Rattling with panic, I follow Liv’s lead as she attempts to separate the two of them.
“Gavin,” she says softly, “I’m so honored to meet you.”
She extends her hand, and he shakes it gently, finally ripping his eyes away from Briggs. After a few brief words of forced pleasantries, I realize Gavin won’t even look at me, and it’s all Briggs seems to be doing.
Liv’s voice interrupts my scrambling brain. “So, we’re upstairs in conference room four. My assistant is checking you in as we speak.”
“Thank you,” Gavin says with a morbid tone.
I feel the implications in his voice as I step back helplessly, feeling my life slip away from me.
“It should only take an hour or so,” Liv assures Gavin, and he nods in reply.
“You two ready?” she asks Chris and me. Without waiting for an answer, she enters the hotel, and we both follow. I don’t look back at Gavin to give him the reassurance he needs as we part, even though I know I should, because I’m too afraid of what I’ll see.
Briggs and I step into the conference room, and he brushes the back of my hand with his. Instantly my eyes find his, golden embers of anger and hurt still burning inside them as I stumble in my heels. Chris is there immediately to stabilize me before pulling out a rolling chair from the table. I take the offered seat as Liv looks curiously between us.
“I’m going to go grab us some coffee.”
Scanning the room, I see it’s already set up with every sort of refreshment imaginable and meet her gaze with a silent thank you.
“I’ll be right back.” She shuts the door behind her as Briggs walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the bustling city below us. The room is small in size but seems much larger due to the distance he’s putting between us.
Self-loathing is a feeling I’m all too familiar with, but in this moment, I’ve never hated what lies beneath my skin more. I’ve hurt him in the worst way, stripped his pride, and forced him into a situation he doesn’t deserve.
“Please look at me,” I say on a whisper that reaches him.
He remains stationary as I take a deep breath and stand.
“Don’t,” he says, shaking his head. “Just give me a second.”
I nod, though he can’t see it. I’m sorry will never be enough for what I’ve just done to him.
“You haven’t told him,” Briggs says after a bout of silence.
“No.”
“Anything?”
“No.”
With his next question, he turns back to me. “Why?”
Seeing him is breathing easy, so I inhale deeply as my eyes burn the look of him into memory—newly bronzed skin, longer hair, the same breath-stealing symmetry of features that encase his full lips. He’s still the perfect picture of an American soldier, except that his eyes shine with a different type of depth, the depth of an older soul. It’s the subtle differences that I notice most, that tell me this soldier has experienced far too much war.
“How are you?”
He ignores my question.
“Why haven’t you told him, Katy?”
I don’t want to discuss me. I’m sick of me. I want to know about the life of the man who stands in front of me, down to the last detail.
“At first I wasn’t ready.” It’s the truth.
“And now? What will you tell him?”
“He won’t understand,” I shake my head. “You just saw that.”
He’s so insanely gorgeous standing there, palm against the glass, face blank, his eyes void of the light I saw in them just minutes ago. We’re both bare.
“Why am I here, Katy?”
I pause, digging deep because he deserves the whole truth. “Have you watched the news? What they’re reporting? What they’re saying about us?”
“You know better than to read into that shit.”
My mouth gapes. “This isn’t just about us. It’s about Jones’s wife, and Morrero’s mother, and Alicia.” Bracing myself on the table against the onslaught of emotion, I continue on. “Alicia, Mullins’s mother…she came to see me for answers.”
“What did you tell her?”
“As much as I could to give her a little peace, but how could I possibly relay to her the horrors her daughter experienced in her final moments? The families…they deserve to know.”
“To know what exactly?”
“The truth about this highly coveted institution and the true cost of being a soldier.”
“Did you forget, I’m still a soldier, Katy? And so is your husband.”
“They have a right to know.”
“They do. They know their husbands, wives, and children made sacrifices and exactly what the cost is. They’re living it.”
“But they deserve more.”
“You know we can’t discuss the specifics. That’s all classified, Scottie.”
“No, but we can shed light on the uniform.”
“The uniform I’m wearing? The one I put on with pride every day?”
“How can you say that?”
“How can I not? I’m a soldier by choice and everyone who signs those papers had the same choice.”
“Fine. Why don’t you be the one to put the pen in my son’s hand when the time comes?”
Briggs scrubs a hand over his face. “If it’s his choice, I have to respect that, and so do you.”
“Unbelievable. I just thought—”
“Thought what? That what happened to us would change how I feel about serving our country? If anything, it’s given me so much more to fight for.”
Eyes locked, I sink at his words, knowing any further argument is pointless. He’s firm in his stance and if what happened to us hasn’t changed his mind, nothing I can say will. I have no choice but to make peace with it. “All I’m asking of you is, to be honest when the time comes.”
“Katy…”
“I’ve missed you so much,” I tell him as my heart begins to pound with awareness of his presence. There’s an invisible line between us I can’t dare to cross.
His shoulders sag at my confession.
He opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted as Liv knocks twice before entering with a carton of drinks in her hands, the look on her face apologetic.
Taking my seat, I thank her for the offered coffee, leaving it untouched in front of me as Chris takes the chair opposite. Tension runs high the whole meeting as we go over a script of questions in preparation for the show. None of them broaching the subjects I have any interest in confronting. Red markers in hand, the two of us cross some of them out. As POWs, we’re limited to the amount of information we’re able to reveal, which only makes the task that much harder.
“I’m not answering anything on this page,” Briggs says with certainty as he slashes the page with a big red X. I look over to see they are all questions in regards to our relationship since we’ve been rescued or questions about our personal lives.
“We’ll work around it,” Liv assures as I sit back in my seat and eye him. When he lifts his gaze to mine, I see guilt.
Irony-laced jealousy runs through me as I cast my gaze to the floor. After nearly two hours of negotiating, Liv closes the meeting, shaking both our hands. Chris stands to follow her out, but I remain sitting, my arms crossed protectively over my chest.
“You’re going to leave it like this?”
“I’m not leaving any fucking thing, Katy.”
I stand and smooth down my dress. I need to get back to my husband. I’m well aware his mind is racing with a thousand unanswered questions, and I want more than anything to erase his doubts, but it seems like an impossible task at this point. Clarity is an illusion when I’m with Briggs.
“Tell me something better than I’m sorry to say,” I beg him. “I can’t say that to you; it’s not enough.”
He studies me, and my skin begins to burn from the contact. Hunger, lust, ache, need, and love runs rampant over his face and in his eyes.
“I’m not going
anywhere,” he assures me before he turns and leaves the room.
Chapter Forty-Three
Briggs
What I’m feeling is dangerous. The need to touch her outweighs everything else, but I might as well still be chained to the wall of that fucking bunker for all the good it does me. Of all the things I’ve felt in the last hour, need is what took hold, and I can’t shake it, especially when hers mirrors mine. Our selfish needs have cost us dearly. I agreed to this trip for her, but I also knew I needed to lay eyes on her to feel any sort of relief from the pain of missing her.
That unrelenting ache centers my universe now as I curse my stupidity in thinking seeing her might help me move on.
Still drowning in the look in her eyes, I make my way toward the elevator just as she emerges from the conference room. Our eyes lock as I step inside. As the doors close, I feel the injustice of what’s happening. All we want is the freedom to love each other without the price we’d have to pay, though hers comes at a far higher one.
Loving her is costing me my sanity, and I can’t deny that in a way I’m beginning to blame her for it.
I hit the button for the lobby instead of going to my room. Staring at walls is only going to rekindle the restlessness stirring within. The elevator comes to a halt at the bar level, and I step back. When the doors open, I meet the eyes of the man who’s just labeled me his nemesis.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
His eyes flare with unfathomable anger as he sizes me up, freely letting his hatred flow. It emanates from his every pore as his fists clench at his sides.
I can smell the liquor on his breath from feet away. Bile rises in my throat as his eyes command me for the show of respect he deserves.
Goddamn it!
Fighting to keep the curse inside, I snap my boots and begin to lift my hand as he takes a step into the elevator and turns his back on me, his brother in arms. It’s the ultimate sign of disrespect.
In that moment, the darkest thought I’ve ever had as a soldier crosses my mind.
I wish I’d never made it out of that Humvee.
Fire races through my veins as rage swallows me whole, and I cling to it because it feels a hell of a lot better than a minute ago.
All of my respect flies out the window as I stare at his back. He knows nothing of what we went through. He knows nothing about the hell we faced together. He knows absolutely nothing about our situation. His reaction is based on assumptions. He has no clue what his wife is trying to overcome to be with him. Right here, right now, I hate him. I hate him not only for turning a blind eye to the truth, based on the conclusions he’s drawing, but for ignoring what really matters: she chose him. The elevator stops, and I brace myself for whatever’s coming next, ready to spring from where I stand and unleash all the hell that’s inside me.
Gavin turns his head as the doors open. “Stay the fuck away from my wife.” He steps off just before the door shuts, and my fist connects with it.
Chapter Forty-Four
Katy
I sit alone in our hotel room, waiting anxiously for Gavin as I roll the bottle of Xanax in my hand. The drug offers a temporary numbness, a little bit of indifference, a small relief from the present, an escape. Its effects are equivalent to taking three long tugs of vodka. The pills are a powerful reminder that after months of trying, I’m still not her, and it’s clear I never will be. But the woman I am still knows the worth of family and the promise of forever that I made to a man who deserves it.
I love my husband.
The key card sounds as I stash the bottle. I don’t want to see any more judgment in his eyes than what I know is already coming. Dread fills me as three strides have him into the room.
He’s removed his jacket and is loosening his tie when I try to catch his eyes. His golden hair is disheveled from him running his fingers through it. It’s a telltale sign of his frustration. Then I notice the way he’s standing, stock-still, clenching and unclenching his fingers.
He stares at me, and I stare back. Growing increasingly uncomfortable, I lean back, resting on the post of the bed frame. And he just…stares.
“I’m a fool,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it. His right hand makes another pass through his hair. “You’ve turned me into a fucking fool!” he shouts, before lifting the lamp from the desk and throwing it at the wall.
I jerk back in shock. In the months that I’ve been home, he’s never shouted at me.
“Don’t you dare look at me like that. Don’t give me that deer in headlights look, and don’t you dare fucking act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not, but you’re painting a picture you haven’t even seen,” I say softly.
“Give me some credit here, Katy. Anyone with a fucking pulse could see how crazy you are for him. How in love he is with you…” He steps forward, towering above me as I sit helpless on the bed. “My wife.”
“That’s right. Your wife. Not his.”
“Don’t bring promises you aren’t keeping into this. Did you fuck him?”
I jerk back at his question, even though it’s warranted. “No.”
“Kiss him?”
“Yes, once,” I say with ease. That confession was always going to be the hardest, and it falls so easily from my lips as the guilt swaddles me in a familiar blanket.
“Goddamn you,” he says through gritted teeth, seething. “I’ve been wracking my fucking brain for five months trying to figure out what I can do, what more I can do to get you back, and this is what you’ve been hiding?”
My lips tremble with the weight of the words coming out. “What we feel, it’s not natural. I mean it didn’t come naturally…I don’t know how to explain it.”
His eyes are blazing, an inferno burning me alive and I can smell the whiskey on his breath, as he spews his venom. “Were you attracted to him before you were captured?”
I drop my chin to my chest. I refuse to lie to him. “I never encouraged it, and I defended our marriage.”
“So, let me get this straight,” he says, pacing in front of me. “He was after you, knowing you were a happily married woman, and I mean fucking happily, Katy, because we were happy, whether or not you’ve forgotten it.”
“No, he respected those boundaries, and he looked out for me. We were friends. It was never going to happen.”
“But it did.”
“Only when we—” Shared breaths that kept us alive, survived unimaginable horrors, smiled at each other through sheer desperation. “I’ll never see him again,” I promise. “I was never supposed to see him again.”
“I can’t do this!” he yells before he grabs the desk chair, tossing it across the room. It crashes into the TV stand, the screen wobbling so hard it threatens to tip. It’s a moving image of our marriage.
“What?” he grits out with accusatory eyes that cut me deep. “What is it about him? What is so fucking special about him?”
I’m on my feet before I can think it through. “He doesn’t look at me like I’m someone that needs to be fixed!” I shout at the top of my lungs.
Gavin takes a step back, his jaw slack.
“Well, he’s not the one watching his wife fall apart, is he? But lucky us, we both get the luxury of loving you from afar.”
“I’m sorry,” I say uselessly.
“Sorry you’re in love with him?”
“Stop it!”
“Wow, look who’s fighting now,” he spits sarcastically, “I can’t even credit myself for getting you this far, though, can I?”
“Jesus,” I whisper. Sobs wrack my body as I watch my beautiful man cripple any defense I have with his anger. I’ll take his wrath over indifference. It means he still loves me, and I’ll do anything to keep him loving me. I’ve known all along my family’s worth, the feel of Gavin’s love. It’s embedded.
He breaks, and I watch as he rips at his hair, and the first of his tears fall. His hoarse voice shatters me as he speaks.
“K
aty,” he says, gripping his hair as his eyes fill, “from the moment we met, you were mine. I’m not sharing a single piece of you with him—with anyone. I could handle anything you threw at me as long as that’s a fact, but it’s not anymore.”
“I choose you. I choose Noah. I choose this life, over and over,” I hear myself say.
He shakes his head. “But you aren’t living it.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re drowning, baby,” his cries are guttural, “and I’m watching it, and it’s fucking killing me.”
Everything inside me knows this isn’t us, this kind of confrontation would have never been us, never, before.
Rushing to him, I throw my arms around his neck and press my lips to his, kissing him with everything I have. His mouth crushes mine as he clutches me tightly to him before opening my mouth with his tongue and sweeping me away in a possessive kiss. Hunger rushes through, and my panties flood as I claw his chest to soothe the ache and offer myself to him. For the first time since I got home, I welcome the rush, the response to his need. Tongues tangled, he pushes me against the wall, his erection straining against my waist as I grip the back of his hair, raking my nails on the skin of his neck. Moaning into his mouth, I move to press closer when I’m pushed away to arm’s length. Gavin pants in front of me, his eyes dark with a mix of lust and returning anger.
“So, you want to fuck me now out of obligation? No thanks,” he says, letting me go abruptly before I sink against the wall and tears begin to pour out of me. Staring up at him, I know nothing I can say will convince him of the truth. Defenseless and unable to fight any longer, I let him see the guilty tears, the longing in my eyes, the love I still feel.
He stares down at me with confusion, and for a moment, I think he sees the truth. That I love him, that I know I’m torn, and I’m trying to correct it, that I’m still fighting to get back to him. It’s in this moment I know what I have to do; what I’ve always had to do.
Gavin straightens his clothes, putting himself back together as I sit exposed. It isn’t enough and hasn’t been enough, since the day I set foot back into her home.
Heartbreak Warfare Page 20