Page 52 of It’s Always Been You (Always #1)

Caitlin smiled. She was waiting for the right time to say it, but she kept putting it off. Amazing how when you were near death the feelings that mattered cut through all the crap.

“Did you mean it, Cat?” His voice was so uncertain, it broke her heart.

“I love you,” Caitlin whispered. And she watched in wonder as his entire face transformed.

Every line, every worry, seemed to dissipate from his handsome face, leaving only the man she knew she had loved for a long time.

She may not remember everything about him, but her heart always did.

She accepted that now. “It’s always been you, Travis.

” The last statement was said with a catch in her voice.

Half-groaning, half-growling, Travis kissed her deeply.

He was struggling to be gentle, but his kiss was full of longing.

He pulled away. “God, Caitlin, I never thought I’d be this fucking happy again.

” Suddenly, he was slipping a huge diamond ring on her finger.

“You can’t say no. You’ve sealed your fate, sunshine girl.

Once you get back on your feet, you’re officially becoming Caitlin Blake. I love you. I fucking love you.”

He kissed her again and would have continued doing so if they weren’t interrupted by a knock on the door .

Beatrice stuck her head in the room. “Is it safe to come in?”

“Come on in, Bee.”

“It sounded so quiet in here,” Beatrice said. “Didn’t want to burn my eyes, just in case you two were up to something.”

Travis rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Bee, I’m not a fucking caveman.”

The two women looked at each other and burst out laughing. Caitlin grimaced as the shaking jarred her back.

“Damn it, fuck, are you all right?” Travis muttered. Caitlin opened her eyes and saw the panic in both Beatrice and Travis’s faces.

“It stung.” Caitlin coughed, and then took a deep breath. “It’s fading.”

“I should limit your visitors.” Travis glared at Beatrice who had the grace to look embarrassed.

The redhead recovered quickly. “Well, instead of bringing you another fruit basket or flower arrangement, I have a message to deliver.”

“If it’s from your dad, you can forget it,” Travis stepped in front of Beatrice. The scowl on her husband’s face was enough to put the fear in anyone, but the redhead was determined.

“He said it would clear up a lot of questions.”

“He’s made enough mess of things,” Travis snapped. “Caitlin nearly died, goddamnit,” he roared. “Because of him!”

“Travis!” Caitlin called out in a censuring tone. “Don’t take out your anger on Bee.”

“Thank you,” Beatrice sniffed and defiantly sidestepped him to hand Caitlin an envelope. She recognized the lettering script with her name Caitlin .

“Jase,” Caitlin whispered.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Travis’s hand grasped Beatrice arm. “Is this another one of Porter’s mind games?” He held out his hand to Caitlin. “Give that to me, Cat, I’ll burn it if I have to.”

Caitlin’s fingers held on to the letter. “I think I need to read it, Travis.”

“Why?” he growled. “We decided nothing else matters, remember? You told me if I got on that plane, you’re done. How is this any different?”

“But I told you today, I’ll never leave you.”

Shifting her gaze to Beatrice. “Did you read it?”

“No. But Dad did. He said it explained a lot of things, including that night you disappeared, Caitlin. He said it would be good for both of you.” Beatrice walked to the door. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Travis grunted.

“Travis?”

He turned to look at her.

“Can you go get lunch?”

He gazed at her for a beat, indecision written all over his face. Finally, he nodded and walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Travis folded the letter and sat back on the sofa that was facing the hospital bed.

Caitlin handed him the letter telling him he could read it if he wanted to because she didn’t want to hide anything.

He asked her how she knew Porter hadn’t forged it.

She said one word— buttercup . A familiar sensation of jealousy ghosted over his skin.

Damn it, Caitlin was right. He needed to get a grip.

He had also wondered how Porter ended up with the letter. Had he been in contact with John Cooper this entire time? It would take a while before Travis trusted the admiral again, but he realized he didn’t care any longer as long as Porter left them alone .

Whatever was in the letter made Caitlin sad in a good way, if that made sense.

Bittersweet was the better word. A heaviness he hadn’t realized was in her, finally lifted.

And in the ever-changing intensity of the way they kissed, it felt like she was totally, unequivocally his. And it felt fucking great.

So he got curious and read the letter. As much as he hated Jase Locke/John Cooper, he had to admit the son of a bitch was actually decent in the end.

He stared at Caitlin who was sleeping peacefully, one arm bent at an angle by her head, the other on her belly.

It was late at night. No more visitors. He stripped down to his boxer briefs and undershirt and got into bed with her.

Cuddling was not possible, but he’d take any closeness right now.

He shifted on his side and simply drank in the beautiful contours of her face.

Somehow, this was another new beginning.

Jase’s letter to Caitlin

Dear Caitlin,

Damn. If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t make it, and I’ve finally decided to do the right thing.

You’ve probably figured it out by now that I’ve lied to you for three years.

For all my selfish reasons, the biggest one is because I love you.

So damned much. Ever since we were kids, I’ve been in love with you.

But you’ve always looked upon me as a friend and, annoyingly enough, like an older brother.

I hate his guts. I don’t know if you should know that, but I do. He has what I want. Your love. So I did the unthinkable. Maybe as revenge, or maybe to hurt him for having what I can never have.

You were helping me that night. You had no plans of leaving him.

We got into an accident, you were badly hurt, and I decided to take care of you.

The Russian mob knew where you lived because I’d led them straight to you.

And then you lost your memory. I thought it was the perfect opportunity for us to start over. So I took you from him.

The CIA made it easy. I found out they were covering their asses because they were shutting us down and throwing us to the sharks. They faked our deaths. It was for the best that he believed you were dead.

I’m sorry, Caitlin. I tried to make you happy.

But in losing your memory, that also meant we’d be hunted for the rest of our lives, especially if I was alive.

Because I was the one who fucked up—in their eyes and mine.

I thought we could disappear, but the Russian mob was just so fucking persistent.

I guess they couldn’t turn their backs on 100 mil.

Three years. I’ve finally accepted that you’ll never look at me the way you looked at him. If I thought there was a chance that you would love me a fraction of how much you loved him, I was going to fucking try to make this work. I’d live with the guilt, as long as I’d have you loving me.

The most painful day in my life was when you told me you had found the ONE. I tried to talk you out of marrying him, but you were willing to risk everything. You were going to tell him the truth and screw the consequences, but all hell broke loose.

I treasured the times we shared. Even on the run, I was living a dream because you believed you belonged to me. In the end, I loved you too much and accepted that the ultimate sacrifice was in letting you go.

He has not moved on from you, Caitlin. He looks for you.

I hope my sacrifice will help him find you.

I owe you this much. You both love the hell out of each other, and I’ve finally accepted that he’s the man most deserving of your love.

I wish you the best, buttercup. Know that I loved you until the end, and I hope that one day you’ll forgive me for what I did.

Yours,

Jase

Three weeks late r

The rundown warehouse located east of Budapest was crawling with over sixty CIA paramilitary and black ops personnel.

In the center of the building were four tactical military trucks carrying seven tons of weaponized plutonium between them.

The nuclear material was sealed in lead containers.

The warehouse was in a compound surrounded by chain-linked fences.

Inside the compound were dozens of vehicles and trucks belonging to buyers interested in the cache of plutonium.

About thirty minutes before, after funds were transferred when the bidding ended, the warehouse was raided by a joint CIA-military group. The takedown was swift, if not a tad bloody.

Dmitry Yerzov stood in the shadows, watching men in commando gear lead away over fifteen targets of the plutonium sting operation.

The buyers were from different countries—top among them, North Korea and Iran.

Some of the people now in custody owned private defense companies, others worked undercover for their government—whether they were sanctioned by their leadership was another question.

A few other buyers were from well-funded terrorist groups.

He watched his former boss, Grigori Zorin, get cuffed and spirited away by a waiting Black Hawk.

As he watched the chopper leave the ground, he finally exhaled a breath of relief even as an emptiness filled him.

Three years of his fucking life—he paid with his blood and soul.

As far as Zorin knew, his top security man died defending him. Dmitry Yerzov was dead.

“Commander?”

Dmitry turned. A soldier walked up to him and handed him a package.

“I have some BDUs you can change into.”

Dmitry stared at the blood spatters on his shredded white dress shirt.

He winced as he remembered the four shots he took to the chest. He did have state-of-the-art body armor that his boss had sent him, which he wore underneath his urbane clothes.

Add in the blood capsules that worked as planned, and he had the ultimate orchestrated deception.

“Thanks, Staff Sergeant.”

The soldier nodded and left.

He entered an office and switched on the lights.

The fluorescent glare cast an impersonal glow on his person and kind of exposed his emotions inside.

He felt dead and drained as though those four shots succeeded in killing him.

They probably did. He spent three years trying to get into Grigori Zorin’s inner circle and had been successful.

Zorin treated him, well, almost like a son.

The man was an arms-dealing bastard, getting rich by supplying the conflicts in South America with weapons.

Why the fuck did Dmitry feel that he had betrayed him?

He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Three years was too long to work a mark.

There was a danger of attachment. He slipped out of his suit jacket.

Dmitry gave a snort of mirthless laughter—just as he was getting attached to his thousand-dollar Italian suits.

His phone buzzed with the call he was expecting from his boss.

“Admiral.”

“Sting operation went as expected. Congratulations, Commander.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“We netted twenty billion dollars from the sale of the plutonium.”

“Are we going to keep the plutonium cache?” Dmitry asked.

“POTUS wants it destroyed. We were never meant to keep it. Just flush out the main players in black-market nukes. The risk of leaving the material out there is high. It could easily fall into the hands of terrorists who can build dirty bombs or simply drop 10-ounces of that shit into a city’s water supply. So, yes, it’s going to be destroyed.”

“I agree, Admiral. And the money?”

“We’re using it to fund ongoing operations,” Porter sighed. “Allocation is getting tighter. We need to take care of our own.”

“Understood, Sir.”

“You’ve been gone for too long, Gabriel. It’s time to come home.”

The admiral disconnected.

He couldn’t agree more.

After three long years, Gabriel Sullivan was going home.