Sadie didn’t understand how he could kill a dog to resolve an argument.
“Actually, I found him at a no-kill shelter,” Carrick replied.
Ronan frowned, confused. “But he had papers. He was highly pedigreed. Tamlyn told us he had a family tree longer than ours.”
Carrick’s mouth twisted. “Jazz was a mutt. A lovely mutt, but still a mutt.” Sadie noticed that Carrick didn’t try to explain or excuse Tamlyn’s lies; he just stated his truth, calmly and precisely.
She needed to know. She had to know. “Can I ask you a question?”
Carrick looked at her and slowly nodded.
“Why did you euthanize Jazz?”
For a long moment Sadie thought he wasn’t going to answer but his answer, when it finally came, was short and to the point. “Jazz had cancer of the bowel. Tamlyn, to give her credit, loved that dog, but she wouldn’t face the fact that he was suffering and in pain. I did the kindest thing.”
“But she—”
Behind Carrick’s head, she saw Ronan’s quick shake of his head, his fierce frown. She stopped talking. It didn’t matter what Tamlyn had said. Sadie now had Carrick’s version of that event and it was diametrically opposite to what she’d believed.
Carrick’s eyes, when they met hers, were as hard as stone and twice as icy. “Care to tell me how you heard that story about my dog? Because that was one of the few things that didn’t make the social columns.”
Carrick really didn’t care what the world thought about his marriage, how the members of A-list Boston society viewed him. The people he cared about knew him for who he was. They were aware of how he’d conducted himself during his marriage. His siblings and his close friends knew he could be impatient and demanding, but they also knew he was never abusive or cruel.
Yes, his marriage had bombed. But the stories that were out there were not based on anything remotely resembling the truth. And Sadie, judging by the fact that she’d heard about Jazz, knew more than most.
And, if he wasn’t mistaking the confusion in her eyes, she’d believed what she heard.
Carrick felt sick to his stomach. He could see it in her eyes, in her white fingers clutching her biceps. The mother of his unborn child had doubts about his character, was uncertain about how he would treat her going forward.
For the first time his urge to explain was almost stronger than his pride.
Almost, but not quite.
Carrick waited for Ronan to leave before starting with the easiest of the dozen questions he had. “How did you hear about Jazz?”
Sadie pushed her top teeth into her bottom lip. When he didn’t speak again, she sighed and his anger climbed. Tamlyn had been out of his life for five years but she was still causing havoc.
“Beth, your ex-wife’s—”
“I know who Beth is,” Carrick interrupted her.
“Well, Beth is a virtual assistant and I am one of her clients, her main client. She’s also an old friend.”
Carrick closed his eyes, feeling sick. Behind Tamlyn, Beth was the biggest spreader of Tamlyn vs Carrick rumors and instantly believed anything vicious her older sister said. If Sadie and Beth were friends, God knows what lies she would’ve told Sadie.
“I’m also friends with Tamlyn.”
Oh, yeah, this was just getting more fabulous by the minute. “Well, then, you got it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
Never mind that the horse was spouting BS.
“Care to tell me why you never informed me about your connection to my ex-wife?”
Sadie held his hard stare. “I didn’t think it was germane to the situation.”
The hell it wasn’t. Sadie pushed her hair off her shoulders and straightened her spine. “I only heard one side of the story, Carrick. I haven’t heard yours.”
“And you are never going to.”