“It’s the only thing I have from my mother,” KC interjected.
Yardley made herself breathe normally, her face flaming, her heart knocking.
“You didn’t tell me,” KC said. “At no point did you tell me that you would never, ever, ever move in without a ring.”
“I didn’t tell you,” Yardley managed. “That is true. You didn’t ask.”
“I guess you’re going to have to call the POD guy back and move out after all.”
Yardley turned to stone. But before her rational mind had even caught up to what KC meant, her heart nearly leapt out of her chest with anticipation at what it knew KCmustmean.
“Wait.” Julia stepped forward. “Are you two breaking up? Are you? Because that wasn’t a quick peck Jack told me about in the banquet hall.” When Yardley looked at her, she widened her eyes. “What? I’m aspy.”
“Because,” KC said to Yardley, ignoring Julia entirely, “youdon’t live with someone until you’re engaged. Ever. Never.” Her eyes crinkled with amusement at the corners. She’d called Yardley out, and itamusedher.
“My nan has always saved for me a beautiful mine-cut diamond in a darling setting,” Yardley said. “I never thought I’d wear it.”
“Such good intel.” KC’s elf smile washed away the last of Yardley’s anxiety. “It’s going to be so much fun to date you after I kick you out of my house.”
Yardley was giddy.
Because shewasthat kind of old-fashioned, and shedidlove KC Nolan. It would be divine to be courted by her with all of their intentions stated right out loud, with the drama and lead-up and butterflies and delicious tiny mysteries and front-step kisses and sexting and learning absolutely everything about each other while talking about the future.
Their future. Their wild, unknown, started-all-over-again future.
Yardley kissed her beautiful girlfriend.
“It would be great if someone could unlock these handcuffs from the chair,” Miller said. “If you’re finished.”
Yardley stepped away, laughing.
“You’re the one who’s finished,” Julia said. “I hope you have a second career in mind in the event you don’t end up sleeping in a steel bed welded to the wall of your cell.”
The next eighty minutes were a blur of logistics, check-ins, and overlapping conversation. They handed Miller off to MI6 to be kept secure until the agency decided what to do with him, and then they had to rush to get to the airbase in time, rolling through the wrought-iron gates with Julia driving the borrowed van and bouncing it right off the paved drive and onto the airstrip behind it.
The Darkhorse was waiting for them, and so were Atlas and Gramercy, just emerging from a different black car with Kris and Declan. Yardley watched KC jog away from her to join them, her eyes bright, and exchange several shouted lines that were lost in the noise of the jet rumbling to life.
When KC turned back around, Yardley was still watchingher, her heart in her throat, her pulse pounding in her fingertips, her whole body singing.
“Mine, mine, mine,” she whispered.
Life wasn’t safe enough not to claim what she wanted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Situation Room, the White House
Ada Williams, president of the United States, looked silently at the group sitting at the table in her Situation Room.
KC did her best not to fidget.
“Your plan”—the president crossed her arms—“turns my hair gray.”
“Yes, ma’am.” McLaughlin, the director of the agency, shuffled his stack of file folders. “There is some risk.”
The president turned her attention to KC. Her merciless eye contact made it necessary for KC to remind herself that she’d voted for this woman in large part because she recognized the sovereignty and dignity of all people, and so President Williams was unlikely to send KC to a post in Antarctica to scan penguins for surveillance devices.
“I heard a lot from you in our first meeting,” the president said, “but obviously not everything.”
