“We can finish this tomorrow,” Byron said, voice careful. “It’s been a day.”
Understatement of the century.
Charlie nodded once. “We can put you both in rooms here, if you’d like. Or Ms. Emerson, the driver can take you back to the hotel if you prefer to be out of … family business.”
It was tactful. Considerate, even. The kind of thing men like this said when they wanted you off the playing field without looking like they’d benched you.
Levi’s posture tensed beside me, as if he were about to argue.
My mouth moved first.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “I’m with him.”
The words slid out before I could vet them. No caveats. No professional disclaimers. NotI’m embedded with him, notI’m here as his journalist, justI’m with him.
Three Danes stared at me.
Levi’s head turned sharply, eyes searching my face like he hadn’t heard me right.
It hit me then—what I’d just said, what I’d just claimed.
I’m with him.
Not for this investigation, not until I get my story, not until the next flight out.
With him.
My heart did a slow, stunned flip.
Oh.
The realization wasn’t fireworks or crashing waves. It was quieter than that—a click of tumblers in a lock that had been jammed for two years. A sense of rightness settling into the space where anger used to live.
I loved him.
Of course, I did. I had in the tent, scribbling notes with his body heat pressed against my side. I had on bad satellite calls from hotel roofs, his voice cutting in and out between detonations. I had even in the months I’d told myself I hated him, using that hatred like a tourniquet to keep the bleeding down.
Loving him hadn’t been the problem.
Surviving him had.
Now, watching his world tilt on its axis, the problem felt different.
He needed someone in his corner who knew how to stand in falling rubble and keep steady.
Apparently, that was me.
Byron’s gaze flicked from our joined hands to my face. Something soft flickered in his expression—relief, maybe, or regret that his son had had to build a life outside these walls to find that kind of loyalty.
“If you’re with him,” he said slowly, “you’re in more than you know.”
“I’m a war correspondent,” I said. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Charlie almost smiled. It made him look disarmingly like Levi. “She’s got teeth,” he murmured.
“She always has,” Levi said.
His voice was low and rough, but there was pride in it. Pride that curled warm and dangerous under my ribs.
