Chapter One
Now
Standing here on the stairs in our DC townhouse and watching my husband’s back as he disappears to our bedroom, I’m…reeling.
To have my suspicions confirmed, even though I think I had myself convinced I was wrong.
I wanted to be wrong.
Even after unlocking Liam’s old cell phone and reading all the e-mails for myself, seeing the pictures and videos taken while he was in college and law school.
Confirmation that my husband’s “ghost”—his old college roommate and boyfriend who ghosted him on graduation day, and who never so much as contacted Liam again—is none other than the newly sworn in freshman US senator from Georgia, one Ward Mason Callahan.
And they’ve picked up exactly where they left off as of a couple of weeks ago on swearing in day, my hubby apparently taking full advantage of the hall-pass fuck waiver I stipulated before we got married ten years ago.
Yes, when I first met Ward Callahan on that day, I knew for certain that he was my Liam’s “ghost.”
Iknew.
I knew it the same way I can be blindfolded and tied up and still sense where Liam is within the room.
I felt it at a visceral level, part instinct and part learned observation.
I’ve only seen Liam visibly rattled like that two other times during our fourteen total years together—when his mother died, and again when his father died.
It’s not that Liam isn’t capable of being rattled, but feeling it and letting his feelings show, especially in public, are two different things. He’s a fucking ruthless attorney. I’ve sat in a courtroom and watched him cross-examine witnesses and mesmerize juries during opening and closing arguments. I’ve seen videos of depositions he’s taken.
His skill in this way is one of the reasons he was such a high-earner when he actively practiced law full-time for a living.
But justseeingWard visibly rattled my hubby. Even before Liam introduced me to him, I suspected Ward was his ghost. I’m good at making evaluations of people and situations on the fly, which is an invaluable skill for successfully performing my job.
It wasn’t just my gut, though. For starters, now the word that my husband sometimes spoke in his sleep, a word I was never certain I heard correctly, made perfect sense. Because I had thought he was saying “wood,” or “word,” or “what.”
It wasn’t just a word—it was aname.
Ward.
In addition, the men look to be about the same age, and my appearance at that moment obviously throws Liam into a borderline panic without me understanding why.
Until Ward Callahan talks to me when Liam steps away for a moment, presumably to speak to the vice president. Except again, in my gut, I know it is merely an excuse to buy Liam a moment to pull himself together.
That’s when I confirm it. Because as Liam hurries away, Callahan’s head swivels, watching Liam, even while he answers my questions.
“You and Liam met at NYU?” I ask as casually as possible. “Law school?”
Ward slowly nods, maybe not even realizing he is giving himself away. “Undergrad. We were roommates.”
I know damned well Liam only had one roommate during college and law school.
Motherfucker.
I should be commended for my incredible self-control in not launching myself onto Ward Callahan in a screaming rage and getting arrested for assaulting a newly sworn in US senator.
A thousand possibilities flick through my mind as I watch that man watching my husband while we talk. Callahan’s blue gaze burns with a hungry, desperate fire I know all too well.
The desperation of a man barely surviving, who’s gone too long without getting what he truly needs. A man—married to awoman, mind you—so desperate that he would stand there and actively eye-fuck the other man’s husband right in front of him, without explaining the full truth of the matter.
But then Callahan left and Liam returned and I wondered if, maybe, I was overreacting, or perhaps, just possibly, wrong.
