I gaped as it hit me. I’d been so focused on surviving the firefight, I’d forgotten that Kerrigan was still in charge. “No,” I said. “No, Kerrigan is behind all this!” I pointed at Powell. “The evidence is right here: search that man, he’ll have a cell phone with a text message from Kerrigan. You need to get hold of his phone, too, you can match them up and—”
The agent was shaking his head. He looked apologetically at Miller again and I realized he must have served under him at the White House. That bastard Kerrigan was making him arrest his own boss. “Everything will be taken as evidence,” he said. “The President’s already promised there’ll be a full enquiry.”
“You asshole,” slurred Miller from the stretcher. They must have given him something for the pain. “This is wrong and you know it.”
“I’m under orders, sir!” spat the Secret Service agent. “Ma’am, come with me!”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit! Kian and I looked at each other. Now I knew why Powell had been smirking: he’d go to jail but so would Kian and Miller. There’d be some long, drawn out enquiry spanning years and no doubt vital evidence would be conveniently lost along the way. Kian would be painted as an accomplice—maybe we could persuade a court of his innocence, maybe not. But whatever happened, Kerrigan wouldn’t be linked to any of it. He’d be free to rule the country. “No!” I said desperately. “You can’t do this!”
The agent gripped my arm and pulled me away from Kian. “It’s for your own protection, ma’am.”
They’d take me right back to the White House... and with Kerrigan still in control and his thugs everywhere, I wouldn’t last more than a day. How easy would it be to arrange an accident, or another sniper attack they could pin on a lone gunman. “No!”
Kian growled and seized my other arm, tugging me back to him. Immediately, both the Secret Service agents and the soldiers swung their guns up to point at him. “Let her go!” snapped the Secret Service agent.
“Not happening,” said Kian.
I heard guns being cocked. I knew how this would end. Kian wouldn’t let me go, not again. “Please!” I begged.
“I’m sorry,” said the agent. And he looked as if he genuinely was. But he was still going to carry out his orders. “I’m on direct orders from the President.”
The main doors crashed open. Harlan, pushing a wheelchair, closely followed by a team of doctors.
“I’m the goddamn President!” bellowed my dad.
Everyone in the room gaped at him. His entire chest was wrapped in bandages. He had an oxygen tube in his nose and his skin was gray. But he was still a hundred times the leader Kerrigan would ever be.
“All of you men stand down!” he snapped.
The Secret Service agents and soldiers hesitated, unsure whose orders they should be following. So my dad made the decision for them. “Stand the hell down!” he yelled, his face turning purple.
Every gun swung away from Kian. The Secret Service agent dropped my arm like it had burned him.
I ran towards my dad. Two steps in, I remembered my injured ankle as pain shot up my leg, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I reached the wheelchair and threw my arms around him. “Are you—How are you here? Are you going to be okay?” I babbled. Kian ran over and slipped his arm under my shoulders to support me.
My dad tried to speak, but grimaced instead, tensing in his chair. A monitor attached to the wheelchair started bleeping and the doctors raced to surround him. One of them adjusted an IV line. “That should help with the pain, sir,” the doctor said. “But we need to get you back to the hospital!”
My dad panted through the pain for a second, his eyes closed. Clearly, those few seconds of shouting had taken everything he had. Then he relaxed a little as the medication hit and shook his head. “After we get all this straightened out,” he grunted. He opened his eyes and looked at Kian and, after a moment, he managed to speak again. “I never got a chance to thank you, Mr. O’Harra.”
Kian nodded. “Not necessary, Mr. President.”
My dad narrowed his eyes. I realized he was looking at the way Kian was standing, pressed right up against me. And I realized he must have heard from Harlan about Kian running off with me and my mom’s suspicions. A little more strength returned to his voice. “There something you want to tell me, Mr. O’Harra?”
It was the only time I’ve ever seen Kian embarrassed. He shuffled his feet, then straightened up. “Uh... I have intentions towards your daughter. Sir.”
My dad took a long look at him. “You going to treat her right? Protect her?”
Kian looked at me. “Yes sir!”
My dad made him sweat for fully five seconds. Then: “Well, then I guess that’s okay.”
My heart swelled and I had to grab Kian’s hand to stop from tearing up. “What about Kerrigan?” I asked. “Where is he?”
“Aboard Air Force One,” said my dad. “They got him airborne as soon as these bastards shot me.” Then, through the pain, he managed a smile. “But I called the pilot on my way here. They’re landing at Andrews now. He’s about to get a real nasty surprise.”
I turned to Kian, grabbed his shirt and pulled myself to his chest, resting my cheek on those warm slabs of muscle. Over his shoulder, I saw the Secret Service agent we’d had the stand-off with go over to Powell... who wasn’t smirking anymore. The Secret Service agent patted down his pockets... and pulled out a cell phone. He held it up to show me and nodded respectfully.
We had him. We had Kerrigan.
And suddenly, I felt myself just wilt. Kian felt the change in me and caught me before I could fall, scooping me up in his arms. “Whoah,” he said. “It’s okay. I got you.”
I looked up into his eyes. There was so much I wanted to say but I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours and had barely eaten in thirty-six. I’d been drenched, frozen, tortured and I’d walked God knows how many miles. I was utterly, utterly exhausted. So I hauled my head up to his and put my mouth to his ear for just long enough to say, “I love you,” because I couldn’t wait even another minute to finally say it back to him. And then, as he grinned, I just flopped in his arms and my eyes closed.
“I got you,” he said again, stroking my cheek.
He got me.
Two Weeks Later
Emily
“Your tie is crooked,” I said out of the side of my mouth.
Kian looked down at the blue silk tie as if he wanted to rip it off and shred it. In fact, he looked as if he’d happily just tear off the whole Armani suit and do the photo op in his pants. I doubted he’d ever look fully comfortable in a suit.
But he still looked amazing in one. All those sharp lines only emphasized the power of his arms and back, the soft white shirt stretched tight over the firm slabs of his chest and the tie set off his eyes.
Come to think of it, I wanted to rip the suit off him.
But photos first. I straightened his tie. This was going to be our first group photo together and I wanted it to go well.
The first twenty-four hours after the hotel had been insane, the two weeks that followed only slightly less so. Kian and I had been taken to the hospital so the doctors could check us out. My throat and chest were swollen but the doctors said I’d recover within a few days. My ankle injury turned out to be a torn ligament, from twisting and straining against my bonds so hard. They gave me crutches but I preferred to lean on Kian’s powerful shoulder, as I was right now. Both of us had about a million little cuts from the glass in the museum, plus the wound where my tracking chip had been removed and the bullet wound in Kian’s arm. But nothing that wouldn’t heal.
And the psychological wounds? Everyone expected those to be devastating, given what I’d been through. But something had changed in me. Maybe it was that moment behind the table in the hotel when I’d forced myself past my fears. Maybe it was knowing Kian was with me now, forever. But that night after the hotel, I slept like a baby. I still had the occasional nightmare, but nothing like as bad as after the park. The fear w
ould always be there—I’d have to be crazy never to be scared. But it didn’t own me, anymore.
My mom swept in from the hallway. We were in the Oval Office, waiting to step out into the Rose Garden for the photo op. “You look great, honey,” she told me. Then she turned to Kian. “Kian, you brush up well.”
“Ma’am,” he said in that deep, Irish-tinged growl.
My mom had come around to Kian pretty fast when she discovered what really happened, including giving him a tearful, spontaneous hug when she met us at the hospital. She didn’t necessarily approve of him in the same way she’d approve of a billionaire CEO. But that was okay: if Kian had thought she approved of him, he’d probably have been quite offended.
The door from the hallway opened again and my dad strode in. He was still under orders from the doctors to take it easy and he was still ignoring them. “We ready?” he asked. Then he looked at Kian. “You ready?”
Kian nodded. “Yes, Mr. President.” But I could tell he was nervous. Very little scared Kian, but he didn’t want to screw this up and embarrass me, or my folks. I grabbed his hand.
We stepped out into the Rose Garden and turned towards a solid wall of photographers. Camera shutters started clicking at the rate of a hundred a second, almost a continuous buzz.
The media had been going nuts ever since the attack on the museum but, when Jessica gave a press conference the next morning and announced that Edward Kerrigan had been detained in connection with the assassination attempt on the President, they went insane. And the entire world wanted to read the story: several news websites actually dropped off the internet for about an hour, unable to cope with the massive increase in traffic.
By mid-morning, every news channel was filled with footage of Kerrigan’s arrest. My dad and Jessica had made damn sure that the reporters were there to watch Air Force One touchdown and Kerrigan walk down its steps... straight into the arms of a squad of US Marines. When a couple of Military Police step forward with cuffs, you can see Kerrigan turn around and start spitting orders to his Secret Service detail, only to find them shaking their heads in disgust. My dad had already spoken to them and they were taking orders from their real Commander-in-Chief again. It’s a very satisfying moment: I’ve replayed the clip many times.
No one was sure who had jurisdiction over a White House conspiracy, especially when it involved terrorism. Nothing remotely like it had ever happened before. Eventually, a special team formed from Homeland Security and the FBI took control. The investigation and trial would take months but, whatever happened, Kerrigan was going to jail and the death penalty was a real possibility.
As the initial shock of the conspiracy died away, the media started looking at Kerrigan’s plan and Rexortech. Of course, there was a cover up. The Rexortech CEO went on TV to say there’d categorically been no involvement whatsoever from anyone at the company. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of giving the speech in front of the Rexortech HQ and if you watch the footage there’s a wonderful moment where an FBI agent interrupts him at the podium and hands him a warrant, and then the cameras all swing around to the main doors of the building and you can see about a hundred FBI agents begin to raid the place. Within twenty-four hours, they’d arrested the CEO, three other executives and twenty staff for aiding in the conspiracy. Within forty-eight hours, the company had been delisted from the stock market. Across DC, Rexortech surveillance cameras started coming down.
The Guardian Act was dead. A mass-backpedaling began, with all of the newspapers and TV channels who’d supported Kerrigan suddenly hating the idea of an invasive surveillance state and talking about how we needed checks and balances. It was sickening to watch them do a slick 180, but the public wasn’t fooled. We’d come too close to disaster. People would remember, the next time someone like Kerrigan came along.
“Mr. O’Harra!” yelled a reporter. “How does it feel to be dating the President’s daughter?”
Kian looked at me. “Great,” he said. And the way he said it made me melt inside. It was better than any lengthy speech he could have given.
“Any idea what you’ll do now, Mr. O’Harra?” yelled someone else.
I’d rehearsed an answer to that question with him: I’m going to take some time to think about that. But now that it came to it, Kian just did a big, unashamed shrug. There was friendly laughter from the reporters. I had a feeling they were going to like Kian: like my dad, he was a straight talker. We’d talked about what he might do next and tossed around a few ideas but we hadn’t made any decisions, yet. He’d quit the Secret Service: he couldn’t be responsible for guarding me and be with me. That meant a new agent took over my bodyguard duties: a blond-haired guy from Nebraska called Jack. Kian gave him a hard time at first, drilling him on everything, but we both liked him. And whoever was officially guarding me, what mattered most was that I had Kian’s protection, always.
And me? I’d veered away from the fundraising my mom had been gently steering me towards and was looking into a career with an investigative agency, focusing on political and corporate corruption. It wasn’t typical for a President’s daughter but I wanted to make a difference: there were too many people out there like Kerrigan and too many corporations willing to help them. I’d roped in my mom to help me with one bit of fundraising, though: we’d raised money for the soup kitchen that had fed me during my night on the streets, and opened a new homeless shelter. I also reported the guy who’d lured me into the abandoned building and the DC police picked him up just days later at a different soup kitchen. He was eventually charged with attacks on four homeless women.
The cameras clicked and clicked but the noise was dying down, the photographers getting their last few shots as the photo op came to an end. “How about a kiss?” yelled one reporter.
Kian and I looked at each other and my face flushed. Kissing him wasn’t a problem but kissing him on camera? I awkwardly turned to him and tilted my face up. He leaned down towards me and hesitated, as if trying to figure out how to do a chaste little kiss that would look good on the front pages.
Kian didn’t do chaste.
“The hell with it,” he growled under his breath. And suddenly he was tipping me and kissing me full-on, his tongue parting my lips, his chest crushed against my breasts. The camera clicks became a continuous buzz again, the reporters yelling their approval. What they couldn’t see was Kian’s hand behind me as he squeezed my ass. A rush of heat went through me, twisting and arcing, clouding my brain and then soaking down to my groin. I grabbed his biceps and clung on, losing myself in the kiss. For long seconds, I didn’t care who was watching.
Eventually, we came up for air and reality set in again. I was panting and flushed: embarrassed and thrilled and melting inside, all at the same time. My mom was giving Kian a reproachful look but my dad was trying not to laugh. I mock-glared at Kian. “You’re not supposed to do that to the President’s daughter,” I muttered.
He leaned closer and growled in my ear, each word scalding hot and silver-edged. “Then we got a problem,” he said. “Because tonight….”
I tried to keep a sweet, respectable smile on my face for the cameras as he whispered exactly what he was going to do to me. He balanced me perfectly: I worried too much about what the press and everyone else thought and he didn’t worry about it at all.
“...that alright with you?” he finished.
I swallowed and pressed my thighs together. “Kiss me again,” I muttered. “I’m not sure they got the first one.”
One Month Later
Emily
I opened the door to my bedroom and walked in on Kian wearing only his jockey shorts, his hard ass outlined through the thin cotton. Unlike the time when he’d walked in on me, he wasn’t embarrassed at all: he just stood there, all rugged tan body and gleaming blue eyes, and I felt his gaze sweep down my body. I flushed and quickly came in and closed the door behind me. “You’re getting changed now?” I asked. “We don’t have to go until eight.”
We w
ere attending a ceremony that night recognizing soldiers injured in the line of duty. I’d already seen him in his tux and he looked fantastic, my very own James Bond. But that was hours away.
He shook his head and went over to the closet. I’d cleared him some space there, since he was practically living in my room, but we were really looking forward to moving into our own place. “I gotta go out,” he said. “I’ll be back before tonight.” I could hear the tension in his voice.
He started grabbing clothes, but not suits or the respectable casualwear my stylist had picked out for him: the jeans and leather jacket he’d been wearing when I first met him. “What’s going on?” I asked, a stab of panic going through me.
He nodded at the bed.
There was a letter there, handwritten, the envelope addressed to him. I snatched it up and read as he dressed. My eyes widened as I scanned down the page.
Kian pulled on his jacket. “You don’t need to come,” he said. “I can do this on my own.”
I got up off the bed and walked over to him, then looked up into those big blue eyes. He was trying to hide it, but I could see the pain there, the memories that had been slowly poisoning him until I’d got him to open up. The letter had brought them to the surface again, jagged and sharp. “You don’t have to,” I told him, and pulled him close.
***
The meeting was set for Anacostia Park: we’d come full circle, since that day I met Kian. By now, it was November and the temperature was dropping fast as the sun went down. But it was a beautiful evening, the sunset turning everything shades of red and gold as it sank below the horizon. I walked hand in hand with Kian as we made our way towards the bench and sat down. Jack and the other Secret Service agents arranged themselves to form a perimeter around us, just far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation. I looked around and took a couple of deep breaths. I’d expected to be nervous, coming back to the park, but I seemed to be okay: it was a nice milestone to have reached.
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