Page 36 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)

BECK

S elene’s palm is soft, and her fingers are long and elegant, gripping me like I’m a lifeline she doesn’t want to let go of.

I’m considering what it might be like to continue to hold on to her when Cal meets us at the front door of the boutique.

I do a quick sweep of his body, making sure he’s unharmed, while he stares questioningly at the link between me and the woman that’s going to ruin us both.

“Ready?” he asks with raised brows and humor-filled eyes.

“Yep.”

I should let Selene go. I whisper the words to myself a million times on the short trek from the door of the boutique to the door of the car, which I open with one hand to prolong the contact between us, but I don’t let go until I have to.

She slips into the backseat and smiles at me.

It’s not a full-blown, mega-watt grin; she doesn’t really do those, but it is a gentle curving of her lips that’s filled with gratitude.

“Thank you, Beck.”

Unable to speak, I dip my chin and close the door, allowing the dizzying wave of relief that comes with putting a barrier between her and the dangers of the world to wash over me while Cal stands a few feet away with a slack jaw.

“Beck? Since when does she call you Beck?”

“Shut up, Drake,” I grumble, pulling open the passenger door and climbing inside.

His eyes are still laughing at me when he gets behind the wheel, and I make a show of ignoring him, focusing instead on trying to gauge Selene’s mood through the rear-view mirror.

I see her and Cal share glances in it sometimes, and I spend the duration of the ride back to the hotel hoping for the same thing.

It never happens.

She stays quiet and keeps her eyes focused on her hands, never once looking up, not even when Cal explains that the gunshots were a result of a bank robbery gone wrong and had nothing to do with her.

I thought that information would give her some comfort, especially since she’s been so anxious about the increase in online threats, but she barely reacts to it.

I try not to take the withdrawal personally, especially because I know how unnerving the trauma we just experienced can be, but it does feel personal.

Everything with her feels personal, and I’m kicking myself for only just now realizing it.

For spending weeks trying to reel Cal in without acknowledging that I fell into the water right along with him.

Once again, we’re side by side, swimming in a sea of trouble, wading into forbidden waters with linked hands and interwoven hearts.

It feels just like it did when we first started, when Cal kissed me and my whole life changed.

The thought of my world changing again, especially in a way that can never happen and would upend everything we’ve worked so hard for if it did, scares the shit out of me.

Hours later, when we’ve fully debriefed Hicks on the incident, filled out all of the requisite paperwork and handed the responsibility of Selene’s safety off to someone else, I’m in my room alone.

Cal wanted to hang out, but I put him off, knowing he’d convince me to divulge every detail of my time with Selene before I even had a chance to process it for myself.

I planned to process it, to dig into what it meant for me to be so affected by Selene’s pain, for me to talk about Cameron and Diana to her when I haven’t spoken about them to anyone but Cal and Erin, Diana’s mom, in years.

Still, I got afraid of acknowledging the obvious truth and decided to hide at work instead.

I hoped that working would stop me from thinking about Selene, but my work is all centered around her, so it just places her at the front of my mind.

Sighing, I close my computer and throw myself back on the pillows of my bed.

I’m seconds away from breaking down and calling Cal to see if he wants to go out for a late dinner when my phone rings.

I smile as I pick it up off the nightstand, thinking it’s him reading my mind in that odd way he does, and then groan out loud when I see my mother-in-law’s name displayed on the screen instead.

Guilt, inspired by my unfair reaction, blooms in the pit of my stomach.

Erin doesn’t deserve my apathy, especially when I’m the asshole who forgot to call her on the anniversary of her only child’s death.

Now that Diana is gone, I’m the only family she has, and I do a shit job of taking care of her, of being there for her, of reaching out and holding space for her feelings about the most significant loss of her life.

And despite all of that, she still loves me.

I can hear it in her voice when I answer the phone.

“Lance! How are you doing, sweetheart?”

My eyes fell shut at the deep, rasping lilt she passed down to her daughter.

The first time I heard Diana speak, I was captivated by it, certain I didn’t want to go another day without her throaty laugh or the breathless huskiness that made it sound like she smoked a pack a day even though she hated the smell of cigarette smoke.

Some days I wish I’d never heard it. That the correspondence surrounding the foundation she was tasked with running after my parents’ death had happened over email instead of over the phone, and then—because I had to put a face to the stunning voice that rivaled the depth and timbre of my own—in person.

If we’d never met, if we’d never fallen in love, if I’d never asked her to marry me, she’d still be here and Erin wouldn’t be stuck with me.

“Hello? Lance? Did I lose you, baby?”

There’s shuffling on her end that suggests she’s pulled the phone away from her face to make sure the call is still connected, which makes me smile. “No, ma’am, I’m here.”

“Thank goodness. I thought I had put it on mute again. You know us old ladies don’t know how to work technology.”

“Now, Erin, you know you’re still getting carded at the bars. Ain’t nothing old about you.”

She sucks her teeth. “Lance, please. I can’t tell you the last time I set foot in a bar, let alone had to show my ID for a drink. I’m old, and I know it, so don’t go trying to convince me I’m a spring chicken.”

This is as close as she ever gets to scolding me.

In all the years that I’ve known her, I’ve never heard her raise her voice, never seen her speak a hateful word to anyone.

Not even to me when I called and told her Diana was gone and it was all my fault.

She dropped everything she was doing and got on a flight, stayed with me for weeks, held me when I cried, forced me to pour the bottle of liquor I was drowning my sorrows in down the sink.

She even came back for Valinsky’s trial, held my hand through every testimony, and acted as my visual touchstone when I had to take the stand.

She is every good thing her daughter was and my son would have been, and I don’t deserve her. That knowledge threatens to cave my throat in, to stop the apology I owe her from being heard.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

I don’t try to offer an excuse because there are none. I can’t bring Diana back, can’t take away the years that grief has swallowed up, can’t fill in the hole her loss has left in both of our lives, but I can call. I should call.

“Oh, honey, please.” I can practically see her pursing her lips and swiping a dismissive hand through the air.

“I don’t need a phone call to prove to me that you carry her with you every single day.

” My eyes burn with tears I don’t allow to fall.

“Besides,” she continues, “I know you’re busy guarding the President. ”

The confidence with which she delivers that misinformed statement pulls a reluctant laugh out of me. “I’m not guarding the President.”

“Might as well be. Everybody knows the Taylor boy is going to win the election. President Sanders is too damn old to be trying to go for another term. He don’t look like he got four more years left to live, let alone to work.

Watch and see, Lance, that man is going to the White House, and he’s taking you with him. ”

A day ago, a proclamation like that would have spoken to every hope and dream I’ve had for myself and Cal over the last four years, but today it gives me pause.

It makes me think about Selene, the complexities of our rapidly developing situation, and the likelihood of Aubrey keeping either of us around if he finds out how we feel about his wife.

How we feel.

The words ring in my head, and I have no choice but to sit with them. To acknowledge their presence and the truth they tell. To wonder when I went from warning Cal to guard his heart against Selene to opening up mine.

I rub at the notch forming between my brows and sigh. “If you say so.”

“I do,” she pauses, and I know we’re about to transition into the part of the conversation that feels more like an interrogation. “You sound tired. Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I lie.

“Eating well?”

“Of course.”

“Drinking your water?”

An exasperated chuckle passes my lips as my heart swells with love for her. “Yes, I’m drinking my water, brushing my teeth after every meal, stretching every night, and taking all my vitamins. I’m taking care of myself. I promise.”

“Mhm hmmm,” she hums skeptically. “You know I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying when you come home for Christmas, right?”

We never formally agreed to spend the holidays together.

It’s just something that happened. A tradition forged in mutual despair and need.

It was easier to get the holidays off when I was still at the Bureau, but it’s more challenging now.

She knows this, but she still acts like my presence is a sure thing.

I guess it’s her way of staving off the threat of loneliness until she has to accept it.

And because I owe her hope, I always play into her innocent delusion.

“I know you will, which is why it’s a good thing I’m telling the truth.”

“Are you coming alone this year?”

“Who else would I come with?” I ask, wondering if this is the start of what is sure to be an uncomfortable conversation about my love life.

I’ve never mentioned any of the women I’ve dated to her, mainly because it’s never been anything serious, and she’s never asked.

I’ve always just assumed she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to think about someone taking Diana’s place in my bed and in my heart.

“I don’t know,” she hedges. “Maybe your special someone.”

“My special someone? What makes you think I have a special someone?”

It’s as close as I can get to a denial. Saying I don’t have someone special in my life would fly in the face of everything Cal is to me, but confirming her suspicion would open up the door to questions I don’t know how to answer.

Not because I’m not sure how I feel about Cal, but because I’m not sure how Erin will feel about me confessing to being in love with a man she’s only known as my best friend and partner.

I don’t think she’d bat an eye at me being with a man—she’s surprisingly open-minded for an older, Southern woman who was raised in the church—but the thought of her knowing about Cal still gives me pause.

Still scares me. Still makes me wonder if she’ll look at me the same if I say I loved Diana with everything in me, but I know my soul was forged at the same time as Callan Drake’s.

If I have to explain that, I’m currently trying to figure out where the future First Lady of the United States of America fits into that equation.

“Mothers have their ways, Lance,” she tells me, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts. “I knew about you before Diana even told me your name. Don’t think you’re exempt from that just because we only see each other a few times a year.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare doubt your abilities.”

She tsks her disapproval at my obvious sarcasm. “Don’t patronize me, boy. Am I preparing my house for you and a guest or not?”

I try to picture it, bringing Cal to Diana’s childhood home with me. His hand in mine, the truth of what we feel for each other in our eyes. I want that. I want it more than anything, but I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to have it.

“No,” I say finally, letting the image fade away. “It’ll just be you and me.”