He loves me, I repeat like an incantation in my head as Benson drives us to Bob’s office. He loves me. I love him. And love always wins. Right?
But because—to my knowledge—science has not tested love’s power against ICE, I clutch Aiden’s hand, shivering under his arm.
His hold tightens around me and he tucks my face into his neck. “Hey, shh,” he murmurs in my hair. “We’re still fighting, love.”
Love always wins.
He runs his fingers through my tangles—I can’t even remember if I combed them. “Do you want me to recite the periodic table in Russian?”
I shake my head in his neck. I’ve tried it all morning, backward, forward, in Latin, Italian and Spanish. It didn’t work. “Just tell me something else…anything. I just want to hear your voice.”
His arms flex around me again and a hard swallow echoes from his throat. His body has turned to granite but I find the hard panes comforting. His lips brush over my hairline to my ear. “Do you want to hear a little story?” he whispers.
I nod.
“You have a birthday you don’t know about.” His whisper is almost a smile. I try to look at him but he keeps my face in his neck. “It’s April thirteenth, the night after the battle of Baghdad. At ten minutes past midnight. In a sand ditch. I was covered in mud, trying to get some sleep but the images in my head…well, you know. And there was Marshall next to me, flashlight in his mouth, scribbling a letter to Jasmine, this moronic smile on his face. I was pissed. What the fuck was he doing? He’d get us all killed with that damn flashlight. But then I realized I was just jealous. Marshall was going to make it through Iraq. He had something to live for and something to die for. He had Jasmine. I didn’t. Never wanted one. But I did that night. I wanted someone back home waiting for my letters. That’s when the fantasy of you started. You were perfect in my head, but you’re so much better in real life. And you kept me company all those nights. Now, what’s ICE going to do about that?”
Take you away from me.
I look up at him, tears dripping from my cheeks into his charcoal jacket. “Not a bloody thing,” I sniffle.
“Not a bloody thing.” He smiles and tucks me back in his neck. I focus only on his scent until Benson stops at the curb and gets out of the car, probably to give us a moment. Or escape.
Aiden wraps his hands around my wrists. “What are you going to remember when you walk in there?”
“That you love me.”
“That’s right.”
“And that I love you too.”
His grip on my wrists slackens. “Don’t, Elisa.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“You don’t think you deserve to hear it, do you?”
He places his hand gently over my mouth. “Not now,” he says and, before I can protest, he opens the door and lifts me by the waist, and we climb out into another drizzly morning.
Aiden’s stride picks up speed as we charge through the automatic glass doors of Norman Reeves LLP and into the private elevator off the corner. We’re not late but the motion gives us both a sense of accomplishment—the body doing something even if the heart cannot.
I watch Aiden’s reflection on the polished door. He’s wearing a pinstriped charcoal suit and a slate-blue tie that matches his eyes. His sniper focus is similar to his determination the last time we came to this office.
How will this time end?
The moment we step into the twenty-sixth floor lobby, the same Adriana Lima look-alike receptionist springs to her feet. For a second, I think my red-rimmed eyes scared her, but her blush and drool at Aiden say plainly she has not even registered my presence. Her eyelash flutter is wasted.
“We know where we’re going, Miss Patterson.” Aiden raises his hand and marches straight to the conference room with opaque glass walls.
Bob is pacing by the window, a pen twirling in his fingers. The moment we enter, his eyes flit to our joined hands and he smiles.
“Options!” Aiden fires without any preamble. I sink into the closest chair I can find. He takes the seat to my right, still gripping my hand.
“Before that, we have an update.” Bob plops onto the chair across the marble table from us. “Just ten minutes ago, our contact at the DOJ called. Things got a little more complicated. They’ll want to question Elisa under oath. Probably before her deadline.”
“Why?” Aiden snarls and I gasp at the same time.
“Well, they’re very interested in your knowledge of Feign’s work. As they’ve seen repeated footage of you, they reasonably assume you’ve witnessed his affairs.”