CHAPTER THREE
A full day had slipped by, and Sawyer remained clueless about the previous day’s assault. It didn’t require a genius to figure out the motive for the attempt on Angela’s life. Tran Pham didn’t want her on the witness stand. Looming threats were why Angela had been tucked away in Abu Dhabi. But after years in hiding, how had Angela’s location been compromised? With each passing moment of silence and a lack of answers, Sawyer grew restless.
Jared Westin had promised Sawyer an intelligence briefing that morning. Then nothing happened. His boss had gone dark—not a word from Jared about their missed briefing and not a word to Angela, keeper of the schedule and wrangler of their team. If she didn’t know where Jared was… Sawyer’s stomach churned. Something was wrong.
His heel bounced. Sawyer repositioned on the couch. An undercurrent of tension knotted through his muscles as he scoured the luxurious lobby that covertly housed Titan’s Middle East headquarters. He wished he were near Angela. But she didn’t require a protective detail on their property.
Titan had eyes all over the building. Cameras covered every square inch of public space and the gated private offices with NSA-level security protocols. Half of the hotel staff had backgrounds that should have made Sawyer feel comfortable when Angela was in meetings on her own. Bellhops with black belts, a retired Green Beret for a concierge, and a head chef with a former life as a CIA asset were within fifty meters of his position. They could be called upon if there were a problem anywhere in the hotel.
The farthest elevator door opened. Liam and Hagan walked out and, seeing him posted like a sentry, walked over.
Sawyer strode forward and met them. “Any word on Boss Man?”
They shook their heads. Liam crossed his arms over his chest. “Strange, huh?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer dragged his hands across his weary face. The night before hadn’t given him enough sleep to confront an absence of answers.
“Where’s Angela?” Hagan asked.
“Upstairs, acting as though no one tried to put a bullet in her face.”
Hagan glanced around the lobby and nodded to a surreptitiously hidden camera. “It’s the safest place Angela could be.” His wife, Amanda, and her associate, Shah, managed the hotel’s security and surveillance nerve center. “You know that as well as I do.”
“He already knows that.” Liam eyed Sawyer. “What do you want Angela to do? Sit in her suite and stay put until we figure everything out?”
Sawyer shrugged. “That doesn’t sound like an awful plan.”
The guys chuckled as if they had an inside joke. Sawyer wasn’t in the mood to suss it out.
“Look, man. The offices are safer than the suites,” Hagan said. “But she could be anywhere in either of the towers and be fine.”
“I don’t think ‘fine’ is the level of security I’m comfortable with.”
Hagan and Liam exchanged looks. Hagan continued, “Amanda would know if a militant mosquito farted on the premises. No one can get to Angela while she’s on site.”
He was probably right. The problem was that Amanda and Shah couldn’t prepare for every possible situation. There would always be a risk. He had planned for a thousand scenarios, and yet an assassin had walked into a secure location and nearly blew Angela’s brains out.
As if Hagan had called in for reinforcements, his wife exited an elevator. Amanda didn’t look worried for Angela or concerned about security problems, but she did look paler than usual.
Hagan greeted Amanda with a hand around her waist and a quick peck on the cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you.” He gave her a quick once-over and maybe saw what Sawyer did. “You feel okay?”
“I have a headache. That’s all.” She rubbed the back of her neck.
Hagan shifted closer to his wife. “Do you want a bottle of water?”
Amanda’s color was definitely off. Sawyer motioned for them to give him a minute. He asked the front desk for water stashed in the mini fridge behind the counter and then returned and handed the bottle to a protesting Amanda.
“Really, I’m fine.” Amanda inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth before taking a sip.
“Better?” Hagan asked, far more concerned about his wife’s headache than threats that might loom over the hotel.
“Yeah.” She recapped the water. “But I’m going to lie down.”
“I’ll go with you—”
Amanda cut Hagan off with a flick of her hand. “I can manage a headache.” She eyeballed Sawyer. “Stay with him. He’s not looking so good.”
“Me?” Sawyer shirked from her scrutiny. “I’m just a guy with unanswered questions and a missing boss. Not to mention a laundry list of security uncertainties.”
She narrowed her eyes. “My head hurts, Sawyer. Don’t make me shake you.”
“Fine,” he relented. “Not uncertainties. But…” Sawyer shrugged. Amanda had this place on lockdown. There was no question about Titan’s security.
Amanda squeezed Hagan’s hand and turned. “If anyone needs me, find Shah. I’m off to nap.”
“And don’t forget,” Hagan said, watching his wife leave, “Angela agreed with Amanda and Boss Man. If she’s off-site, she’ll wear Kevlar.”
“Yeah, as much as she won’t like it.” Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. Angela liked clothes and fashion. She wasn’t trendy, though. Her skirts and blouses conjured images of timeless models and classic beauties.
“Well, she likes it more than being dead,” Liam said. “She seemed levelheaded enough last night.”
“More than you,” Hagan added under his breath.
Sawyer glared. His phone pinged, and he jumped as though someone had shouted from behind.
Hagan and Liam exchanged yet another glance that Sawyer didn’t like. He ignored them and checked his phone. “Not Jared.”
“Where the hell is that guy?” Liam asked the question Sawyer had wondered about a thousand times.
“He’ll turn up,” Hagan muttered.
Sawyer opened Angela’s message.
Are you downstairs? I’ll be there in one minute.
Hagan shrugged, as relaxed as if they were discussing weekend plans. “Five bucks and a beer says Boss Man’s helping interrogate the shooter.”
Liam snorted. “I’d take that bet.”
Sawyer’s jaw clenched. He wanted in on the interrogation but had more pressing concerns. Angela asked if he was downstairs, and she hadn’t waited for his reply. For all she knew, he was off-site. Angela had decided to head to the lobby without a plan. He responded quickly.
I’m with Liam and Hagan in the lobby. Southwest corner from the elevators .
He checked his watch. Fifty-nine seconds. If Angela said she’d arrive in one minute, that was when she would arrive. “She’s on the move.”
“She’s changing floors, not being handed off between protective details,” Hagan pointed out.
“Bite me,” Sawyer muttered.
Liam slapped Sawyer’s back. “You’ll feel better once you have eyes on her.”
“ Again , a reminder—we’re in a fortress.” Hagan’s eyebrows cocked as if he had more to say.
Sawyer shrugged from the backslap. “I know Amanda has this place on lockdown.”
“She does.”
“But she and Shah can’t mitigate every risk. They can’t account for everyone’s actions.” No one understood how Angela walked around Titan headquarters like she could control the whole damn world with a well-planned schedule and a succinctly worded agenda. “All I’m saying is…” Sawyer shook his head. He didn’t know what he was saying. He ran his hand along the nape of his neck. “Maybe she should stay put in her suite until we know where Boss Man is and have some answers.”
Liam frowned. “You know yesterday wasn’t your fault?”
“I know we have plans upon plans, and yesterday, we proved we didn’t have enough.”
“We didn’t know of an imminent threat.”
“She has been living in hiding for years.” Tension climbed up Sawyer’s spine. “There’s a known threat.”
“Maybe you want to be assigned to her on the grounds too?” Hagan asked.
Angela had been under his watchful gaze since Jared brought her into the fold. Sure, his role was officially with the ACES team, but he treated both duties equally.
“Give him a break,” Liam said.
Sawyer didn’t know who Liam was directing that toward. Hagan’s wife had a nightmare of a history with protective details, while Liam’s wife, Chelsea, had had a taste of Tran Pham and the hell Angela had gone through.
“I didn’t mean—” Hagan tossed up his hands. “I meant Angela’s safe in this building. I’m not trying to beat a dead horse, but come on, man. You don’t need to worry.”
Sawyer dropped his head back and drank in a long breath. “I know. I’m just…” He didn’t know what. Instead, he kept tabs on his mental countdown. Thirty seconds until she should be in the lobby.
“Distracted,” Hagan offered.
Liam elbowed Hagan. “Maybe Angela has an update.”
“Maybe,” Sawyer hoped.
The group pivoted toward the elevators. His gaze worked across the lobby, registering every person, their baggage and body language. He hunted for threats and searched for out-of-place minutiae, for anything like what he’d almost missed a day ago.
The elevator that serviced only their office floors opened, and Angela strode into the gilded hotel lobby.
“She doesn’t look like she has answers,” Hagan said.
“No, she doesn’t.” She wasn’t wearing Kevlar either. Sawyer studied her tight-lipped frown and the tension in her jaw. Her bright eyes didn’t hold their regular happy glimmer, and her high ponytail of dark raven hair didn’t swing with each step.
But she did look like she was trying to control every aspect of her life completely. The relentless bite of her black high heels clicked across the gold-flecked marble floor in a manner that dared anyone to get in her way.
Despite the stress, she still looked like a million bucks. He could never decide if her fashion style was buttoned-up or slyly suggestive. He’d never ask. She would knee him in the groin. They were close, but friendships had a line. Where would the line be for insisting on a bulletproof vest twenty-four hours a day? Kevlar would definitely change how she dressed.
Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn’t his place to notice how she carried herself in those high heels or that skirt. They were coworkers. Friends. At times, bodyguard and protectee. Not to mention, Angela was in a long-distance relationship. Sawyer swallowed hard. Even if they didn’t have a laundry list of barriers that kept a relationship at bay, Angela was the kind of woman who only did serious, long-term relationships. That wasn’t something Sawyer was capable of anymore.
He pulled his attention from her and swept the lobby for threats again. Hagan and Liam stepped to the side as she joined them, subtly blocking Angela from the main reception area’s view. Like hell they weren’t all treating her like she was under their collective protective detail until they knew what was going on.
Sawyer raised his chin.
Hagan crossed his arms. “Where’s Boss Man?”
“That’s the question of the day.” Angela pursed her lips and then let out a long breath. “I have no idea, and it’s driving me batty.”
“Did you touch base with Parker?” Sawyer asked. Parker, Titan’s tech guru, was based in the United States and led the global tech operations. He was in constant contact with Jared.
“We spoke before the sun was up.” Angela shook her head. “No dice.”
Stress knotted at the base of Sawyer’s neck.
“Maybe Parker knows and isn’t sharing?” Hagan suggested.
“That would be a good thought,” Angela agreed, “except he called me looking for Jared. As did Brock Gamble.”
Brock served as Jared’s number-two man in charge. If the second in command of all Titan’s operations didn’t know where Boss Man was, then Sawyer’s rising stress level was appropriate.
“Well, hell.” Liam frowned. “That’s a little unnerving.”
Her frown deepened. “Just a little.”
Liam’s phone buzzed. “It’s Chelsea. I’ll let you know if she knows anything.” He stepped away to answer the call from his wife.
“Well, I’m going to head upstairs.” Hagan turned toward the elevators. “Hit me up if you hear anything.”
Sawyer rubbed a hand over his face. “Will do.”
Angela wandered toward a couch in an alcove sitting area off the side and scowled at her phone. Sawyer followed, grateful to get her out of the public’s line of sight, and sat beside her. His gaze continued to pivot for threats. She dropped her phone into her lap and, after an exasperated sigh, slumped on the couch.
Sawyer studied her. “Jared will turn up. We’ll get answers.” He pretended to relax. Or, at least, he tried. He repositioned his legs and threw an arm over the back of the couch.
“Jared’s not the only guy giving me a headache.”
He snorted. “Calling Tran Pham a headache is putting it lightly, but it will work out—”
“Not Pham.” She squeezed her eyes shut before giving him a pleading look. “Can I show you something?”
He gave up on pretending to relax. Acting wasn’t his talent, and her head was in a different place anyway. “Yeah, sure.”
“It has to do with Paul.”
Sawyer balked. “The boyfriend?”
They didn’t talk about her relationship. Sawyer couldn’t remember how or when he learned the boyfriend existed. Maybe it had been mentioned in Sawyer’s initial safety briefing when he was first assigned to Angela as a security detail for when she left the building. Sawyer couldn’t recall Angela taking phone calls from Paul or sharing stories about the guy. Paul never visited, and if he did, Sawyer wasn’t sure he’d like him. Paul Bane looked like a Washington, DC politician. Sawyer was confident that Paul would think and act like one too.
“I need a man’s perspective,” Angela prodded. “Please, Sawyer. Don’t make me beg for your two cents.” She pouted, and her pleading face made him laugh. “I can do this all day until you agree.”
Sawyer groaned and relented. “Fine. My perspective”—he gestured for to hit him with her question—“I’m ready.”
Her cute, pouty face melted into a grateful smile. “Earlier this week, for two days, he was blowing up my phone.”
All right, so she and the boyfriend had talked and texted. Sawyer scowled.
“But I was absurdly busy and running around to secure a safe house in Libya.”
He nodded, recalling an incident in Tripoli that called upon their team to haul ass across the Mediterranean Sea.
“I told him that I couldn’t respond.”
Sawyer leaned back. “You think he’s upset you blew him off? He’ll get over it.”
“I told him that unless he was dying or something, I’d call back later this week.” Her gaze flicked to his. They both knew that the Libyan safe house issue took only a few hours to figure out. “That sounds harsh. But it’s sort of how we’ve always operated.”
“All right.”
“Don’t judge. Okay?”
“I’m not judging.” Except he was. At least, he was analyzing. Angela, who was completely involved and invested in her friends and work, didn’t blow off conversations. Sawyer lifted his hands. “This is a no-judgment conversation.”
She picked up her phone and scrolled. “Then yesterday happened.”
“That was a hell of a day for you.”
“Yeah, someone tried to kill me, and I thought, ‘Gee, this is something I should tell Paul.’”
Sawyer had spent all day with Angela. She yelled and cried and decided she wouldn’t let the assassination attempt get the better of her. Chelsea and Amanda had huddled with and hugged her. Hagan had organized their teammates and support staff to meet at one of the hotel restaurant bars for a nightcap to top off the crappy day. Sawyer hadn’t seen Angela on her phone.
“I wasn’t dying,” she continued. “But, ya know, one bad shot away from dying. Closer to dying than any other time in recent history.” She didn’t ask a question, but she stared at him expectantly.
He shrugged because what else was he supposed to do? “I’d want to know if someone tried to kill my girlfriend.”
“Exactly.” She forced a laugh. “I tried to get a hold of him. Not like he did the other day with the flood of calls and texts. But I tried, and I made clear it was important.”
“Okay…?”
“I haven’t heard from him.”
Sawyer’s brows furrowed. What did she need that he and Titan hadn’t been able to give her? Then again, there were many things that a boyfriend could give her, even through a long-distance phone call. Pressure ticked in Sawyer’s jaw. “Okay…”
“You’re pausing and thinking a lot before you say anything,” she accused.
“Well… yeah.” He half laughed. “Is this more of a Chelsea or Amanda conversation?”
Her eyebrows reached toward the sky-high ceiling. “Absolutely not.”
His own eyebrows arched. “Because?”
“They each have a lot on their minds, and I don’t want to share my silly burdens. It feels trivial. But I can talk to you about anything. I trust you without reservation.”
He didn’t know what to make of Angela’s choice to avoid her friends. “We’ve never talked about your boyfriend.”
“There’s never anything to talk about. I don’t remember that I have a boyfriend half the time.” She shook her head. “Forget that. What I mean is—I want to know this: do you think he’s not answering because I wasn’t answering earlier this week?”
Damn, there was a lot to unpack in just a few words. “I mean… that would be childish.”
She fiddled with the delicate gold bangles that peaked from the cuff of her blouse. “He’s not childish.”
The tension in his neck tightened again. “So he’s just as busy as you are.”
“Sawyer, I said it was very important.”
“Look…” He sucked in a deep breath that did little to ease the discomfort corkscrewing his trapezoids. Sawyer searched for a diplomatic answer. “He doesn’t know what’s happened. You didn’t say, and, tit-for-tat, you both ignored each other. So…”
Angela’s lips pursed.
What was he trying to say here? Defending Paul wasn’t on his agenda. Then again, Sawyer didn’t have an agenda. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”
She deflated as though he’d punctured the last reserve of hope she’d been guarding.
“There are a million things that could be going on,” Sawyer tried. His semi-defense of Paul ratcheted up the ick factor. He pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no reason to neg on the guy when Sawyer didn’t have both sides of the story. “I don’t think I’m a lot of help.”
She held her phone up to him. “Will you look at this and tell me if it reads as crazy as it made me feel?”
A small picture of Paul Bane was at the top of the message. The image looked like a corporate headshot. Or a political one. The type in which the guy smiled as though he was trying to portray his trustworthiness and relatability. The churning in Sawyer’s stomach double-timed. “You don’t want me to read that.”
“Yeah, I do. I need some perspective.” She shoved the phone closer. “There’s no one else in this entire building that I would ask.”
He cut her a glance. “Talk to Chelsea or Amanda. What about Jane?”
“I already explained that I can’t.”
“They’re your girlfriends.”
“I can’t. Sawyer, come on.” She repositioned on the couch, sliding closer, and made the pouty face that knocked out his defenses. “I’m going to beg again, and no one wants that.”
The faint, familiar hint of her perfume enticed him to steal another glance at her effective pout.
“I almost died yesterday.”
He pulled back and laughed. “I was there, Ange.”
“That’s gotta count for a favor or two. Please?”
Sawyer shook his head but gave in. He browsed her message to Paul. It read like a business email, complete with a subject line.
Important: Need to discuss.
When is a good time to connect?
“Give me a break.” The corners of his lips lifted. “That doesn’t exactly read like ‘someone tried to kill me. Answer the phone.’”
“No.” She held up her hand and then pointed at Sawyer. “I would send you a message like that. But him?” She shrugged. “That would be a little over-dramatic.”
His brow furrowed. No wonder she hadn’t asked Jane, Amanda, or Chelsea. Their response would be far less diplomatic than his. “To say to your boyfriend? After someone tried to kill you? Is there a better time to throw on the theatrics?”
“He’s…” She bit her lip. “A little more buttoned-up than us. And he’s busy.”
“You’re about the most buttoned-up, closely controlled person I’ve ever met,” he muttered. “If we’re being honest.”
She elbowed him. “Not in all circumstances.”
Sawyer chuckled. Angela wasn’t a stick in the mud. Last night was proof of that. The ladies hadn’t even bothered with a glass of wine. They danced. Played trivia. Goofed around. All in all, Angela seemed to let the assassination attempt disappear from her mind. And he never saw her checking her phone for a missed call or text message from Paul. “All right. Not in all circumstances.”
“Sawyer, scroll up.”
He thought twice, took a shallow breath, scrolled, and read Paul’s messages, which asked when she would come home. Sawyer cleared his throat and swallowed hard. He ran his hand into his hair and then shrugged. “That’s pretty self-explanatory, Ange.” He offered her phone back. “He wants to see his girlfriend.”
“Not-uh.” Angela scoffed. “The only time I’m asked to go somewhere is for some kind of political reason, something or other that my mother needs to trot out her stolen-and-returned daughter for. He’s asking as her staffer, not as my boyfriend.”
Sawyer shifted and repositioned his legs. Angela wanted an honest assessment. He didn’t have any context about the boyfriend or know her to be unreasonable. Still… “That’s kind of harsh.”
“It’s not. It’s—” Just as suddenly as she’d thrown this conversation onto his lap, she tried to back away. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”
His eyebrows cocked. “Why’s that?”
“I can’t show up in the US without a proper plan and lots of planning. He knows that. Besides, I’m not returning to the US until I have to testify.”
His chest tightened at the idea of Angela walking around without him to keep her safe. But there was a US-based team that was more than capable. Boss Man would put Angela inside an armored bubble and not let her out until the risks were erased. That should have been a small comfort, but now it was one more thing needling Sawyer.
“Maybe I am being harsh. I don’t know. This is why I need your perspective.” Angela pushed her phone back. “But you have to read the whole thread,” she pleaded. “Please.”
He frowned. “I don’t know, Ange.”
She pressed her lips together. “This will drive me crazy if I don’t hash the whole thing out with you. Once you read the thread and I get this out of my system, I won’t ask again.”
Sawyer took the phone and read Angela’s most recent messages after those asking for a good time to connect.
Can you call me when you have a chance? Today was a lot.
The time stamps on the two messages were about an hour apart. Sawyer pinpointed them as having been sent after he had deposited her safely in her suite following Jared’s briefing. He hadn’t asked her if she wanted to talk. He should have.
Sawyer gave her a quick side glance. “You said yesterday was ‘a lot’? That’s a bit of an understatement.”
“I already explained how Paul and I are. Besides—” She gestured to her phone. “I’m not interested in what I said. I want your thoughts on what he said. Scroll up.”
Sawyer returned his attention to her phone and scrolled for a moment but paused. “Did you touch base with your mother about what happened?”
“Not in a million years would I bring that up to her. Someone else will tell her.”
“But it’s not going to be you?” he laughed.
“No way, it’s not going to be me. Someone else.”
That someone would most likely be Boss Man—if he hadn’t already, which might relate to his radio silence. Sawyer turned the possibilities over and watched Angela to see if she had made that connection.
“We can figure my mother out later. Can we focus on this first?”
If she’d connected Jared’s absence with telling her mother, Angela wasn’t sharing. He returned his attention to Paul’s messages.
Babe. What would you think about coming home?
Babe? You never got back to me.
I think you should come home.
Move home.
Babe?
We’re all busy, Angela. The Senator agrees with me. You should come home.
I need you to call.
Angela. Pick up the phone.
Never mind, babe. We’ll talk this out very soon.
Sawyer smirked. “Babe?”
Angela mirrored his smirk. “I hate that.” Her lips pressed together. “Luckily, I don’t have to hear it very often.”
“You should tell him that.”
She shrugged as though she didn’t want to invest the effort. “What do you think about his messages?”
When she’d mentioned several messages, this sort of thread wasn’t what Sawyer had envisioned. “The messages are… a little pushy. Especially when you said you’d call him later in the week.”
Angela nodded. “It’s also out of character.”
All right. He could now understand why she wanted an opinion on Paul’s messages. “Are you thinking about going home?”
“ This is home.”
He’d never thought about her leaving. Joining Titan felt like Titan for life. Once you were in, you didn’t walk away. “You like working here, right?”
She stared as though he’d sprouted a third arm and another head. “Of course I do. I’m not going anywhere, Sawyer.”
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “You might want to when the trial is over with.” Things might change once Pham was in prison for the rest of his life and no longer a threat to Angela. Jared had built the ACES team to function together in perpetuity, and Angela, in her administrative position, was part of that team. They worked together seamlessly. But she arrived because of trauma and danger. “Your family’s back home.” He lifted her cell phone and handed it back to her. “Your boyfriend is seven thousand miles away.”
“Boyfriend?” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We write subject lines in our text messages, and he calls my mom the Senator .”
“That’s a little kinky—”
Angela smacked his arm. “We’re having a serious conversation, Sawyer.”
“Right, right. Okay, so the Senator ? That’s weird, but ya know…” Sawyer shrugged. “Respectful?”
“We’ve been dating for the greater part of the last decade. He can call her Samantha.”
Sawyer laughed. “Apparently, I don’t know that he can.”
“Maybe he could try calling her Sam?” Angela suggested, stifling a laugh. “Mom?”
“Do you even call her Mom? The Senator doesn’t seem very mom-like.”
Angela smacked his arm again. “Don’t call her that.”
“I’m sure not going to call her Mom, babe .”
She shook his arm. “Seriously, Sawyer. He wants me to come home—why? I have no idea.”
“Because he misses you?”
Her nose wrinkled. “I already told you. That’s not why.” Angela hummed. “I bet there’s a fundraiser or a television commercial for her campaign. Why else would he ask me to come home? It’s really freaking me out.”
“I don’t know.”
“And then,” she continued, ignoring him, “when I need to talk about this huge thing, he’s not to be found.” She threw her phone into her purse. “You know what I think? I think his life revolves around the Senator more than—”
“You?” Sawyer asked.
“No!” But her recoil softened into agreement. “Yes? Maybe? I don’t know.” She buried her face in her hands.
For one gut-wrenching moment, Sawyer feared she would cry over Paul. He wanted to knock the guy into orbit for making her cry as much as he wished Paul didn’t exist in the first place.
Angela picked her head up. Her face didn’t show tears. Just pure frustration. “You know what?” she whispered. “I don’t want his life revolving around me. Maybe he can just…” She bit her bottom lip again. “…not revolve around me. More like sort of near me? Or something.”
Sawyer leaned back. He rolled his lips together, not knowing how to feel.
“Say something, Sawyer.”
He didn’t need to. She already knew but needed to hear someone say it out loud. Sawyer didn’t know why he was that someone. The messages were manic, but her thoughts were easy to decipher. Chelsea, Jane, or Amanda could’ve handled this in their sleep. “You and Paul need to have a serious conversation about many things. That’s my take from your texts.”
Angela’s lips pressed together again. “No.”
Perhaps this was why they’d never had much of a Paul discussion. Finally, Sawyer asked, “Why wouldn’t you tell him how you feel?”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “I just wanted you to translate. Guy speak and all that.”
“Angela… that’s not guy speak. He wants you to come home, and you think it’s for your mother’s political campaign. That’s…” He raised a shoulder. “Something you need to think about.”
Her chin dropped. Angela’s mood shifted, melancholy and miserable. She trained her eyes on the lobby floor as though it might hold the answers she was looking for. “He missed my birthday,” she said.
His stomach dropped. Had Sawyer missed her birthday too? No, her birthday was in a couple of months. The team had celebrated in one of the hotel’s fancy restaurants that the guys never wanted to go to but women and wives all but demanded to visit. Champagne in crystal flutes and meals that arrived in installments called plates weren’t his cup of tea, but he had been there and didn’t call any attention to his decision to go out for greasy burgers with Shah and Camden after that fancy meal.
“Actually”—she rolled her lips together—“he’s never remembered my birthday. Not while I’ve been out here and not before I was abducted.”
Sawyer grimaced. He hated the role of defending Paul. But he couldn’t let her think the guy didn’t care based solely on missed celebrations. “Some guys forget birthdays. Holidays. That kind of stuff.”
Her eyes narrowed. “He never forgets a political event where he wants me by his side.” Angela sucked her cheeks in, and whatever fight she had retreated with a deflated sigh. “It feels as though he wants to date Senator Sorenson’s daughter, but not me.”
Whoa boy. Every time Sawyer thought he had a handle on this conversation, he was dumped on his ass.
Angela turned to him, head tilted, needing someone to promise that all would be okay. She needed her boyfriend’s attention. She needed to feel important.
Sawyer squeezed her shoulder and offered the best he could give. “Paul’s an idiot, all right. He sounds self-centered, but, I don’t know, also obtuse? He’s been with you this long…” He scrunched his shoulders and didn’t know what to say. “If he wanted to date the daughter of someone important, there are easier ways to do that.” Given her expression, his best two cents weren’t doing much to alleviate her concerns. “Am I making any sense?”
“Sure,” she said unconvincingly.
He blew out a long breath. The advice she wanted to hear and the advice she needed to hear were so far apart they might have been split by the same distance as Angela and Paul. “Give me your eyes for a second.”
Her chin rose before she lifted her gaze. Her eyes were more watery than he wanted to see. Despite the threat of tears, Sawyer saw trust. Just like she’d said repeatedly, she trusted him, and it was evident. He’d earned it, starting on the day she arrived in Abu Dhabi. The threats were real and deadly and far closer than anyone realized. But keeping her safe could have many meanings. Right now, it meant answering her questions and guarding her heart. “The real question, Ange, is this: Do you want to be with him?”