Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
DK
We leisurely make our way out of bed and stretch our legs with a walk on the private beach.
Luna wears dark shades that partially obscure her face, drawing my eyes to her plump mouth, still sexily swollen from my kisses.
We stroll along the warm sand, hand in hand, sharing conversation as comfortably as we share silence.
Our time together is real to us, but it exists inside a bubble. We’ve let the people who matter in while shutting the rest of the world out. It feels like heaven and hell. This right here—absolute heaven. Going back to our separate lives—complete hell.
And this Hollis threat…
Fuck. How do I protect her from it?
Luna doesn’t want to pursue getting proof. She’s done giving Hollis any more energy, and I get that. But Bayside Truth Watch is escalating. She doesn’t read the comments, preferring to stay on the periphery and keep her focus on campaigning.
But I do. I watch them like a hawk.
“Where did you go?” she asks, pulling me back to the moment, her forehead furrowed.
I don’t want that. I want this to be a completely stress-free zone for the next twenty-four hours.
“I’m here with you,” I say, and distract her with a kiss.
I shove thoughts of Hollis to the back of my mind as we go for a swim, and wrap our wet bodies around each other. When Luna emerges from the water in her white bikini, looking like a goddess—the drops beading on her skin like pearls—I take her right there in the sand.
Afterward, loose and satisfied, we shower and make dinner.
I’d bought a pizza kit to try out the stone oven out back.
We eat on the patio, surrounded by trees and the sounds of crickets.
It’s this domestic ease—sharing the simple things—that I’m going to miss most when we go back to Bayside. But I force myself not to dwell on it.
She slaps at a mosquito.
“They know what’s up,” I tease. “Coming after that sweet berry juice.”
Laughing, we make our way back into the house. Now, Luna’s sitting against the arm of the couch, her knees slightly bent with her feet in my lap.
The tip of her tongue pokes out just a fraction, the sign of deep concentration.
“Four letters,” she mutters, holding a crossword book in one hand, and tapping the pen against her knee. “An S-shaped molding or architectural curve. G is the second letter.”
“Ogee,” I supply, resting my hand on her bare ankle.
She cuts her eyes at me, a playful scowl pinching her gorgeous face. “Boy, I did not ask for help. But how do you even know that?”
“When I was researching tattoos, I learned a lot about structures in architecture.”
“Structures and nipple play… you’re remarkably well-read.”
I grin, massaging the arch of her foot. She’s been clocking some serious miles on the campaign trail.
“That feels incredible,” she murmurs.
This is exactly what I wanted to give her, a little oasis from the grind before we return to separate camps, another round of grueling debate prep, and another miserable stretch of distance.
Even when our beds felt painfully empty and our bodies were craving each other, Luna never crossed the boundary she set: nothing sexual over FaceTime.
It was because of something that happened with Hollis.
His betrayal left a mark deep enough that more than a year later, she still guards that line with unwavering resolve.
“Oooh, I know this one,” she says, pulling me from my thoughts. “A nine-letter word for the famous Sanskrit text on human sexuality.” She bobs her eyebrows at me. “Kama Sutra.”
I smile back, but the thoughts racing in my head make the hairs on the back of my neck stir. I trace the pad of my thumb over the smooth curve of her arch, trying to keep present, but Luna notices anyway.
“Okay,” she sets the puzzle and pen aside. “This is the third time I’ve caught you somewhere else.”
“It’s nothing, Luna.”
She shakes her head. “We don’t do that, DK.”
“Do what?”
“Bullshit each other. One of my favorite things about us is that we’re honest. Even when it’s uncomfortable.”
I exhale. Because she’s right. And because there’s no point pretending she hasn’t already figured out something is gnawing at me.
I wait a beat, debating how to carefully broach it. “The incident you mentioned before. With Hollis. The video.”
Her expression changes immediately, a dark veil of weariness settling over her features. Part of me wants to call the words back and preserve the relaxed vibe I promised her. The other feels totally unequipped to protect her without knowing all the facts.
“You told me that’s why you don’t do FaceTime sex.”
“He recorded me without my permission,” she says, her voice quiet and strained.
Only my hands on her feet keep me from curling them into fists. What kind of man does that to a woman? “You never really went into what happened. I want to understand, if you can talk about it.”
“There’s no video out there, DK. I made him delete it immediately.”
Her response sounds too firm. Too certain. Like she’s had to convince herself of this a hundred times.
“I’m not saying there is.”
“That’s what you’re thinking, though. That’s where your head is.”
“Yes,” I admit.
“Did you discuss that with my father?”
She withdraws her feet, wrapping her arms around her knees in a self-protective stance. For a single, agonizing moment, I see a flash of suspicion and lack of trust in her eyes. But I realize it’s not meant for me. It’s for the memory of the man who betrayed her.
“I wouldn’t do that, Luna. I would never share that with anyone. I’m sorry for upsetting you and dragging you back there. I’m just trying to figure out if Hollis has anything—any leverage—we need to know about.”
“How the hell can I possibly answer that?” she snaps. “We were being intimate, and afterward, I noticed his phone propped up on the dresser. Not lying flat. It struck me as suspicious. I got up to check, and that’s when I saw the recording was on. I lost my shit.”
Her eyes flare with renewed anger. “I felt completely violated. We’d never discussed filming anything like that. When I confronted him, he acted like he didn’t understand why I was angry—the exact thing he always did. Like I was overreacting. Being too emotional.”
She lets out a bitter, humourless laugh.
“Like, motherfucker, what? You tape me without my permission, and I’m being too emotional?
I should have walked out right then. I still can’t believe that I didn’t.
But I deleted it from his phone and made him delete it from the cloud.
I stood there and watched him do it.” She pauses for a breath, her chest rising and falling hard beneath her camisole.
“Just the idea of video sex brings all of it back. That’s why I can’t.
Not because I don’t trust you. I just can’t. ”
I see red. A dark, violent urge floods my veins, making it hard to breathe. I want to ruin him. But I swallow the venom and keep my focus on Luna. I reach for her hand, and she lets me take it. “God, Luna. I’m so sorry, baby. What he did was—”
“I know.” Her voice drops into a pained whisper. “But I’m the fool who stayed.”
“No. This is on him. Not you.” I thread our fingers together.
“I can see how worried you are, DK.” Her eyes meet mine.
“Could there be others I didn’t catch? He said no.
I chose to believe him then, and if he lied…
what am I supposed to do with that now?” Her shoulders lift in a resigned shrug.
“I have no control over it. If I start spiraling down every what-if scenario with him, I’ll be a complete mess. ”
The anger drains from her as if she’s simply exhausted from carrying it. “I can’t live that way with Hollis taking up space in my head every day. And I don’t want you doing it, either. I know when you’re not sleeping. This obsession isn’t good for you… or my father.”
“You’re right.” I pull her onto my lap and into my arms, holding her against me.
But inside that tight circle of us, I don’t get that light, floating feeling like I usually do.
Not even close.
Instead, I feel that I’m drowning in an invisible threat, waiting helplessly for Hollis to make his next move.
It’s the following Monday morning when Ash pops his head inside my office door. “Are we still on for lunch?”
I look up from my computer with a thumbs up, keeping my commitment to Luna… and to myself.
Since the smear page started, I’d been creeping back into old habits.
Working later, skipping lunch, and monitoring Bayside Truth Watch like I was on a twenty-four-seven surveillance detail.
Luna recognized I wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t the only one worried I was backsliding into the dark place that broke me in D.C.
I made an appointment with Don after the lake house. His voice was a blend of empathy and accountability. “Let’s talk about why you’ve stopped using the tools that have been helping you and why you refuse to let whoever is behind this smear campaign go.”
Of course, my love for Luna is the biggest reason. But sitting with his question, I couldn’t deny the ugly truth. The familiar buzz under my skin. The toxic rush of adrenaline. The lure to achieve, to fix, to solve. The same compulsive, unhealthy cycle that nearly destroyed me.
So before it spins out of control, I’ve put myself back on the program. Alarms, leaving the office by six, taking lunch breaks, and limiting myself to checking the page twice a day—once in the morning and once before I leave for the evening. No late-night scrolling. No rabbit holes.
I’m also back to doing the relaxation exercises with Luna over the phone. She sent me a jar of topical magnesium to rub into my tension spots before bed. I don’t know if it’s actually working or if I just believe it is because it came from her. Either way, I’ll take the win.
The tightness in my neck and shoulders has eased, and I’m falling asleep without medication.
Still, it’s been a week since I’ve seen her. I resent that the absences come with a running tally. Exact days. Exact hours. Sometimes it feels like I’m serving a sentence for loving a woman who happens to be on the other side of a campaign.
Not because our feelings care about politics. But because politics cares about optics.
I force my attention back to donor calls and polling data. Don and I talked about that, too. Channelling energy into things I can actually control.
At noon, Ash and I step outside into the humid late-summer air.
The temperature is still pushing into the nineties, but the Lake Michigan breeze takes some of the sticky edge off.
We join a short line at the food truck with three people ahead of us.
We’re shooting the shit while we wait when Ash’s eyes suddenly cut to the right.
Then his face breaks into a grin. “Incoming opponent.”