“Whoa, now, wait a minute,” I blurt out, holding my hands out defensively to get her to stop. We aren’t going there. “It’s not like that.”
“I’m just saying it could be, and it would be okay,” she replies gently. “Or it could be that you and Anna just continue to have a deep connection that will probably transcend other types of friendships because of your shared grief. My point being that there is absolutely nothing wrong with an emotional connection between you and Anna, whatever it may eventually become”
My breath rushes out, an indication it has been pent up for too long as she hashed this out. It makes me realize I’ve been feeling bad for even having a friendship with Anna. That I don’t feel like I deserve even that basic goodness with a woman I’ve come to admire a great deal in a short time.
I refuse to consider what else could happen. I’d have to be dead not to be attracted to the woman, despite my guilty misgivings. Anna is gorgeous, inside and out.
I think back to walking into Avery’s nursery on Saturday night, seeing Anna’s daughter at her breast. At first, I was so shocked I whipped around. I hadn’t really seen anything, but it was the intimacy of the moment that had caught me off guard.
Anna quickly put me at ease, and something made me turn around to take a good look at her.
She was right… I couldn’t really see anything. Her t-shirt covered the top part of her body, and her daughter shielded the rest. Maybe a flash of skin at the swell of her breast, but I mostly just saw mother and daughter engaged in the most primitive, special type of bonding that can occur between two humans. There was nothing sexual about it, but it touched something deep inside that aroused my emotions.
Made me feel even closer to Anna than I had already become.
That was the transcendental moment that changed everything between us. It had made me determined to spill my guts to Corinne today.
Because I need her to tell me what to do.
Should I keep exploring things with Anna or cut contact off completely? Not even sure if that’s possible given we work together, but fuck if I have to stay at Jameson. There are any number of contract security companies I could work with.
But damn… the thought of actually leaving the people here… of leaving Anna?
Not sure I can do that, either.
Knowing damn well how pleading my expression is, I ask Corinne, “What do I do?”
She shakes her head with an empathetic smile. “I can’t tell you what to do with Anna. The only thing I can urge you to do is revisit your feelings of guilt and work through them.”
A bark of sardonic laughter erupts from me. “You mean forgive myself?”
“Oh no,” Corinne replies with a resounding shake of her head. “I don’t think you have anything to apologize for or to be forgiven for. You need to accept you did nothing wrong. That way, you can move on with your life.”
I stare at her for a long moment, feeling like her words are ridiculous. Corinne’s gaze drops to her watch before returning to me. “And we’re out of time.”
“Am I released?” I ask.
Shaking her head, she puts me in my place. “Not even close.”
It’s clear what I have to do.
Either I have to take her advice, accept I did everything in my power to protect those who needed it the most urgently—or, in other words, I acted the way I should have—or I have to move on and away from Jameson.
Corinne rises, an indication our time is truly over.
As she walks me to the door, she asks, “Are you going to the party tonight?”
There’s going to be an after-work party for Bebe, who received her official pardon from the president today for the crimes she was convicted of that sent her to prison. It was part of the deal Kynan worked out on her behalf when she helped our government bring down a Russian criminal mastermind last month.
“Probably,” I say. While I very much feel a part of the Jameson team, the truth is I don’t know these people all that well yet. It seems weird to celebrate victories with them that I wasn’t a part of when they occurred.
“I think you should,” Corinne advises. “It’s part of accepting you’re truly a valued member here.”
“Not all that happy in crowds,” I say.
“This isn’t a crowd,” she points out. “This is your family. Or it could be if you open up to it.”
And damn her… now I have something else to think about.CHAPTER 12AnnaBeing the assistant to the illustrious owner of Jameson Force Security means I do pretty much anything he needs.
Some days, I’m helping to plan a mission by organizing binders and pulling strategic topographical maps, scouting lodging accommodations or arranging meetings with military colonels.