Chapter 2 #4
“There’s a coffee place called Blue Bottle Coffee in Georgetown. Always crowded. I went in through the front wearing one outfit, went into the bathroom, changed into completely different clothes, walked out the back exit to where I had an Uber waiting three blocks away.”
West stopped walking. Looked at her. “You planned that.”
“For three weeks.”
“The passport?”
“Obtained through legal channels. I have three. Different names. All legitimate.”
“How do you have three passports under different names?”
“Because my father is president and sometimes I need to travel without creating an international incident.” She paused. “Turns out they don’t actually help you avoid incidents. They just delay them.”
West started walking again. Processing. She’d spent three weeks planning an escape. That wasn’t reckless. That was calculated. Skilled, even.
“You’re pretty good at this,” he said.
“At what?”
“Evasion. Planning. Execution.” He took a drink of his water. “You should consider a career in espionage.”
Her laugh sounded surprised, genuine, lighter than anything he’d heard from her yet.
“I’ll put that on my list of alternative careers,” she said. “Right after professional disappointment to my father and world-class creator of diplomatic disasters.”
“Add talented apologizer. You’re doing better than expected.”
“Is that a compliment?”
He raised a shoulder. Maybe. But he smiled.
They’d reached the water’s edge. Waves lapped at the sand. The resort lights pushed back the night, visible but distant.
West took a long drink of his water. Bought himself a moment to decide how much truth to tell her.
“I was at the UN event,” he said finally. “Six months ago. The Bratva attack.”
She went still beside him. “You were there?”
“I’m with a private security company that does some consulting. We were covering the summit when things went sideways.” He looked at her. “I saw the photos. The aftermath. You all were pretty shaken up.”
“Of course we were. Thankfully Emberly was right there—she flipped the table and got us to safety. If she hadn’t taken those men down when she did, we wouldn’t have made it out.”
“You kept your head. That’s not easy when people are shooting.”
“I just didn’t scream. That’s a pretty low bar for heroism.”
“It’s higher than you think.”
They stood there, the waves licking up the shore.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. Quieter. “About the airport. I wasn’t thinking about anyone but myself. I just—after the UN, after Sydney, my father’s been so scared and the security has been so tight and I just needed to breathe. Just for a little while.”
“I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” West was quiet for a moment. “I do executive protection. Threat assessment. I know what those protocols look like from the other side—the people doing the protecting. It’s a tough job.
Balancing keeping someone safe with letting them live.
Most protective details lean toward safe.
Can’t blame them. If something happens, they’re the ones who failed. ”
“But I’m the one suffocating.”
“Yeah. There’s that too.” West finished his water.
“For the record, most people who survive what you survived at the UN would lock themselves inside their apartment and never leave again.”
“That apartment is in a very large building in the middle of DC, crawling with guys in uniforms and earwigs. It can get a little claustrophobic.”
“I guess. But what you pulled took guts.”
“Or stupidity.”
“Sometimes they look the same.”
She laughed—a real one, warm and unguarded. The kind of laugh that made the disaster at the airport feel less heavy.
Okay, so this had been the right move. He turned to her, too aware of how the night wind reaped the soft floral scent off her skin, how her smile seemed easy, not polished. He had the sense he’d just gotten a glimpse of the Britta White the world didn’t see.
“Three days,” West said, his voice firm. He probably needed to draw a line before this got complicated. Aw, where had that thought come from? “This wedding. Let’s agree to no drama.”
She nodded and held out her hand. “No drama.”
He took it. Soft in his, but firm too. “I’m serious. You stay out of trouble. I stay out of federal custody. We both enjoy Ford and Scarlett’s wedding like normal people.”
“I can do that.”
He narrowed one eye.
“Fine. I’ll try.”
West held up his empty water bottle. “To three days. No drama. No federal agents. No disasters.”
She touched her bottle of water to his. “Deal.”
He should walk away now. But she was looking at him with something that might have been hope or might have been gratitude or might have been both, and West had to physically force himself to turn toward the path.
“West?”
He stopped. Turned back.
“Thank you,” she said. “For—” She gestured vaguely. “For giving me a chance to apologize. For understanding. For not holding it against me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You should. I got you tackled.”
“I’ve been tackled for worse reasons.” He shrugged. “Besides. You’re Scarlett’s friend. That makes you part of this circus whether you want to be or not.”
He walked away before she could respond. Before he could say something stupid like Call me if you need anything or Your security detail doesn’t seem that competent or any of the other protective nonsense his brain was trying to supply.
She wasn’t his responsibility.
Ham stood at the tiki bar, a sweating glass of pineapple juice in hand, expression too knowing.
“So,” Ham said. “You talked to her.”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“And we agreed to three days of peaceful coexistence. No drama. No federal incidents. Clean wedding, clean conscience, clean exit.”
“You believe that?”
West looked back toward the beach. She was still standing there, alone, looking up at the stars. Small and isolated and probably whispering promises to the universe that she couldn’t keep.
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m going to pretend I do.”
Ham laughed. Clapped him on the shoulder. “Well. This should be interesting.”
“What should be interesting?”
Ham shook his head. “West. You stepped up because you thought she needed help. That’s the opposite of uninvolved.”
“That was instinct. Training. Muscle memory.”
“You don’t do that. You’re the guy who stays back, assesses, lets other people jump in first. That’s your thing. Tactical distance. It’s what made you a good bomb-disposal expert.”
West shrugged.
“Listen, I get it. You saw something that triggered your protective instincts in a way you weren’t expecting, you acted impulsively, and now you’re trying to convince yourself it meant nothing.”
“It did mean nothing.” West grabbed another water from the bar.
Watched Britta finally turn away from the ocean and walk back toward her cottage.
“Listen,” West said again. “She’s just a pretty girl who I thought was in trouble.
I’ll never see her again after this weekend.
She goes back to DC and her life, and I go back to wherever you send me next, and this becomes a funny story about the time I got tackled at an airport. ”
“Okay.” Ham didn’t sound convinced. “But for the record? You don’t do anything halfway, and if this blows up, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”
“Noted.”
West opened his water. Rejoined North and Dakota and Skeet, who’d joined Wyatt and were arguing about hockey draft picks.