Yes, both his brothers thought, because looking at him now, they could see a volatile mix of emotions in his eyes. Anger. Pain. Despair, and something else…
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“No,” Cam said slowly. “But, on the other hand, if maybe you ran into something, ah, something that shook you up, down in Colombia, well, you know, you might want to talk it out.”
Matthew glared at him. “I may have behaved like an idiot but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for group therapy.”
“Of course not, but—”
“You think I’m somebody who’d curl up on a couch and spill my guts to a shrink?”
“No. Still—”
“Or maybe you think I’d fall for a babe I knew wasn’t any damned good? A woman who tried smuggling drugs? Who belonged to another man? Is that what you think?” Matthew slammed his fist on the scarred wooden table. “Is it?” he snarled.
And before his brothers could answer, he told them the whole story.
Everything, from meeting Hamilton to chasing down Mia to falling crazy in love with her and finding out she’d played him for a fool.
Except, he didn’t call it falling crazy in love.
He called it “being infatuated.”
Alex breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay. Got to tell you, man, for a little while there, you had us worried.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Matthew grumbled. “I just hate being played for a patsy.”
“Yeah,” Cam said, “but now that you told us the story, you’ll be fine.” He looked around, raised a hand to signal for another round. “All you had to do was get the details out in the open. I mean, a guy gets taken by a babe who’s got the morals of an alley cat—”
Matthew was across the table before Cam finished the sentence, his hands clasping the lapels of his brother’s suit jacket as he half-dragged him from his seat.
“What’d you say?”
“Matthew,” Cam said slowly, his hands locking around Matthew’s wrists, “don’t do something we’ll both regret.”
“You made a comment about Mia, Cameron. I want to be sure I heard it right.”
“Hey.” Alex looked from one hard, angry face to the other. “C’mon, take it easy. Matt, you said some things that maybe we misunderstood. Cam, Matt’s upset. We can all see that.”
“I am not upset,” Matthew said through his teeth…and then his mouth twisted, he looked from Cam to Alex and back again, let go of Cam’s lapels and sank back in the booth. “Jesus,” he whispered, “what the hell am I going to do?”
“You’re in love with her,” Cam said softly.
Matthew nodded. “And isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?”
“Well—well, maybe things aren’t as bad as they seemed. Maybe she’s not—maybe she wasn’t—”
“She was. Hell, she didn’t even try to deny the things Hamilton said. He called her a thief, a smuggler. He said she’d stolen secret information she was going to sell, that she’d played me for a sucker…”
“And she didn’t say anything?”
“No. She didn’t string more than half a dozen words together, not until the end when she was leaving with him, and then what she said didn’t make sense because it referred to something personal, about me.”
“What?”
Matthew gave a bitter laugh. “To this dumb tattoo we all have, can you believe it? And she even got it wrong. She said, just like choosing the skull and crossbones over the eagle, the end always justifies the…” The color drained from his face. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered.