“That’s right. There’s another trip.”
“We leave tomorrow night, remember?”
“We don’t leave tomorrow night. Only you now.”
“No more trips together.” I frowned.
“Hardly.” He wrapped me in a tight hug. “Many more trips together. Just the two of us, though. No fucking Dan Roark along.”
I giggled at that. “Where should we go first?”
In one continuous motion, he stood up and cradled me in his arms. “To my bed, of course.”
“Adam, I just said—”
“The night is young. You’ll see Lisa soon enough, and your parents can wait until the morning.”
“But you haven’t resigned yet.”
It was such a half-hearted protest that I knew it wouldn’t stop him. He continued carrying me back to his bedroom and said, “No, I haven’t resigned yet. I’ll do so tomorrow morning, but I’ll text my boss right now if it finally gets you in my bed.”
“No need for that,” I said, kissing behind his ear.
When we arrived at his room, our kisses were slow, but we hurriedly shed our clothes, helping each other out while tugging at our own. He pulled away to look at me. I felt like I was being judged, but also admired. “What?” I asked.
Tracing the dip of my waist with his fingertips, he smiled. “You’re just as beautiful as before.”
I glanced down at my chest and muttered, “Not much going on down there.”
“You’ve got a lot going on down there.” He held me close and patted my rear. “This part is great as well. No more insults about someone I love.”
That earned him a big kiss. When he grabbed my ass, I kissed him again with a laugh before jumping up and wrapping my legs around him. I could feel his erection right beneath me and asked, “Shall we stand?”
“Why yes, thank you.” He kissed me, letting his tongue tease mine, and after a minute, I just about died when he said, “Put me inside of you.”
“God, yes.” My hand reached down to place him just so.
We ended up against a wall, but it wasn’t fast and furious like last time. Instead, he was slow and determined, watching me the entire time, which made me come even harder.
Afterward, we went to the bed, and he curled up next to me, pulling me in tight. I touched his chest hair and smiled. “Nothing’s changed…”
“No, it hasn’t. Though I do hope I lasted a little longer than before. I remember not doing too well your first time. I believe you lost your virginity in the blink of an eye because I couldn’t control myself.”
“Neither one of us was good at controlling ourselves back then.”
Adam laughed. “Some would say we aren’t very good at controlling ourselves now.”
For the next hour, we planned out the rest of the week—how he would resign, how I’d tell my parents, and when we would see each other again. His father was doing so poorly, Adam planned on going back to London mid-week, but I wasn’t coming back from the president’s tour of the West until Saturday.
“Will you come home next week, then?”
“If I’m not working anymore, I should just stay in Cambridge and be with him. Don’t you think?”
He was so sad when he spoke that I immediately offered, “Do you want me to fly to see you on Sunday? I could take a few days off.”
“You’re wonderful,” he said, hugging me tightly. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“We’ll talk this week, though, right?”
“Every day, I hope.”
As I got dressed to go home, he frowned as I buckled my belt. “I don’t like it,” he said.
“What? This belt?”
“No. The fact that you’re leaving.”
“We just discussed this.” I kissed his cheek. “I need to talk to some people, and so do you.”
“But when we’re both back in DC for good, I won’t like that you’re not here.”
“What do you mean?”
Taking me in his arms, he smiled. “Well, I know we haven’t been together again for very long—”
“Like maybe a day.” I laughed.
“Yes, but given our history, can’t we skip the going-out stage?” He kissed my forehead, whispering, “I know that’s where my heart is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning back to assess what he was saying, whether he was about to play the wife card on me again.
“Will you move in with me? For now. As a start…”
I chuckled. At least he’d dialed it back a step. “We haven’t even gone on one date, and you want to live together?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get through the drama around your resignation and our relationship first. Let’s see how that goes.”
“And then?”
“I agree we need to make up for lost time,” I said with a grin.
Lisa was asleep when I came in that night, so I didn’t get to speak with her until the morning. As I told her the whole story, she drank her coffee in silence but wore a self-satisfied smile.
After a while, she finally commented with a sigh. “God, I love being right.”
“Whatever.”
“I can’t take too much credit. I wasn’t the only one who called this. Rachel did as soon as she heard about Adam, and naturally David did, too. He said it was just a matter of time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, his take was something like Adam finally had the opportunity to make things right and was determined to do it. Of course, he always refers to Adam as his ‘sorry sod of a cousin’ or something like that.”
I laughed. “How is David?”
“He’s good.” She smiled. “We will never last. We don’t want the same things.”
“How so?”
“His number one goal right now is to make a lot of money and have a good time, and you know me. I don’t care about money, and I’m not looking to be someone’s good time.”
“True.” She didn’t care about money, and with a former NBA player as a dad, she’d never need it regardless. Lisa simply wanted the same kind of stable marriage and family as her parents. Still, I was hopeful. “But he could be your good time for a while.”
“While I’m in DC,” she said with a naughty grin, “he’s a nice distraction.”
“Or as Rachel would say, he’s got a nice distraction.”
She winked. “One day we can all compare notes.”
Chapter Seventeen
AFTER MY TALK WITH LISA, I waited not so patiently for a call from Adam, jumping at anything remotely unexpected all morning long. Whether it be an unannounced visitor to my office or certain numbers appearing on my phone or emails on my screen, I feared the other shoe would drop at any moment. Adam and I would be exposed, and the shit would hit the fan, but when would it happen?
Adam called me at nine, sounding more chipper than I’d expected. “Are you sure you’re still interested in me? I’m just an unemployed bloke now.”
“Oh my God. You resigned so quickly.”
“Well, my bosses are in London, and they’re hours ahead of us. I didn’t see any reason not to contact them as soon as I woke up.”
“So how did it go?” I asked, my stomach flipping.
“All in all, it went relatively well, but only because I resigned. They asked how long our relationship has been going on, and I said it was relatively recent. They asked about Felicity as well. I was scolded, as could be expected, but since I was quitting, I’d taken away their thunder of sacking me.”
“That’s true. They don’t have much to do now.”
“My editor even cracked a joke that the school chums had become a little too chummy.”
“It’s good they could kid about it.”
“They immediately asked if the White House knew, and I said you’d disclosed everything to the president himself.”
“What did they say to that?”
“To be honest, I think they were a little surprised. They’re not daft, though. They
called me the sacrificial lamb for the White House. I didn’t quite own up to it.”
“So are they releasing a statement?” I feared the BBC would feel the need to take the moral high ground and also make a news splash about it.
“No, they feel exposed as well, like the other press will criticize the BBC for going soft on the US president because of their White House correspondent. They said they’d respond only if asked, saying it was a minor personnel issue that had been dealt with.”
“Whew.” I felt the urge to wipe my brow, yet guilt soon overpowered my relief. “I’m really sorry this has turned out this way for you.”
“But I didn’t tell you the most important part.”
“What’s that?”
“They’ll hire me back in another capacity in the future.”
“Oh, that’s great! Especially because we won’t live here forever.”
“We won’t?”
“Well, I mean, I won’t have this job forever, and then in the future…if we were still together we could—”
“We’re absolutely going to be together. I was just wondering where we might live other than DC?”
That made me smile. “I don’t know. I imagine you would want to spend time back in London. Am I right?”
“You are,” he said in eager surprise. “How do you feel about that?”
“I think it would be nice for a while.”
“You don’t know how happy you make me.”
Considering I’d always said I wouldn’t move for him before, I supposed it would make him happy, and now it was the least I could do to repay him for resigning for me. “You make me happy, too. I love you.”
“I love you.” He then sighed. “Things haven’t been all good this morning, though. Sylvia called with bad news. Dad isn’t doing well at all. I need to go home straight away.”
“It’s that bad.”
“Yes, I must go so I can see him before…”
“I’m so sorry. When are you leaving?”
“This evening. It just depends what flight I can get on at the last minute.”
“Would you like me to come, too?” I asked without hesitation.
“No, you don’t have to. I’ll be okay.”
“All you have to do is say so, and I’ll be there.”
“I know. Really, I’ll be fine.” He chuckled. “And you already got to talk to him.”
“I did. He was very kind.”
“So, I guess I need to book a flight. Hmm. Funny. I’m unemployed now and without an assistant. I haven’t booked a ticket for myself in years.”
“Try Orbitz like the rest of us.”
“Maybe I will,” he said with some fake attitude.
“I don’t think our travel schedules are going to mesh very well. I’m going to be out-of-pocket a lot in the next couple of days. Please keep in close touch because I’ll want to come later.”
“Later?”
I took a breath and brought up the inevitable. “For the funeral,” I replied softly.
It took him a moment to say, “Thank you. Having you there will mean everything to me. I’ll be in touch.”
“I want to be there.”
“Then I’ll text you when I land in London. I love you, sweetheart.”
“And I love you.”
Over the course of the next few days, Adam and I kept in touch as best we could given my travel and the time difference. A number of the reporters noticed he wasn’t on our trip out West, and the BBC replacement gave no details as to Adam’s status other than that he knew Adam’s father was gravely ill. Because he was only a junior stringer and not the permanent replacement, I guessed he didn’t know the full story. No doubt the BBC would quietly install their new White House correspondent with little fanfare in order to minimize the attention.
I felt horrible for not being with Adam at such a sad time in his life. Yet our phone calls were lengthy as he relayed all the funny things going on in his house despite the grief. While Mrs. Kincaid and the hospice nurse had become fast friends, Sylvia despised her. The nurse had told her to stop wearing stilettos because the clacking was an annoyance to her father. Sylvia had responded that her father had put up with her for thirty years and would expect nothing less of her. David was in Cambridge as well, taking Adam out drinking every night and watching soccer as much as possible.
During one call, Adam complained that the hospice nurse had taken him aside to warn him his dad might die without him in the room. “So now we’re all standing by his bed round-the-clock, but I think that advice was just rubbish. Dad’s not going to kick off without us there.”
“But why would she say that?”
“Her theory is that people sometimes die alone to lessen the pain for their loved ones. Complete BS, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know…I could see that happening, or if someone was truly a loner in life.” I’d spent enough time around nurses to know they were usually smarter than doctors, at least when it came to stuff like this.
“Do you really think they have a choice for when their body dies?”
“Maybe. We decide when we go to sleep, don’t we?”
On Wednesday night, when Adam’s father finally passed away, he died with only Adam’s mother in the room. Adam was devastated. He cried on the phone with me, making me tear up also. When he’d pulled himself together, I asked, “When is the funeral?”
“Sylvia is in charge. It’s a big do on Friday—a memorial service at Trinity College Chapel, but then we’ll go to Scotland on Saturday to bury his ashes on the estate Sunday. That ceremony will be small and just family.”
“Well…I—”
“Nicki, you don’t have to be here on Friday.”
“I want to be there. I just need to figure out how.”
“Where are you right now, anyway?”
“In Aspen, Colorado. There’s a big fundraiser tonight at a swanky house.”
“Please, don’t cut your trip short. You get back to DC on Friday. If you could make it on Saturday so we could go to Scotland together, that would be wonderful, but, really, that’s not necessary either.”
“Well, let me see…”
That night at the fundraiser, Matt was in great mood, both from bringing in a haul of cash for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and from the mojitos that had been served. I caught him when he was ordering another.
“Matt, I’ve got a request that I know you’re probably going to turn down.”
“What’s that?”
“I realize I’m in the professional doghouse for what I’ve done with Adam, but—”
“But what?” he asked, taking his third drink from the bartender.
“But Adam’s dad died this morning, London time.”
“That’s too bad. Please give him my condolences.” He didn’t quite pronounce “condolences” correctly due to the rum in his drink.
“I will. If I leave tomorrow, I could make the funeral in Cambridge on Friday.”
“So you’re asking for a few days off even though we’re in the middle of an important trip and, as you said yourself, you’re in the doghouse?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling the futility of my request.
He took another drink. “Everyone’s going to want to know where you’ve gone off to.”
“I know. I know they will. But do you have to tell them I’m at Adam’s dad’s funeral? Can’t you just say I had a personal matter come up?”
“Okay.” He took another drink, then his words slurred as he added, “Who’s going to see you in Cambridge anyway?”
“Thanks, Matt,” I said, touching his arm. “You’re the best.”
When I made it back to my hotel room that night, I pulled up Orbitz to book my flight, and I texted Adam.
I’m going to try to make it Friday morning. I love you.
I’ll be in touch.
Chapter Eighteen
ON FRIDAY MORNING, it was a mad dash for me to get from Heathrow to Cambridge in time for the f
uneral. That was something I didn’t want to show up late for. I’d texted Adam that I’d try, and if it didn’t work out, I’d see him at the wake at his house.
It turned out I only had minutes to spare as I arrived at Trinity College Chapel. Adam stood on the steps of the church, shaking the hands of what appeared to be a crowd of Cambridge faculty and upper-crust British society. It dawned on me at that moment that Adam was now the head of the Kincaid family, the brand new Viscount Adam Kincaid. He was going to receive a lot of attention. There was even a photographer lurking around taking photographs of the mourners.
As I paid the private hire driver, I asked him to deliver my bag to the Kincaid’s house. Then I hopped out, hoping to catch Adam before he walked into the church. Only the family and a few stragglers remained outside, and the family would walk in last. I hurried toward the chapel, and Adam spotted me.
He walked straight toward me with a grin, and when we were close enough, he grabbed me in his arms and hugged me tightly.
“I made it,” I said with a sigh.
“You did.” He grinned. “And I love you for it.”
We kissed once, then twice, and then a third time. That last one went on for a bit until I pulled away and smiled. “Adam, this isn’t the place.”
“I don’t really fucking care.” Then he winked. “And I know Dad doesn’t either.”
Taking my hand in his, Adam kept it there, locked in place, for most of the service. As we took our seats at the front of the church, he stared straight ahead at the altar. No doubt eyebrows were raised at the unknown brunette walking down the aisle with the Kincaid family. His mother and Sylvia seemed happy to have me, occasionally smiling or patting my shoulder.
The funeral was the traditional Anglican mass with all the usual prayers for the dead. There was the one line that had always stuck with me: “In the midst of life, we are in death; from whom can we seek help?” Of course, the answer was supposed to be God. And that was the case, but as I looked at Adam’s family and the great number of people in the room it occurred to me another answer was that help came from each other. I knew all too well that to grieve alone was a terrible thing.
Disclosure of the Heart (The Heart Series) Page 19