has been bothering her this morning, so make sure she did the nebulizer like I told her.”

Their daughter sighs heavily, but doesn’t protest. Ordinarily, she might, but Garvey can tell by her expression that she’s not thrilled to witness the tension between him and Marin.

Caroline plants a kiss on his cheek. “See you, Daddy. Have a good weekend.”

“You too, angel. And be careful.” He waits until his daughter has left the room, then turns to Marin. “Since when do you and the girls take off without at least telling me?”

“I told you about it on the phone when I called to ask you what you wanted me to do about that charity auction.”

Oh. Maybe she did.

He remembers that call. It came in on the heels of the one about Byron Gregson sniffing around the Grand Central Terminal lost and found. Needless to say, Garvey had been a little preoccupied when he was talking to his wife.

“When will you be back?” he asks Marin.

“Monday afternoon. Why?”

“Why?” he echoes incredulously.

“Why does it matter? You won’t even be here.”

“Yes, I will. I’m scheduled to be in the city all weekend.”

“But not here. And none of your appearances in the next few days involve us—not that I’m complaining,” she adds, seeing him open his mouth to remind her that it was her choice to take a break from the campaign whirlwind.

“I’m free tomorrow until mid-afternoon.”

“Then come out and meet us.”

He shakes his head. She just doesn’t get it.

“Why the beach?”

For that matter, why Heather Cottington? Marin’s long-time friend—a vocal Manhattan Democrat—is hardly one of his favorite people.

“Summer is almost over, and the girls want to enjoy what’s left of it, and so do I.”

“We have our own beach house. You can—”

“It’s not exactly our own.”

True. It belongs to the family—his family. On any given weekend, Garvey’s New England–based siblings, nieces, and nephews can be found at the sprawling island residence.

Marin shakes her head. She’s never been very fond of his sisters, but she tolerates them—and vice versa, Garvey suspects.

“Anyway,” she continues, “Nantucket is too out of the way.”

“You can fly there in less time than you can drive to Long Island at this time of year, with traffic.”

“There’s no traffic at this hour.”

He raises a dubious brow. They both know the Long Island Expressway is impossible on summer weekends.

“Even if there is traffic, none of the girls’ friends go to Nantucket,” she reminds him. “They go to the Hamptons. And so do our friends. Mine, anyway.”

Ah, yes. Separate friends.

Increasingly separate lives.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. Not for him and Marin. They were going to break the pattern established by his parents, his grandparents, and perhaps every Quinn ancestor dating back to the Mayflower.

When they met, Garvey desperately wanted to avoid the brand of brittle relationship he’d seen among couples in his own family. Head over heels in love with Marin, governed by his passion and na?ve young heart, he truly believed their marriage would be—could be—different.

He’d been wrong.

It wouldn’t be.

Couldn’t be.

Not after what happened to them.

Somehow, the traumas that had seemed to irrevocably bind them early in their relationship resulted in the very obsession that ultimately drove him away—emotionally, in any case. Physically, too, as often as he could manage to flee the domestic scene while maintaining his political Family Man persona.

His campaign now is based on that wholesome, old-fashioned image: loving father, loyal husband.

His marriage was supposed to be based on trust.

But you don’t dare burden the woman you love with secrets as dark as his. A mistress is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Garvey has kept the truth from Marin for her own sake as well as for his.

He’ll tell her only if, by some horrible twist of fate, the truth does manage to come out somehow—despite his desperate maneuvering to keep it hidden. But it won’t matter what he says to Marin then, because she’ll leave him anyway.

She might be willing to follow him to the governor’s mansion, but he’s pretty damned sure she won’t be willing to visit him in prison after what he did. And that’s where he’ll be—for the rest of his life, most likely—if he doesn’t get his hands on that file.