“Brynne, baby…there are others who know about the video—you told me so yourself. This visit to see Oakley in the hospital will make it worthless. I can’t risk you any more than you already have been. Please just listen to why.”

The look she gave me? The tragic expression on her beautiful face, streaked with tears and devastation…really f**king hurt me.

After a moment she closed her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly.

I kissed her long and slow. Just to bring us close, and show her first and foremost how much I loved her. Then I sat her down and told her about my conversation with the Senator. About how important it was to keep any others who knew of the video’s existence, from trying to do what Karl Westman had attempted. Blackmailing degenerate motherfucker. And, also to neutralize any negative effect of the video by declaring friendship with Lance Oakley. Rapist dog with two dicks. How, if they were seen to still be friends, then a crime never could have occurred—just a youthful indiscretion between two kids, in the event the video ever surfaces to embarrass the future Vice President of the United States. Cocksucking immoral maggot.

Brynne took it all in, listening to me speak without interrupting or dragging everything down with more questioning. Her clear brown eyes held mine, quietly processing the situation. God, I admired her strength. Never a doubt about my girl’s bravery, or her intelligence.

But I was also hurting her right now. I knew about facing the things that scared you. For Brynne, being forced to visit Oakley’s bedside scared her.

It’s f**king killing me too.

She seemed to think about everything I’d told her, and got up and walked into the bathroom, stopping before the mirror. She stood there and stared into it, with seemingly little emotion, looking, in some ways, nothing like the passionate girl I’d met back in May.

Finally she turned to look at me. Lips trembling, eyes filling with tears that would taste salty if I licked them, she opened her mouth to speak. Her throat swallowing reflexively, her voice cracked, “I—I have to go and see Lance…don’t I?”

I cringed at her question, knowing there was only one answer I could give. Clusterfuck motherfucking load of steaming shit.

WHOEVER says the government moves slowly is not talking about the people that work for the future Vice President of the United States. Things moved at the speed of light as soon as I gave my agreement to visit Lance Oakley.

You have to do this. I stood in the hospital corridor waiting to go in, the smell of antiseptic and food permeating the sterile air making me want to retch. The bouquet of flowers I’d been given shook lightly in my hand as I tried to pull myself together. You don’t have a choice. Ethan’s hand at my back felt possessive, but I couldn’t deal with whatever emotions he was struggling with at the moment. You have to do it to protect your baby. I knew why Ethan was freaking. But there was nothing I could do for him right now.

The moment Ethan had sent my agreement to meet Lance via the text message on my phone, a very well-organized media show geared into motion. Limousines, police escorts, secret entrances, personal photographers, gifts for the patient, debriefings on what to do, how long to stay, what to say. Everything arranged down to the millisecond. You’re doing this. Ethan’s hand caressed my low back. He was being forced into being a part of this bedside circus too. My husband was about to meet my past. Everything I wanted to forget about. He’s just a soldier who’s been injured serving his country.

“Mr. Blackstone, you’ll stay on her left, until after your introduction to Lieutenant Oakley, then you’ll excuse yourself from the room to take a phone call. Your wife will finish the visit alone with Lieutenant Oakley.” The press secretary who addressed Ethan blanched at the look her gave her. Make that a wince. I couldn’t see him shooting her the f**k-off-you-pretentious-gash glare, as he was slightly out of my range of vision, but I could imagine what his face looked like right now. And no, Ethan wouldn’t take to her instructions well at all, now would he? Especially as she just told him to leave me in the hands of another man. Lance is not just any other man. Ethan might not even follow her instructions. I guess Miss Press Secretary was about to find out.

“We’re all ready?” she asked me, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Ethan.

No. “Yes.” He’s just a soldier who’s been injured serving his country. You knew him a long time ago…you can do this.

MY legs propelled me forward. I don’t know how.

I felt close to an out-of-body experience to be honest, but somehow I moved in slow steps that brought me into his private hospital room. I don’t know what I expected. I knew Lance had been horribly injured and that his leg had been amputated just below the right knee, but the person lying in that bed, was nearly unrecognizable to me.

The Lance Oakley I remembered was a prep-school, west coast society boy. Clean cut and ambitious. He’d been a student at Stanford headed for a law degree when we were together.

He didn’t look like Stanford Law now.

Tattoos covered his arms in sleeves down to the knuckles on his hands. His brown hair was cut short as it would be for a military officer, but blended with the unshaven beard, he looked raw and edgy. Big bodied, muscled and inked, dressed in a hospital gown and lying in bed, his gaze straight ahead on the wall. Not at me. He looked bereft, and not at all like the cold misogynist I’d carried in my head these long years.

I must have stopped short because Ethan’s hand at my back pressed more firmly.

I took another step, moving closer. He flipped his eyes up. Very dark brown as I remembered them. Gone was the cocky self-assuredness I also remembered.

Now, I saw something in him I’d never seen before. There was regret, and apology, and shame in the way he appeared before me, in his hospital bed, missing one of his legs. At some point in the past seven years—maybe just since his injury—Lance Oakley had found a conscience.

“BRYNNE.”

“Lance.”

His face softened. “Thank you for coming…here,” he said clearly, as if he had also been briefed by his father’s press secretary.

“Of course.” I came forward and placed the flowers on the side of the blanket and reached out my hand.

His tattooed fingers gripped my outstretched hand, and miraculously…nothing horrible happened. The world didn’t end, nor did the sun go dark. Lance brought my hand up to his cheek and held it there. “I’m so happy to see you again.”