“Yes, I am.”
I expect another whisper or murmur but his timbre rises above our heavy breathing, sure and confident.
“I meant to wait up to tell you. I want you to know it when you walk into Bob’s office tomorrow. No matter what he says, or what this will mean for us, I love you.”
I stroke his cheek and caress his scar. “I love yo—”
“Shh, don’t say it back.”
“Why not?” I try to ask but his lips dominate mine, leaving no space for words or air.
He rolls me on my back, covering my body with his. He touches me without complexity, without design. He takes off my clothes and I take off his. Perhaps because we are both thinking the same words, our bodies love as one too. His breath in my mouth is my breath. His hand on my breast is my hand. I touch where he does, and our fingers lock. We caress together; my skin is his skin. We hold our hands locked, as he thrusts inside me. His moves are slow, like a litany. It’s as if our bodies are keeping a different time in secret. As the blood thickens, we move faster, deeper. His fingers lock tight between my own, and his iron grip is making my hands numb. I could stop him but I won’t, because his need is my need. My body builds and burns, and we come forcefully, silently, mouth to mouth. His teeth clamp down on my lower lip. I relish the sting of his bite that tells me he is real. That tells me what just happened was not a dream.
The moment my mouth is free, I say loud and clear, “I love you.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Choice
He loves me, I repeat like an incantation in my head as Benson drives us to Bob’s office. He loves me. I love him. And love always wins. Right?
But because—to my knowledge—science has not tested love’s power against ICE, I clutch Aiden’s hand, shivering under his arm.
His hold tightens around me and he tucks my face into his neck. “Hey, shh,” he murmurs in my hair. “We’re still fighting, love.”
Love always wins.
He runs his fingers through my tangles—I can’t even remember if I combed them. “Do you want me to recite the periodic table in Russian?”
I shake my head in his neck. I’ve tried it all morning, backward, forward, in Latin, Italian and Spanish. It didn’t work. “Just tell me something else…anything. I just want to hear your voice.”
His arms flex around me again and a hard swallow echoes from his throat. His body has turned to granite but I find the hard panes comforting. His lips brush over my hairline to my ear. “Do you want to hear a little story?” he whispers.
I nod.
“You have a birthday you don’t know about.” His whisper is almost a smile. I try to look at him but he keeps my face in his neck. “It’s April thirteenth, the night after the battle of Baghdad. At ten minutes past midnight. In a sand ditch. I was covered in mud, trying to get some sleep but the images in my head…well, you know. And there was Marshall next to me, flashlight in his mouth, scribbling a letter to Jasmine, this moronic smile on his face. I was pissed. What the fuck was he doing? He’d get us all killed with that damn flashlight. But then I realized I was just jealous. Marshall was going to make it through Iraq. He had something to live for and something to die for. He had Jasmine. I didn’t. Never wanted one. But I did that night. I wanted someone back home waiting for my letters. That’s when the fantasy of you started. You were perfect in my head, but you’re so much better in real life. And you kept me company all those nights. Now, what’s ICE going to do about that?”
Take you away from me.
I look up at him, tears dripping from my cheeks into his charcoal jacket. “Not a bloody thing,” I sniffle.
“Not a bloody thing.” He smiles and tucks me back in his neck. I focus only on his scent until Benson stops at the curb and gets out of the car, probably to give us a moment. Or escape.
Aiden wraps his hands around my wrists. “What are you going to remember when you walk in there?”
“That you love me.”
“That’s right.”
“And that I love you too.”
His grip on my wrists slackens. “Don’t, Elisa.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“You don’t think you deserve to hear it, do you?”
He places his hand gently over my mouth. “Not now,” he says and, before I can protest, he opens the door and lifts me by the waist, and we climb out into another drizzly morning.
Aiden’s stride picks up speed as we charge through the automatic glass doors of Norman Reeves LLP and into the private elevator off the corner. We’re not late but the motion gives us both a sense of accomplishment—the body doing something even if the heart cannot.
I watch Aiden’s reflection on the polished door. He’s wearing a pinstriped charcoal suit and a slate-blue tie that matches his eyes. His sniper focus is similar to his determination the last time we came to this office.
How will this time end?
The moment we step into the twenty-sixth floor lobby, the same Adriana Lima look-alike receptionist springs to her feet. For a second, I think my red-rimmed eyes scared her, but her blush and drool at Aiden say plainly she has not even registered my presence. Her eyelash flutter is wasted.
“We know where we’re going, Miss Patterson.” Aiden raises his hand and marches straight to the conference room with opaque glass walls.
Bob is pacing by the window, a pen twirling in his fingers. The moment we enter, his eyes flit to our joined hands and he smiles.
“Options!” Aiden fires without any preamble. I sink into the closest chair I can find. He takes the seat to my right, still gripping my hand.
“Before that, we have an update.” Bob plops onto the chair across the marble table from us. “Just ten minutes ago, our contact at the DOJ called. Things got a little more complicated. They’ll want to question Elisa under oath. Probably before her deadline.”
“Why?” Aiden snarls and I gasp at the same time.
“Well, they’re very interested in your knowledge of Feign’s work. As they’ve seen repeated footage of you, they reasonably assume you’ve witnessed his affairs.”
“Yes, but she knows nothing about that fucker’s finances,” Aiden hisses. “She got paid peanut shells, and not from the asshole himself. Couldn’t even be in the fucking lobby. That sleazeball has a history with fraud. Cheated in college, defrauded his ex-wife in alimony. And now, he has concocted this scheme, taking advantage of people with no power.”
Bob assumes the expression of a pallbearer. “That may well be true but, given the fact that Elisa also shows up in his sketches, I suspect that she does know something about Feign and his paintings.”
“What sketches are these?” I whisper. “I never modeled my face at Feign’s.”
Bob flips through a tall stack of papers in front of him and hands me a thick envelope. Aiden leans over to look, his breath hot on my cheek. I open it with shaking hands, and we both gasp. The sketches are practice runs for Aiden’s painting. I set them facedown on the table, unable to look at Javier’s rendition of my eyes. He has given them a happiness I may only ever find in paintings.
Bob turns his full body to face me. “I think it’s time you tell me the truth, dear. So I can help you. And remember—it’s all attorney-client privileged, except as to Mr. Hale here. Whatever you say, it’s safe with me.”
I look at Aiden. He nods without hesitation and fills me a glass of water from a curvy pitcher on the table. But what about Javier’s secret?
“I’ll tell you what I know but I won’t give you any names,” I say.
Bob nods and I start explaining, taking a sip of water every time I skip over Javier’s name. In the end, Bob’s face is pale. Aiden’s is hard steel.
“My dear,” Bob sighs and straightens the stack of papers. “You have no choice but to tell the DOJ the truth. If you don’t cooperate, the green card denial is the least of your worries. They may charge you with aiding and abetting or perjury or obstructing justice. There’s jail time for that. And you haven’t done anything wrong. Why hide?”