CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The overhead lights were too bright. The monitoring equipment was too loud. Angela couldn’t find a comfortable way to remain in her hospital bed, but no one would let her get up and leave. “This is overkill.”
“I heard you the first hundred times,” Sawyer said from the chair by the foot of her bed. “But doctor’s orders are doctor’s orders. You’re staying put for rest and observation.”
She might have believed that more if there weren’t two federal agents standing guard outside the door to her hospital room. On top of that, Sawyer’s threat assessment was on a hair trigger. Doctors and nurses had to convince him they were who they purported to be before he let them near her. She apologized for the hulking muscleheads on guard-dog duty, but the situation never became any less awkward. Two nurses and a doctor had asked her a series of domestic violence screening questions while side-eyeing him. Each time, she’d reassured them that Sawyer was the reason she was still alive and that if they watched the evening news, there would likely be an interesting headline or two about her.
“Why did you choose Titan instead of Witness Protection?” he asked once the hospital personnel were gone.
The question caught her off guard. The offer of the Witness Protection program felt like eons ago. “How do you know they asked?”
His shoulders bunched. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Do you think my mother would be okay with that storyline hitting the press?” Angela scoffed but then softened and shook her head. “I say a lot of harsh things about her. But you know what? When I first saw her in Pham’s warehouse before Titan blew the roof off, I ran and hugged her.” If she were being honest, Angela wouldn’t have minded a hug from that version of her mom,who had faced off against terrorists to save her daughter. But now the stakes and situation were different, and Angela didn’t want the questions and demands that came with inviting her mother into the same room for a conversation. “She is many things…”
“She is,” Sawyer finally agreed.
Angela sighed. “But she’s my mother above all. I don’t agree with her on much. Sometimes I don’t even like her. But I ran to her when her arms were open.” Angela offered a watery smile but laughed. “Still, Witness Protection wouldn’t have worked for her.”
“That’s one reason not to accept a new identity, I guess.”
“It wasn’t because of her. I said no because I didn’t want it. It didn’t matter what my mom wanted. I trusted Jared Westin more than anyone else. He could keep me safe and let me be me. Boss Man thought of everything. He was ten steps ahead in planning: I wouldn’t have to hide and lie. I wanted therapy. He introduced me to Ibrahim within the first few weeks after I arrived in Abu Dhabi. He arranged for you to keep me safe.”
“Lotta good I’ve done for you, sweetheart.”
Angela jerked toward him—and groaned at the aching twinge that the pain medicine hadn’t blocked—and continued, dead serious. “Twice someone tried to kill me, and twice you were the reason I’m still alive.”
He balked. “That’s twice too many times—and three times if you count the beach house.”
“I wasn’t in Witness Protection, and a twenty-four-hour protection detail wasn’t sustainable in the long term. I wanted a life. My life. I wouldn’t change who I was then, and I won’t now.”
The muscles in his jaw ticked.
A slight but straightforward knock sounded on her door. It was different from the knocking of the medical staff and law enforcement, and Angela’s stomach turned.
Her mother appeared. Had Angela just conjured her out of nowhere? “Mom? What are you doing here?”
Angela’s mother greeted Sawyer politely instead of answering. With far less courtesy, she then asked for him to leave the room.
“No.” Angela gestured to Sawyer that he was to remain by her side. “He stays.”
As always, her mother was ready for a press conference, with hair blown out and makeup in place. But there was a tiredness in her eyes that Angela hadn’t expected. “What’s wrong?”
“What a question,” her mother said, eyebrows raised. “I’ve been able to do most everything I want in my life, yet somehow, a decision I made years ago keeps hurting my daughter.” She scorned. “What’s wrong? This . I’m so tired of it.”
Angela had never heard a defeatist word from her mother before. It unnerved her.
Her mom paced to the corner of the hospital bed and examined the monitor and IV bag. Her gold bangles clinked as she crossed her arms and then, turning on a high heel, moved to Angela’s bedside. “What do you want to do?”
Angela’s eyes darted to Sawyer and back to her mother. “What do you mean?”
“What do you want your life to be like?” her mother pressed.
Sawyer . Angela wanted Sawyer. That wasn’t an option. It wasn’t even a possible question. At least not in the way that she wanted. She closed her eyes and imagined her apartment in Abu Dhabi, how she managed the ACES team and went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She wanted to watch her friends as they brought new babies into the world—Angela wanted to be with her friends, the people she worked with so closely, as they navigated their unconventional lives. More than anything, Angela wanted to see Sawyer every day, knowing they’d once had a connection so hot it could burn Abu Dhabi to the ground. They’d return to normal but would always have a secret of their own. “I want life to return to normal.”
“Oh, thank God.” Her mother’s gold-bangled hand pressed to her heart. “It’s been so many years since we’ve had that.” Theatrics finished, her mother squared her shoulders as if she’d done a good day’s work. “That’s perfect, and I was hoping that might be what you’d say. So, just in case luck was on my side, I brought Paul with me.”
Angela choked. “What?”
Her mother didn’t notice. “I’ll go get him. He’s waiting in the hall. Finally, everything can go back to normal.”
“No.” Angela drew back. “What are you talking about?”
Her mother frowned, hand resting on the door. She pulled back, eyebrows arched. “You said normal? Before Pham took you. Before you broke off your engagement. Normal .”
“We weren’t engaged,” Angela managed through clenched teeth. She looked at Sawyer, stoic and expressionless as a statue, then back at her mother, confidently over the top and wrong about everything. Incredulous, Angela shook her head. “My normal. As in: I go back to work. I go back home.” No comprehension registered on her mother’s face. “To Abu Dhabi.”
Her mother’s face remained frozen for a second too long as she evidently ran the calculations of the negotiation. Finally, she cackled, having apparently decided that ridicule was the right move. “Angela, that can’t last forever.”
“Why not?”
She composed herself and then turned to Sawyer. “Mr. Cabot, would you please excuse us?”
“Mother,” she snapped, “if someone’s leaving this room, it’s not—”
“I’ll step out, Ange.”
“I don’t want you to.” But his discomfort was evident, and Angela relented. “Fine. Only for a few minutes.”
The door quietly shut behind Sawyer. Her mother paced from one side of the bed to the other. “By the way, your father says hello and to feel better.”
Angela’s lips rolled together. “I’ll call him later.”
“He’d appreciate that.” Her mother took a seat and rubbed her temples. “This isn’t just about me.”
Angela wasn’t convinced.
“Paul misses you.”
Angela snort-laughed. “Are you crazy?”
“He misses you.”
“No, Mother, he doesn’t. More importantly, I don’t miss him.”
“You’ve been focused on other things. How could you miss anyone when you’re so focused on your job?”
“We weren’t actually a couple. You should ask him about that. More like business partners.”
“Exactly like your father and me. We have a fantastic partnership. Successful careers. Financial stability. A wonderful daughter.”
“Did you ever want more, Mom?”
Her mom paused and blinked as if Angela had crossed a line into asking far too personal questions.
A nurse knocked on the door and breezed into the room. “Just here to see how you’re doing.”
Angela answered a slew of concussion-screening questions and had her vitals taken. Her mother paced, head down, forehead pinched as though she were mapping out various argument strategies.
A moment later, they were alone again. “Stop the strategizing.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. But I’m not spending the rest of my life with Paul. I didn’t even spend the last decade with Paul, if we’re having an honest conversation. I had the title of girlfriend, and he had access to you.”
“That’s not fair—”
“It is, and it’s the truth.” Angela scrubbed her hands over her face. “Look, Mom.” She closed her eyes and recalled the buzz under her skin whenever Sawyer touched her. “I’m not you or Dad, and the things that I want… they have to set my world on fire.”
Crossing her arms, her mother scowled. “You shouldn’t knock the fire that comes from success and stability.”
Angela ignored her mother. “ Fire . Passion. Romance. I didn’t even realize that existed.” A blush heated her cheeks. “But now I do, and I would never go back.”
Her mother stopped pacing, and her eyes narrowed. She scrutinized Angela like a political opponent about to be dressed down. “The man who was sitting in here—”
“Sawyer. You know his name.”
“Sawyer. He’s the same one from our meeting in Abu Dhabi?”
“You already know that also.” Could her mother see that Sawyer set Angela’s world on fire? “We work together—you should thank him. He’s the reason the attempts on my life have failed.”
Her mother dropped into the chair by the top of Angela’s bed. “I should thank him.”
“He’s important to me,” Angela admitted. “And he’s never come at me with an agenda.”
Her mother crossed her legs, uncharacteristically fidgeting, and then relented. “Like I do…?”
“Yeah. You’ve had some doozies.”
For once, her mother seemed to think long and hard before she spoke. “If I promise to drop the Paul conversation, would you mind if I stayed and sat with you for a few minutes?”
There was her mother. The person Angela had run to from Pham’s captivity. “That’d be nice.”
Somewhere out there, pigs were flying on a cold day in hell. Her mother didn’t pull out her cell phone or lobby her agenda. She sat there, a mother with her daughter.