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CHAPTER 3

Victor

Three years later

Hooking up with Kayley at Yellowstone had certainly been unexpected but saying yes to her proposition turned out to be the best decision I’d ever made in my life.

We’d spent every night together while we were in Yellowstone and, somehow, Leo had my schedule changed for me to fly out to California with her when she returned home—with me being off-duty and available to have fun—and I’d spent several days of desperately needed time off at her house, where we’d gotten to know each other better.

Boy, did we.

From that point on, my life oddly and lurchingly revolved around two distinct and yet slightly conflicting axes: my career, and Dr. Kayley Daphine Cruz.

The little sister to the First Gentleman.

From that first and completely unexpected night in Yellowstone, the two of us quickly developed a mutually satisfying relationship that just… worked.

We grabbed a weekend here, a few nights there, whatever our schedules and logistics allowed. I always paid my own way though, because I didn’t want there to be any perceived conflicts should the news of our relationship go public. We texted and talked nearly every day, with video calls several times a week.

I delayed my retirement plans because Kayley quit seeing patients and accepted a teaching position at UCLA a year after we started dating, while I was promoted to more White House and VPOTUS duties, frequently acting as second in command for daily details instead of being assigned to advance teams as VPOTUS’ campaign to take Elliot’s place gained steam.

But Kayley’s teaching schedule filled much of her time, as did her research for a book she was writing, meaning her free time was limited even more than before. So she encouraged me to continue working if I wanted to. Not in a passive-aggressive way, either.

Does it make me a horrible person to say I did want to keep working? I’d earned my promotions and assignments due to my skills and seniority, not because I was dating the First Sister-in-Law. This was the golden ring I’d dreamed of grabbing throughout my entire career, and I didn’t want to quit now when I was still eligible to work. I also recognized that part of me hesitated to leave behind the only career I’d ever known, excellent pension or not.

We didn’t advertise our relationship and somehow managed to keep it out of the gossip columns. While my family knew I was seeing someone on an exclusive basis, I’d never told them who that person was. I mean, they knew her first name, but not her familial status as the only and little sister to the First Gentleman.

Not because I didn’t trust them, but because I didn’t want to create additional vulnerabilities. Besides, we weren’t public and weren’t married. If we reached that point, absolutely I planned to tell them the full story.

Until then, it was easier not to, even knowing my parents and most of my siblings would likely give me hell for keeping them in the dark so long.

I’d be lying if I said retiring to be with Kayley full-time worried me. Sure, I wished we could be together more often, but the times we spent together?

Magic.

That’s no bullshit exaggeration, either.

Yet I was more than self-aware enough to recognize that if I retired and we crashed and burned a few months in, I would hate myself.

During our initial time in Yellowstone we didn’t just fuck, we’d also talked. A lot.

I’d admitted to her that when it came to relationships I needed to be completely in charge in the bedroom and preferred to be in charge out of it as well, within reason.

For the scavenged time we pulled together, it worked.

But as the end of my career and making a decision about what I should do next converged with making a decision about my future with Kayley, it all morphed into a conversation I willfully avoided out of fear of what it would mean.

To us .

Giving me what I wanted for a weekend was one thing, but I could not in good conscience ask her to turn her life completely upside down when she was an independent woman used to making her own decisions. We needed to test those waters to make sure neither of us would be miserable, and a weekend wouldn’t cut it.

Kayley’s fiftieth birthday landed during one of her teaching breaks, so I put in for three weeks of long overdue vacation time.

At least being in a relationship with an accomplished psychologist had its benefits, such as being able to have nuanced conversations with her about our relationship.

Once I sacked up to have them, that was.

I’d made reservations at an exclusive luxury resort near the coast in Washington State, south of Seattle, while Leo intervened with the head of her detail, allowing us to be alone.

No shadows discreetly following us.

No press hounding us, thanks to the resort’s stringent security to protect its rich and famous clientele.

Nobody but us with well-needed and long overdue time to have important conversations.

I mean, yes, there would be other agents there as well, purely as a precaution, but Kayley would never know they were there.

I met her that morning at a private airport forty miles east of the resort, where the two agents who’d accompanied her on the small, chartered jet Leo paid for handed her off to me.

I pulled her in for a long, deep kiss. Closing my eyes, for the first time in my life I dared to hope I might have something approaching a “normal” life with this woman.

Maybe.

I opened my eyes to find her smiling up at me. “What?” I asked.

“You know as well as I do this is make-or-break time,” she observed. “Yet here you stand, chill as ever.” Thankfully, she acted completely sober. She was not a good flier and until we’d started dating, she’d dealt with it using Xanax and alcohol. But knowing she’d be flying frequently had prodded her—without me even asking—into working on that issue.

I think the fact that she made frequent jumps on Marine One played into that, too. Despite her grousing about Elliot, I knew she’d never do anything to make him look bad, even at her own discomfort.

Like learning how not to panic while flying.

I shrugged. “Lots of practice standing around looking chill.”

The truth was, I felt terrified. Not that I would admit that to her right now.

There’d be plenty of time for that later.

Right now I wanted to concentrate on the fact that for the first time in a few years, we could be a “normal” couple for an uninterrupted stretch of time.

She reached up and raked her fingers through my hair. “Are they really leaving us alone? I find it hard to believe Leo agreed to me not having a detail.”

“Well, I’m carrying, for starters,” I said. “And it’s an exclusive resort. Caters to the rich and famous. Their in-house security rivals Camp David’s.”

She playfully arched an eyebrow at me. “And how did you manage to afford that on a special agent’s salary?”

“A friend of mine is head of security. Leo, Christopher Bruunt, and I all worked with him. He retired from the Secret Service about ten years ago and owed me a solid. Plus, this might partly be a birthday gift for you from Elliot and Leo and Jordan.”

Chris Bruunt being the former First Gentleman, husband to President ShaeLynn Samuels, and himself a retired Secret Service agent.

“How thoughtful of Elliot,” she drawled.

“You know you like Elliot.” It felt weird referring to him by his name and not as POTUS, or President Woodley.

“Doesn’t mean I won’t continue giving him shit when I feel like it,” she snarked.

Not that I could blame her. Her brother-in-law’s years of closet-dwelling and his spectacular explosion out of it to propose to Leo had caught her and her parents off-guard.

Plus, she felt extremely protective of Jordan, despite him reassuring her he was happy with how it all went down.

She hooked her arm in mine for the walk across the tarmac to the SUV I’d rented. The flight crew had already transferred her bags for me.

“I still find it difficult to believe you’re going to retire,” she said. “You and Leo and Chris Bruunt are all cut from the same cloth. Work until you’re forced to quit.”

“Well, that’s what we’ll spend this vacation figuring out, isn’t it?” I walked her around to the passenger door and opened it for her.

She turned to look up at me. “What if we hate each other at the end of our vacation?” she softly asked.

I tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her ear. “We have to start somewhere,” I finally said. “This is as good a time as any, right?”

She nodded. “Right.” Her gaze held mine. “I hope you’re nervous, because I sure as fuck am.”

I kissed her again, lingering. “I am. But I’m hopeful we’ll find a balance that works for us. This is the first step, baby. Let’s focus on this time together and not worry about the future for now, okay?”

She smiled and I wasn’t ashamed to admit the way it twisted my insides—a good way—was a feeling I desperately wanted to experience for the rest of my life.

“Okay,” she said, finally climbing up into the passenger seat.

I just hoped I was worthy of the faith she had in me.

And I hoped I could live up to that faith.