Chapter 22 #2
“That, too,” he said. “Depends on the day.” He gestured toward the bar, where a woman with dark hair and sharp eyes was arranging glasses with military precision. “That’s Charlotte. Front of house. If something looks seamless, she did it.”
Charlotte glanced over, gave us a small nod that somehow managed to contain both welcome and “don’t mess with my seating chart.”
“And Alba’s in the kitchen today,” Finn added. “You’ll meet her when she brings dessert.”
“Good to know,” I said.
A voice called from the kitchen pass. “Finn!”
Meghan.
She emerged from the kitchen in chef whites, dark hair pulled back, eyes bright with that particular brand of focused intensity I recognized instantly.
I’d seen it in surgeons, field commanders, the occasional NGO head who hadn’t burned out yet.
The restaurant was an extension of her nervous system.
The energy in the room rose and fell with her.
She wiped her hands on a towel, then broke into a smile when she saw us.
“You made it,” she said, coming over and pulling Hazel into a quick hug, then Camille. “Good. I was going to send Finn to search if you didn’t.”
Then she turned to me.
“So,” she said, looking me over—not in the way of someone sizing up a threat, but in the way of someone cataloguing a new ingredient. “You’re the Canadian.”
“I am,” I said.
Her mouth twitched. “Meghan,” she said, offering her hand. “You’re smaller than I pictured.”
“You’ve been picturing me?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Of course,” she said. “Anyone who can keep up with a Dane is worth picturing.” She tipped her head. “You’re here to investigate? Or here because you love him?”
Both, I thought. Out loud, I said, “Yes.”
She laughed, delighted. “Good answer. Come. Sit. Eat. I make better food when I like the people eating it.”
We settled at a round table near one of the tall windows, sunlight spilling over the linen. Natalie and Lexi were already there.
Natalie had that particular polished glow politicians get when their faces have been on too many campaign flyers. Blond hair in a sleek ponytail, clothes tailored, posture straight without being stiff. When she smiled, it was like watching someone turn on a light for a crowd and mean it.
“You must be Amelia,” she said. “I’m Natalie. Ethan’s fiancée. Recently elected mayor.”
Lexi, by contrast, was all effortless movie-star glam—long blond hair in waves, soft sundress, a face I’d definitely seen on the big screen.
“Lexi Montgomery,” she said cheerfully, as if I might not recognize her. “I pretend to be other people for a living. Nice to meet someone who actually is interesting.”
I blinked. “You’re—”
“Freaking out a little?” she supplied. “Don’t. I’ve seen what you do, by the way. Afghanistan piece. Syria series. You’re the badass at this table.”
My cheeks warmed. “That’s … debatable.”
Hazel dropped into the seat next to me. “She crawls through rubbled cities with a notebook and a satellite phone,” she said. “You’re marrying a Dane, Madam Mayor. Let’s not pretend you’re the one with good judgment.”
Natalie laughed. “Fair.”
Meghan snapped her fingers, and plates began appearing like magic. Finn and Charlotte moved in well-practiced choreography, servers trailing behind them with dish after dish.
“The catch came in at dawn,” Meghan said, watching our faces instead of the food. “We’ve got red snapper with a citrus beurre blanc, grilled shrimp with a chili-lime glaze, a tomato salad with basil oil, sourdough we started three days ago, and a lemon tart.”
Then she turned her attention back to me. “So. Amelia from Canada. War correspondent. Dating Levi Dane. On a scale of one to ten, how much does that feel like walking into an ambush without backup?”
“Today?” I said. “Seven and a half.”
“Well,” Natalie said. “It gets better.”
“And worse,” Hazel added. “But then better again. It’s like tide charts—you’ll get used to it.”
Lexi leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand. “What’s it like?” she asked. “Being in love with someone you’re supposed to report on?”
The table went quieter than restaurant noise should allow.
I took a sip of water, buying time. The fancy glass clinked faintly against my tooth.
“I’m still figuring that out,” I said honestly.
“My whole life, the job came first. The story came first. When I was eight, my parents got in a fight about whether a local politician had misrepresented something in a campaign ad. They sat me down at the kitchen table and walked me through fact-checking his claims. The lesson was: we tell the truth, even if it’s inconvenient. ”
Camille nodded slowly. “And now the truth might hurt someone you love.”
“Or get him killed,” I said quietly. “Or his family. Or you.”
Silence settled again, this time not awkward, but heavy.
Natalie was the first to break it.
“Welcome to the club,” she said. “The ‘loving a Dane means rethinking your ethics in real time’ club.”
Meghan snorted. “We should get jackets.”
We all laughed, which felt good.
“That’s the thing you need to know,” Hazel said, turning back to me.
“These men are possessive. Obsessive, sometimes. They will track your phone and argue with you about door locks and insist you text when you get where you’re going.
But they’re also the most fiercely devoted people I’ve ever met.
To us. To each other. To whatever they’ve decided is worth protecting. ”
I thought of Levi on the veranda, shaking apart in my arms. Of Levi on the yacht, telling me about the mercenaries he’d taken out to stop a massacre. Of Levi in a tent two years ago, choosing to cut me off rather than risk me as collateral damage.
“How do you live with it?” I asked. “The intensity?”
Lexi smiled, soft and a little sad. “You accept that your life is going to be loud,” she said. “And that someone will always be watching the exits. You decide whether that makes you feel trapped or safe on any given day.”
Natalie added, “And you build your own guardrails. Boundaries. Ethan can have all the secret briefings he wants, but loving him doesn’t mean letting him rewrite who I am.”
Meghan’s gaze sharpened on me. “And who are you, Amelia?”
I thought of my parents at the table, the kitchen light too bright. My father correcting himself in front of me. My mother apologizing when she’d snapped. The unspoken rule that we did not lie in that house, not even about small things.
“I’m someone who’s built her entire life on telling the truth,” I said. “So the idea of hiding any of this from my editor feels like … treason.”
“And yet,” Camille said gently, “you did, right?”
I met her eyes. “Yeah. I did.”
Hazel reached over and squeezed my hand. “That’s not you betraying yourself,” she said. “That’s you adding nuance.”
We laughed, the tension easing.
Meghan shook her head, half in disbelief, half in awe. “Seven Charleston Danes,” she muttered, circling back. “Seven Montana Danes. Fourteen men wired like that.”
The number hit me all over again—not just as trivia, but as a future. A whole ecosystem I hadn’t known existed, and now I was somehow orbiting it.
And Levi …
The thought brushed against something deep in my chest—warm, unsettling, a little dangerous. I wasn’t planning a wedding. But the possibility didn’t feel like a foreign language anymore. More like a word I recognized but wasn’t ready to say out loud.
They all looked at me.
“I haven’t thought about a wedding,” I said quickly. It wasn’t a lie. Not consciously. “I only just stopped hating him.”
Hazel’s smile was kind. “Yeah,” she said. “But if you ever do think about it? Just know you’ll have a small army of women ready to help you pick flowers.”
I smiled, too, warmth unfurling under my ribs. For the first time since I got the tip that brought me here, I felt less like an outsider pressing her face against the glass and more like … someone being invited in.
These women had their own orbits. Their own histories. Careers and identities that didn’t vanish just because they’d fallen for Danes. They’d all had to renegotiate their relationships with truth, with power, with safety.
And they hadn’t lost themselves.
Maybe I didn’t have to, either.
As the meal went on—course after course appearing and disappearing, Meghan hovering at the edge of the table like a general surveying a battlefield—we traded stories.
They asked about Ontario winters and why Canadians apologized so much. They told me about the first time they’d seen Dominion Hall, the first time they’d realized the Danes weren’t just rich, but dangerous. We laughed until my sides hurt, even when the stories weren’t entirely funny.
Meghan watched me throughout, sharp eyes taking in more than I said. At one point, when the others were arguing about whether Portia would allow a non-white wedding dress, she leaned in.
“Whatever you decide about the story,” she said quietly, “whatever you write or don’t write—don’t let them convince you that loving him means you have to set yourself on fire to keep him warm.”
My throat tightened. I thought of Levi on the yacht, saying he didn’t want me to give up too much for him. The way he’d looked almost … afraid when I’d told him I’d kill the story if it meant protecting him.
“Yeah,” I said softly.
When we finally stepped back out into the Charleston sun, full of fish and tart and too many feelings, the Battery glittered in front of us—water slapping softly against the seawall, live oaks casting dappled shadows over the promenade.
Hazel linked her arm through mine. Camille took my other side.
“You good?” Hazel asked.
I looked back at the house that held Meghan’s restaurant. Then I looked ahead, toward where Dominion Hall waited, full of secrets and Danes and choices I hadn’t known I’d have to make.
“I’m afraid,” I said honestly.
Camille squeezed my arm. “Good,” she said. “It means you understand what’s at stake.”
Hazel nudged me gently. “And you’re not alone in it,” she added. “That’s the point of us.”
I believed her.