by Debra Webb
But she wouldn’t ask. Couldn’t ask. It hurt too much even to allow enough hope to speak his name out loud.
Caroline pushed away the thoughts and focused on the future. As far as the world knew, her husband had died of an undetected brain aneurysm that night in her mother’s home—a delayed result of the plane crash. Her brief reunion with him had been a mere godsend as far as the world knew.
Soon they would learn that he’d returned to her just long enough to leave her with a gift to remember him by.
She was pregnant.
Something else she had chosen not to share with O’Riley. Of course, he would know soon enough. But she wasn’t worried. He had what he wanted now. She had guaranteed Center’s funding throughout her term. If he so much as attempted to touch a hair on her child’s head, she would reverse that decision.
“Madam President.”
Caroline cleared her throat and met her secretary’s expectant gaze. “Yes, Barbara.”
“You have a visitor. He says that he’s an old acquaintance of yours.”
Bewildered, Caroline shook her head. “What’s his name, Barbara?” That would help. What was with her secretary this afternoon? Or maybe it was Caroline. She was still a little off her game.
“He said his name is Cain.”
Anticipation roared like a lion through Caroline. “Cain?”
“He didn’t give a last name. Agent Copeland cleared him through security.”
Copeland was the only one of her staff who knew about Cain.
“Send him in.” The whispered words were scarcely more than a shadow of thought. Somehow Barbara understood and rushed away to do her president’s bidding.
When the door opened again a man she didn’t recognize entered the office.
Caroline’s hand went to her throat as her breath trapped there. He was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular. Blondish brown hair. But she didn’t recognize the face. The eyes…the eyes she knew. Piercing blue…sky-blue. Cain’s eyes.
She had moved around her desk before she even realized she’d stood. “It’s you,” she murmured, afraid to believe, but knowing in her heart it was him.
He nodded. “It’s me.”
She recognized that voice. It was the one he’d spoken in that last night…his true voice.
Before good sense could kick in she’d reached up and touched his handsome face. “This is the real you?”
He nodded.
She traced the lean chiseled cheeks and the strong brow and chin, the slender blade of a nose. Lastly her fingers trailed over firm, full lips. The same lips that had kissed her and brought her such pleasure.
He kissed her fingers. “I’ve missed you, Caroline.”
She gasped, drew her fingers away. “But you left and I thought…”
“O’Riley gave me a special dispensation,” he explained as he took her hands in his. “I’m kind of in reserve status now. I’ll live a normal life wherever I choose, but if Center ever needs me I’ll make myself available. It’s a rare liberty.”
Hope bloomed in her chest. “And where do you choose to live this new, normal life?” Her heart pounded so hard she feared it would jump out of her chest any moment.
“I choose to live it with you.” He tugged her closer. “If you want me.”
If she wanted him! Caroline draped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him, her lips trembling with relief…with happiness. “I think you know the answer to that.”
One corner of that sexy mouth tilted into an answering grin. He leaned down and whispered against her ear, his warm breath making her shiver. “I know the proceedings in this room are recorded for posterity, otherwise I’d make love to you right now on that big, gleaming desk.”
She stood on tiptoe and whispered back, “For your information, there’s one narrow spot against the wall on the other side of the room that the monitor doesn’t catch.” Her body was already heating up at the idea of having him sink deeply inside her. “Apparently a previous president discovered the blind spot. Made headlines with it if I remember correctly.”
“Show me.” Cain nipped her earlobe.
She tugged him toward that blind spot on the far side of the room. “There’s something I have to tell you first,” she murmured secretively.
“What’s that?” He pressed her against the wall.
“Closer,” she whispered. “You might not be out of the monitor’s range yet.” Though she knew he was.
He flattened against her, his hard body making her gasp with anticipation. “Close enough?”
She nodded as another wave of sweet ecstasy washed over her and they weren’t even skin to skin yet.
“What was it you had to tell me?” He kissed her neck, raked his lips over her skin.
She shivered. “Maybe I’ll tell you afterward.”
“That’ll work.” His mouth claimed hers and there was no more talk. But talk wasn’t necessary. Cain already knew…Caroline was having his child.
THE LIMOUSINE sped across the beltway, carrying O’Riley and the new head of the Collective toward the airport. O’Riley couldn’t help feeling a little proud of himself. He’d gotten what he wanted. And he was damned sure she’d gotten exactly what she wanted.
“You think allowing Cain to go on reserve status was a good idea?” Remmington asked.
“Absolutely.”
“What about the child?”
“Well,” O’Riley offered, watching the landscape as it whizzed by. “I don’t see how we can begrudge the president the child of her late husband.”
Remmington frowned then enlightenment dawned. “Ah, I see your point. If the child went missing she would cry foul and the whole world might learn about…us.”
“Exactly.”
Remmington nodded. “Very good, O’Riley. She’ll keep us happy to protect her child.”
“In a manner of speaking.” He grinned. “And it never hurts to have an inside man in the White House. Especially one in the right bed.”
Remmington seemed satisfied with that explanation.
The truth was Caroline Winters deserved the man she loved and the child they had created together. If O’Riley had learned nothing else in this life, it was that nothing should stand in the way of true love.
Hell, maybe he was just getting soft.
“What about Galen?” Remmington asked. “Can we consider him out of the game?”
O’Riley shrugged. “He’s alive. As long as he’s alive he poses some threat, but he’s rather impotent with no funding and no power. To my knowledge he doesn’t have a fan still breathing in this country or in any other. If he manages to survive it will only be by the grace of some former world power who can’t offer him much more than asylum.”
“So the storm has passed?”
“The storm has passed. Galen can’t touch us. He doesn’t have a single link left to Center. There’s no way he can get to us now.”
“Good.”
The words reverberated in O’Riley’s head. Even as he’d uttered them he’d known it was—in part—a lie. There was one link…however obscure. No one even remembered her. Galen wouldn’t think of her either. Even if he did he would only recall that she had been eliminated as a failure. That she had actually been mainstreamed was a secret O’Riley would take to his grave. Even way back then he hadn’t had the heart to kill a kid.
Maybe he’d always been soft on some level.
Besides she remembered nothing of Center. She posed no threat. She had been a failure. Even if by some stretch of the imagination Galen found her…it would prove nothing. She was of no value and certainly represented no threat.
O’Riley shook off that whole line of thinking. No way Galen could even suspect. That one missing link was safe. Even O’Riley didn’t know where she was.
No one knew.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7178-8
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Copyright © 2005 by Debra Webb
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*Colby Agency
**The Specialists
†Colby Agency: Internal Affairs
††The Enforcers