Page 33 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)

CAL

R ustling papers followed by Beck’s sighs woke me from the short nap I allowed myself to have on the private plane taking us from Atlanta to Madison, Wisconsin.

I check my watch and find that we’re forty-five minutes into the two hour flight, and then glance at Beck who has used every second of that time to continue sorting through our old case files to see if anyone we came across at the Bureau looks even remotely similar to the man he caught a glimpse of outside of Selene’s house weeks ago.

Since the night of the rally, he’s been on what I can only call a rampage.

Going toe to toe with Harris and Anderson for letting the formation get broken right after we dropped Selene off that night, getting in Hicks face again about the lack of urgency where Selene’s concerned, spending every moment of his spare time trying to find a connection between the first incident and the last.

I’ve been behind him every step of the way—voicing my support of his theory, urging him to rest, quietly admiring the rage driving him because I know the place it’s coming from.

That place exists inside of me, too, and only a handful of people get to live there.

Beck is one of them, and Selene…well, for better or worse, Selene is another.

“You’re up,” Beck rasps, leaning his head against the seat and fixing low eyes on me. “How was your nap?”

I lift my hands above my head and groan through a stretch. “Short. Find anything?”

“No. If I had, I would have woken you up.”

I watch him dig his fingertips into his temples, a surefire sign that he’s fighting off a headache, and wish that I could do something to soothe him.

Normally, I’d take his head into my lap and force him to close his eyes while I take over the temple massage and pepper kisses over his furrowed brows.

For now, all I can do is give him a sympathetic look.

“You should get some rest.”

“Cal, I?—”

“I know, Beck, but you still need to rest. Tired eyes miss important details.”

Something about my insistence only makes him more determined to ignore me. He sits up, long fingers stretching towards the papers he’s probably read a hundred times at this point.

“There’s something here,” he insists, casting a sidelong glance in my direction. “I haven’t found it yet, but I can feel it in my gut. The red car that was in front of the house is the same make and model as the one that cut us off on the highway.”

We’ve gone over this line of thought a million times.

If the cars are the same, then it stands to reason that the driver is the same.

If the driver is the same, then we can confidently link one incident to the other and connect the danger looming around Selene to one of our past cases, putting this whole thing to rest. There’s only one problem.

“The plates didn’t match.”

Beck scoffs. “People change plates all the time. You know that as well as I do.”

My fingers brush his as I reach over and close the file he’s reading. It’s not intentional, but it does get his attention. Wide eyes try to leave my face to see if anyone is watching us, but I shake my head, ordering him to keep his gaze fixed on me.

“You’re right. I do know that. I also know that you haven’t had a solid hour of uninterrupted sleep in days.” I trail my hand up his arm and place it on his chest, pushing him back into his seat. “Rest, Beckham. That’s an order.”

“You’re not my superior, Drake,” he grumbles, eyes already falling shut.

I wait until his breathing has evened out to move my hand, and then I spend a minute just staring at him, hoping an hour of rest is enough to make up for the ones he’s missed.

He never sleeps well in the days leading up to the anniversary of Diana and Cameron’s deaths.

The nightmares and the guilt eat away at him, making it impossible for him to find solace in his subconscious.

Normally, it subsides within one to two days.

If we’re on a job, it takes even less time, but this year it’s different.

The lines between the personal and professional are blurring for him.

This isn’t something I need to bring to his attention because he’s already aware of it, already found a suitable explanation for the visceral reaction he’s having to the thought of Selene being harmed.

When we talked about it last night, he made it sound like some sort of quest for redemption, as if keeping Selene safe would somehow soothe the part of him that torments him for not being able to do the same for Diana.

While I know there’s some truth to that line of thought, I know it’s not the whole truth because when Selene was afraid, when she was in fear for her life, Beck lied to her.

He lied because he knew that the truth wouldn’t give her any comfort, and he’s never done that with anyone under our protection before.

I’m usually the one with the gentle touch, the one who’ll mince words to make the facts seem less scary and offer assurances I can’t guarantee.

Beck is the realist. The cynic. The truth speaker at all costs.

But he lied to Selene, and that lie made my heart sing.

It catapulted me back to the night of Selene and Aubrey’s date night when the three of us were suspended in a moment only I gave its proper appreciation.

Beck would never admit it, but he was just as enamored by Selene as I was, just as affected by the nameless, impossible thing we’ve fallen into against our will.

Every second we spend together, where it’s just the three of us, feels like a prelude to what can never be.

A cruel teasing of forbidden perfection where Beck and I get to cherish and care for Selene, to engage with her in a way no one else in this part of her life—but especially her husband—seems to want to.

Even now, at the front of the plane where Aubrey Jordan St. James, Torrance Belford—Aubrey’s running mate—and his wife, Anne, are huddled around a table trading jokes and sipping champagne, she is alone.

On the outside of their bubble, while her partner makes no attempts to pull her in, letting her linger on the margins like she’s less than an afterthought.

To her credit, Selene doesn’t seem to care that much.

She has noise-canceling headphones in and is focused on the book in her hand.

She’s about halfway through what looks to be a romance novel.

My brows lift in surprise, and I bite back a smile.

I wouldn’t have taken her for a romance reader.

The small, stolen detail makes me greedy for more, and soon I’m staring and unable to stop myself from conducting a distant but appreciative perusal of her.

My eyes touch every inch of her face, lingering too long on her pouty lips that are free of lipstick or gloss but still look perfectly kissable before moving up to study the slight flare of her nostrils as she turns the page in her book.

I’m in the middle of admiring the fullness of her eyelashes when her eyes suddenly latch onto mine.

The instant our gazes meet, I feel it.

That life-threatening, career-ending current that passes between us, threatening to unearth every root I’ve ever lain.

To steal my integrity. To swallow my ambition.

To obliterate my oaths and promises and reveal my secrets and regrets.

To expose me for everything I am and all the things I never will be.

I should be afraid. I should be anything but excited at the prospect of standing in the path of a live wire, but that’s all I ever am when she looks at me.

Excited.

Heart racing, pulse pounding, all of my senses tuned in to her and only her.

Which is why I don’t notice Harris looking at me from across the aisle until he clears his throat. I jolt, breaking Selene and my mutual trance as I turn in his direction.

“You good, Drake?” he asks, adjusting the hood on his head.

“Yeah.”

“You sure? Looked like you were kind of zoned out there for a moment.”

Harris has always been a neutral party on the team.

He’s not really a member of the good ole boys club Hicks runs, but he’ll never a part of the impenetrable unit that is me and Beck.

He seems fine with that, with being able to flow effortlessly between the two groups inside our team.

I don’t begrudge him his chameleon abilities, but they make it hard for me to read him, which means I have no idea if he’s genuinely checking in on me or if he caught me staring at Selene with—as Beck would say—hearts in my eyes and is trying to be fucking funny.

“Positive,” I grunt, pushing to my feet. “I’m grabbing a cup of coffee, do you want one?”

“No, I’m good.” He waves me off, leaning his head against the seat and pulling his hood down further before closing his eyes. Pretty much everyone at the back of the plane is sleeping or trying to sleep, so there’s not a soul paying attention to my agitated expression on my trek to the kitchenette.

The flight attendants take one look at my face and make themselves scarce, leaving me alone with my bad mood.

As I grab a paper cup, I find myself laughing at how quickly they got the hell out of dodge, and the small bit of private humor grounds me, allowing me to forgive myself for potentially letting Harris see the crack in my mask.

“I’m sorry for staring.”

Her voice is a familiar rush of warmth trickling down my spine, and I have to push down every errant thought and inappropriate emotion it inspires in me away before I turn to face her.

She’s standing just inside the doorway, her expression still and her eyes fixed on a point above my head as she speaks.

“I can never really tell how much eye contact is too much. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”

“No apology necessary. Technically, I was looking at you first.”

“Why?” Her brows sink together, and it occurs to me then that she is genuinely confused, like she can’t think of a single reason why anyone would want to spend time studying the masterpiece that is her face.

“Was there something in my teeth? I hope you would tell me if there was something in my teeth.”

“Of course, I would.” Since she’s so serious, I can’t give in to the humor bubbling in my chest as I watch her step into the narrow space to look at her reflection in the stainless steel refrigerator. “There’s nothing in your teeth, Selene.”

She straightens and crosses her arms. “Then why were you looking at me, Cal?”

I gave her permission to call me by the shortened version of my given name weeks ago, but she hasn’t used it since. Hearing it pass through her lips now, when we’re alone and she’s close enough to touch, adds a weight to this moment, turning it into something that should be commemorated by truth.

They’re there on my tongue. The words I can’t give her.

And I swallow them whole, banishing the speech that would tell her I was staring because I couldn’t bring myself to look away, because I was trying to decipher how many shades of brown there are in her irises and if there’s some joy beneath the sadness that washes out everything else most of the time.

Selene watches me do it. Her expression calm and patient, her eyes unblinking even as I taint this precious moment with a lie.

“Because I was trying to make sure you weren’t still shaken up by what happened yesterday on the way to the rally.”

I take a sip of my coffee to wash away the bitterness of dishonesty, and she smiles.

“Oh. I’m fine.” She reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s got a slight wave and puffiness to it, like her natural curl pattern is starting to stage a rebellion. “I meant to thank you and Agent Beckham for keeping me calm and safe.”

Another sip of coffee, this time to quell the urge to dedicate my life, and Beck’s too, to doing exactly that until she takes her final breath. The liquid burns its way down my throat, searing the vow to my flesh.

“You don’t need to thank us,” I tell her. “We were only doing what we’re supposed to do.”

“Right,” she says, her head bobbing up and down. “Well, you’re both exceptional at your jobs.”

I don’t know how to accept a compliment based on the execution of duty when I’m talking about obligations of the heart, so I don’t. The silence that follows only lasts for half a second before Selene speaks again.

“I was surprised by how…kind Agent Beckham was in that moment. He’s typically very impatient when it comes to me.”

“Beck’s impatient when it comes to most people, but he knows how to dial it back sometimes.”

“I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“You’re just being diplomatic.”

I chuckle. “No, I just know Beck well, which means I know he can be standoffish and little bit of an asshole sometimes, but I also know that he has a good heart. He’s just lost a lot in his life, so he’s hesitant to put it on display.”

She twists her lips to the side, considering my words. “I suppose that makes sense. This isn’t really a heart-first job, is it?”

“No, Selene, it isn’t.”

At least, it’s not supposed to be.