Page 4 of Innocent

I’m twenty-nine, and this isn’t healthy.

As it was, I held off putting in my notice for a week because Leo begged me to give him one last chance to convince Elliot.

I don’t know what he said or tried during that extra week, but I know he wasn’t successful.

If he had been, I wouldn’t be standing here right now, crying my eyes out.

Guess I’m lucky Leo didn’t order me to stay.

Who am I kidding? If he had, I would have stayed.

Hell is crying, because as hard as Leo fights to try to get Elliot to let him in, I wish he’d fought a fraction that hard to get me to stay.

* * * *

When Leo arrives home from work, he doesn’t speak. He pulls me into his arms, kisses me with a level of passion that hasn’t waned since that first frantic night we made love six years earlier, and breaks my heart with his quiet tears that mix with mine as he makes love to me in a bed we’re sharing for the last time.

Why am I doing this?

Why am I killing both of us by leaving?

Except…nothing’s going to change. Whether I do this now or in two years, when it’ll hurt even more, I’m still going to mourn. Worse, me staying could hurt Elliot, and I don’t want to do that.

It’s like the stars aligned when I called my old department head at FSU to talk to her about what I’d need to do to resume the pursuit of my master’s degree.

She told me there was also a job opening, and, oh, hey, look at that, an available apartment, in my price range, because one of the professors was moving.

An apartment just off campus, an easy walk for me.

Do ass-kickings from the Universe come any clearer than that?

If I still believed in God and prayer, I would have said it was a message from the Lord telling me in no uncertain terms that leaving was the right course of action.

Fucking kills me, but growing pains always hurt, don’t they? Women give birth in agony, and then heal.

Usually.

I can suck it up and do this.

Leo won’t.

Leo will never admit Elliot won’t change.Can’tchange.

Leo will never be able to see this can’t work. Because despite Leo’s training and cynicism, where Elliot Woodley is concerned, Leo is forever an optimist. And Leo will always put himself last, no matter what.

Loving Leo enough, or his love for me, isn’t the problem and never will be. Leo and I are perfect together.

But, aside from Elliot’s fear, so are Elliot and Leo. Perfect together, that is.

Last month, Kevin Markos, the president’s chief of staff—and the other third of the secret triad comprised of her, her husband, and Kev—sits down with me for a closed-door meeting.

Just the two of us.

“Do you know where you’re going with your career, Jordan?”

The man is spooky good at what he does. Part of it’s the years he spent as a cable news anchor, insightfully piercing the layers of an interview subject’s bullshit to get to the heart of the matter.

“I honestly don’t know. I’m not sure what my role will be when Elliot’s elected. Everyone seems to assume I’ll be part of the campaign.”