"Sunshine." A plea, forgiveness, and desperation rush out of my mouth in one word. I'm pulled in two directions, and both of them kill me.
"Go," she whispers. "Bring Gavin home."
Her voice cracks on the last syllable as a lone tear escapes. Fat and heavy, it catches on her jaw, suspended for a long moment, waiting to fall with the rush of breath expelled from my lungs.
I kiss her. My lips to hers, my life embedded with hers, my tongue pressing inside for a taste that has to last us while I'm a world away. She grabs my wrists, digging her nails in and dragging them up my arms and around my shoulders, down my back until she holds on, holds me close as a sob crosses from her mouth to mine.
When we're forehead to forehead, I grab on to her gaze. "Please don't cry. Please don't. You and JT are it for me, sweetheart. I lo-"
She shakes her head, holding her fingers over my mouth so the sentiment is held inside. "Don't." She sucks in a breath, and her brow crumbles. "Don't make me promises, Caden Lawless, please. Don't. Just come home and tell me then. Tell me then, okay?"
I wrap her shaking shoulders in my arms, digging my fingers into her soft flesh as my truth comes out in a growl. "I will sunshine. I'll give you the words when I see you next time, but they're inside of you. Listen to them and know that I'll crush any man, an entire nation if I have to, just so I can come home to you. Feel me, sunshine-feel the words I haven't said, hold them close while I'm away. And JT." I choke at the thought of leaving for even a day. But I have to do this to ensure my future is not lost somewhere in my mind. From this day forward I will not be plagued by the past. "Show him my picture so he doesn't forget me, alright?"
She nods and I clutch her to my chest, as if she'll make a permanent impression and I won't have to live without her or her me. I drag in a deep breath of vanilla and love, and then push away. Marching from the room, I refuse to look back at where I left my heart.
Piper
TO MOVE FORWARD, I have to accept Caden as he is. I know this. I can't ask him to change and I won't. I made the choice to love him despite his profession or partly because of it-to walk that line again because the man behind the camouflage is worth it. He's worth it, and he has to do this. If I ask him to stay he will and he'll regret it every day for the rest of his life. I squeeze him as hard I can, giving him my strength and the prayer on my lips for safe travels. Come home to me. The words stick in my throat when his grip loosens and my heart somersaults in my chest, plummeting to my stomach the second he slips away.
"You're worth it," I whisper as Caden stalks from the Oval Office with my heart in his hands. A second later, I'm wrapped in Charlie's embrace and I fall apart slowly, one sob at a time until I feel nothing but the need to hold JT.
The remainder of the day is a blur. The second hardest part is calling Cara and Tess. Crying with them does little to ease my pain. Charlie insists JT and I stay in the residence, and before I come up with an excuse not to, our hotel suite is cleared and I'm settled in a pretty pink room with JT in the porta-crib next to me. I'm in bed. Alone. Hollowed out by tears and time, minutes tick by and I count them off one by one, wondering where Caden is now. Flying, I'm sure. Thousands of feet in the air, he moves away from me. So far away that each second digs at the courage I found a moment before.
Vacillating between fear and anger, I get stuck on ungodly rage. It courses through me and is geared toward Lockman. Fucking Morgan Lockman and his contract with the Middle East, his desire to best my father and score the deal that would see him perched above all the rest. The king. One decision changes lives. One act, one moment, alters the course of many. Lockman's greed, his choice to deliver state of the art weapons into enemy hands triggered events that changed my life. It's time I took the reins to control my destiny.
By dawn, I'm churning through ideas and a mission of my own. Caden is not the only one who can make a power play. Before the sun has risen, I beg for a conference with the President in his den. When I tell him my plan, he resists at every turn but I push and push some more. In the end, we come to an agreement and I make a couple of calls to set things in motion. At breakfast, I ask Gram and Mrs. Carter if they'll watch JT for a couple of hours. Charlie gives me a suspicious glance, but after a moment of inspection she nods and says, "I'll ask Kyle to drive you wherever you'd like to go."
Kyle Sommerton turns out to be the Secret Service agent with eyes like ice. He watches me through the rearview mirror, flicking his gaze from the street to my face as if he's done it a million times over.