Chapter 11 #2
Instead, she sat at the desk. Opened the laptop. Pulled up a blank document.
Her fingers found the keys. Started typing.
The scene formed. A woman undercover. Deep in a mission. Six months of work. Everything riding on the next forty-eight hours. And then her partner shows up.
Her Lisbon contact. They have forty-eight hours to complete the mission. Or forty-eight hours to disappear together.
Complete the mission. Save countless lives. Return to their separate existences. Never see each other again.
Or abandon everything. Run. Choose each other. Live with the consequences.
Britta wrote the conversation. The tension. The way Ryder looked at Eva and said, “I can’t promise you anything. Not a future. Not safety. Not even tomorrow. Just this. Just us. Just now.”
And of course Eva—“That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Not promises. Just truth.”
Britta’s fingers flew across the keys, the scene pouring out. The choice crystallizing. The moment when the woman reaches for his hand and says—
A knock at the door.
Britta’s hands froze. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Another knock. “Britta? It’s West.”
What?
But his voice through the door sounded rough. Uncertain.
Her heart thundered as she stood, crossed to the door. Opened it.
West stood in the hallway. He’d changed. The clean shirt, dark green, made his eyes more intense. Jeans. Bare feet. Hair still damp from the pool. The bruise on his chin had faded to yellow. The split in his lip nearly healed.
He looked good. Too good. The kind of good that made her chest ache and her hands want to reach for him.
“They’re grilling burger steaks.” His voice came out careful. Professional. “Thought you might want one.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll be down in a minute.”
She started to close the door. He caught it.
“Can I come in?”
The question hung between them. Loaded. Dangerous.
Britta stepped back. Nodded.
West entered. Closed the door behind him. Not all the way. Just mostly. Proper but private.
His gaze swept the room. Assessing. Checking windows, sight lines, security. Automatic. Then his attention landed on the desk. The open laptop. The document on the screen.
Britta reached over and slammed the laptop shut.
West stepped back, his hands up. His mouth curved. “Your story?”
Her face burned. “Yeah.”
West’s expression shifted. Softened. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I just saw the words and—” He stopped. Laughed self-deprecatingly. “I’m an idiot. Sorry.”
The laugh hit her chest. Warm and genuine—the laugh from the car ride. From the Miami taco truck.
And her heart just broke open.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just…they’re silly. My stories. No one reads them.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re romance novels. Spy thrillers with kissing. Not exactly taken seriously.”
“By who?”
The question caught her off guard. “By…I don’t know. The literary world. My father. People who think genre fiction is less important than literary fiction. And frankly, I’m supposed to be a lawyer, right?”
West considered her for a moment, then moved to the French doors. Looked out at the ocean, his hands in his pockets.
“You know what I think?” he said quietly.
“I think the people who need those stories don’t care about literary merit.
They just want to believe that someone can complete the impossible mission and still choose love.
That duty and desire don’t have to be enemies.
That you can be brave and vulnerable at the same time. ”
Britta went very still.
He turned. Met her gaze. “I think your stories matter. And anyone who says otherwise is wrong.”
Oh. Her throat filled.
West held out his hand. “C’mon. You need sustenance. Can’t write world-changing stories on an empty stomach.”
Britta looked at his hand. Strong. Calloused. Familiar now. The hand that had pulled her from the water. The hand that had cupped her face when he kissed her.
She took it. His fingers closed around hers.
“Thank you.” Her voice came out barely more than a whisper. “For believing in me.”
And then, before she could think it through, she took a step toward him.
West’s eyes darkened. His jaw flexed. Desire flickered across his face—unmistakable, undeniable, burning.
“I totally believe in you, Britt. You take my breath away.”
Oh. Oh.
He stared at her, his chest rising and falling, and then he took a breath and stepped back, his hand slipping from hers.
Probably creating distance before she could do something stupid. Before she forgot about the no-kissing rule and the professional boundaries and the fact that none of this could work.
Right?
“For the record,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady, “you would have been a great Secret Service agent. I would have let you guard me.”
West’s expression shifted, and he swallowed. “I don’t know if that would have been a good idea.”
She stilled, and then she couldn’t stop herself, her voice a little breathless. “Why not?”
“Because—” He stopped. His throat worked. His hands fisted at his sides. “Guarding you would have required professional distance. And I’m not sure I could have maintained that.”
Britta’s pulse hammered.
He couldn’t maintain professional distance with her. Which meant he felt it too—all of it.
West cleared his throat, hung a hand around the back of his neck, and stepped back toward the door. “We should go. They’re waiting.”
But he paused. Hand on the doorknob. Looked back at her laptop on the desk.
“Your writing. What’s it about? The story.”
“It’s just a silly story. Not important.”
“Humor me.”
“It’s…” She faltered. Took a breath. “A spy story. About a woman undercover who has to choose between completing her mission and being with the man she—” She stopped. Her face burned. “Like I said. Silly.”
“Does she save the world?” The corner of his mouth tugged up. Gentle. Encouraging. Not mocking. Genuinely interested.
Britta’s chest tightened. “Maybe.”
West held her gaze. “If anyone can write that, it’s you.”
The words reached a place in her chest that she hadn’t known existed.
“Thank you.” Her voice barely worked.
West nodded. Opened the door. “C’mon. Before the steaks get cold and Winchester gives away your portion.”
“I’ll meet you down there. I need to change.”
He nodded. But paused in the doorway. He glanced at her. Quick. Assessing. “You good?”
No. She wasn’t good. She was the opposite of good. Because how was she supposed to not completely fall for this man who…who got her? Who believed in her?
Not Britta the First Daughter. Britta the dreamer. With fiction in her head and messy hopes in her heart.
“Fine.”
West’s mouth twitched as if he saw through it. But he didn’t push.
She showered, changed, left her hair wet, no makeup, and headed back outside, where Winchester stood at the massive grill, wearing a black apron, tongs in hand.
The women had moved to the outdoor dining area. A long table set with casual elegance. Candles ready to light once the sun set. The pool glowed, underwater lights creating ambience.
Everyone was there. The whole crew. The Marshall family. The Jones, Inc., team and their girlfriends. Kids running around.
West stood talking with one of his Jones, Inc., pals, but when he spotted her, he smiled.
And shoot, the look in his eyes went right to her bones, heated her all the way through. Then he walked over to her and his hand touched her lower back. Brief. Grounding. Gone before anyone could see.
But she’d felt it. I’m here.
“You look nice.”
“I’m a far cry from a state dinner.”
“Aw, who needs a state dinner when you have the open ocean?” He winked.
And Britta tried not to think about the spy story still open on her laptop upstairs. The woman who had to choose between mission and love. Between duty and desire. Between the life she was told to live and the life she actually wanted.
Tried not to think about how West’s words—If anyone can write that, it’s you—made her believe that someday, just maybe, she could be the heroine in her own story instead of just writing about them.
But as she sat down at the table, West taking the seat beside her, their arms almost touching, the sun painting everything gold, the ocean stretching into forever—she couldn’t stop wondering what it would feel like to save the world and choose love and believe that both were possible.
What it would feel like to be more than the president’s daughter.
And to be…just Britta.
West had caught himself before he’d fallen for Britta.
That’s what he’d told himself.
The connection was circumstance. The kiss had been adrenaline. The road trip, proximity. Since the kiss on Hawk’s boat, he’d held the line. He’d walked away. He’d protected his heart.
Except sitting beside her at Winchester Marshall’s dinner table, watching her laugh at something Knox said, remembering how she’d looked when he’d said “If anyone can write that, it’s you,” West realized he hadn’t caught himself at all.
He’d already fallen.
The only question was whether he’d admit it before she disappeared on Saturday.
West didn’t want to let her go.
The realization hit somewhere between the salad course and the grilled steaks.
Britta White—the president’s daughter, the woman who came with complications West had spent his life avoiding—sat beside him under string lights and stars, and West’s chest felt like it was caving in.
Because tomorrow was the wedding and Saturday she’d leave and…
How crazy was that?
What if we could have a future?
The question wouldn’t go away.
West tried to focus on the food. On the conversation happening around him.
On Winchester telling some story about a stunt gone wrong on his last film.
On Knox arguing that rodeo clowns were tougher than actors.
On the Marshall brothers’ chaos and laughter and the easy affection that came from years of shared history.
But the question kept circling back. Relentless. Obsessive.
What if?
She was the president’s daughter. She lived in Washington, surrounded by rules and fences. He lived for the next mission.
The variables didn’t add up.
But what if they could?