In the Likely Event(46)
Nate and I walked up the steps in silence.
“Is what Serena said true?” he asked as we neared the door to my room. “About why you went to work for Senator Lauren? Why you went into politics?”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Oh. God. I’d almost forgotten that Serena had accidentally ratted me out. I opened my mouth to answer, but someone stepped out of the next room down the hall, saving me from embarrassment.
“Damn, I’ve been waiting all day for you,” a man said angrily, and Nate and I both looked down the hallway to see the figure striding our way with purpose, his face becoming disastrously clearer with every step.
Not just any man.
Jeremy was here.
My stomach hit the floor.
“I’m done hearing you don’t want to talk.” He reached for my arm and got a good grip on the upper part. “I just flew all the way—” he started, abruptly halting when Nate ripped him away. Jeremy’s body slammed against the wall beside me as Nate put his forearm against Jeremy’s windpipe.
“Didn’t anyone teach you not to touch a lady without her consent?” Every line of Nate’s body radiated threat.
Oh shit.
“No!” I put my hand on Nate’s shoulder. If he hurt Jeremy, the consequences would be dire to the career he’d fought so hard for. “Don’t. It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Isa—” Jeremy managed to squeak out.
“You know him?” Nate asked me, his eyes narrowing with accusation.
“Yes.” I nodded, trying to swallow the huge boulder in my throat. Jeremy had never grabbed me like that before.
“Of course she knows me!” Jeremy croaked, stretching his neck melodramatically.
Nate dropped his forearm and backed up a step. Through all these years, I’d never had the two men side by side to compare before, but now that I did, the differences were startling.
Jeremy was polished, from his gelled, coiffed head of dark hair to his Armani shoes. His face was flawless, and I knew he’d flash that politician’s smile in a heartbeat with every certainty that it would sway someone to his side.
But he didn’t know Nate. Nathaniel was taller by a couple of inches, stacked with muscle, and he wielded an aura of fuck-around-and-find-out. One of Nate’s smiles had to be earned. And every scar the man carried only made him . . . more.
“I’m her fiancé!” Jeremy straightened the Hermès tie I’d given him for his birthday.
Hermès. In a freaking war zone.
The hurt that flashed through Nate’s eyes cut into me with a single glance, but he quickly masked his features as he ripped his gaze from mine, assessing Jeremy in a whole new way. His eyes caught on the badge Jeremy had pinned to his suit coat.
The badge that said Jeremy Covington.
Nate’s body managed to go even more rigid.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” Jeremy began, all but poking Nate’s chest.
Not a good idea.
“He’s my security detail,” I said quickly. “Let’s just . . .” Shit, this was bad. So, so, so bad. I needed to get him away from Nate before it got even worse. “Let’s just go in my room and talk.” My hand trembled as I fumbled for my room key, but Nate had his out already.
He opened the door with efficiency and stood back, holding it open so Jeremy could swagger through into my suite.
I followed after, pausing to glance up at Nate, who stared ahead with professional indifference. “It’s complicated.”
“Seems pretty simple to me.” His scoff was almost silent, but not quite. “You’re marrying Dickface.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IZZY
Georgetown
October 2014
I’ve been thinking about leave. Maybe not this year, since you’ll be in the middle of classes when I’ll get block leave—aka, vacation—but maybe next year we can pick a place neither of us has been and just go. Just leave everything behind for a week or two and just . . . be. And I know you’ve probably traveled a lot more than I have. There wasn’t money for that growing up, but the only good thing about deployment is the ridiculous amount of money I’ve been able to save. So, if you’re down, send back a list of where you’d want to go with the next letter. Let’s go somewhere warm, Izzy. Somewhere with a beach. Somewhere I can XXXXX
He’d crossed that part out so many times that the pen had ripped through the paper in one place. I sighed and set the letter on the kitchen counter.
How was it possible to miss someone so much when I’d spent so little actual time with him?
“How many times have you read that one?” Serena asked as she finished up dinner on the island cooktop in front of me.
“Once or twice.” Just like Nate, I could find the positives in the bad, and the one good thing that had come from Dickface leaving me for Yale was Serena moving into the two-bedroom apartment when she’d been hired by the Post. She liked to beat herself up that it wasn’t the Times, but I was just ecstatic to have her with me.
“More like a hundred times,” she muttered, flipping the grilled cheese in the pan.
“You know I’m happy to cook, right?” The exposed side was more than a little charred. “I lived with Margo that last year at Syracuse. It’s not like I don’t know how.”