Her Secret Service Agent. Stephanie Doyle
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her. Something along the lines of I shouldn’t have kissed you and You bastard, how could you let that monster hurt me?
The bartender approached her and hiked his chin as a signal he was ready for her order. Dom’s wasn’t a really formal place.
“I’ll have what he’s having.” She smiled.
“I’m having a shot of Jack and a Guinness chaser.”
“I’ll have a Chardonnay,” she said and then placed a bill on the bar, which Dom traded for the glass of wine.
Joe shook his head. It was surreal. He could turn his head and look at her. Talk to her. When for so long she’d been nothing but an image on a screen. For weeks after he’d been fired, he’d watched every second of media coverage he could find, replaying it over and over again so he could see for himself how she was healing. If the bruises were fading. If she was still favoring her right side.
Then, of course, came the interview. The one that was supposed to settle the incident and repair the American psyche. After all, if the president’s daughter could be abducted and abused by a monster, then no one in this country was safe.
Then the other incident happened. Joe hadn’t stuck around to watch that.
Now she was sitting next to him drinking a glass of wine he could tell was foul by the way she winced after every sip.
“What the hell are you doing here, Viv?”
She set the glass aside and turned to face him. Again he was struck by how beautiful she’d become. Or maybe he’d forgotten how pretty she’d been back then because he had always shut down those thoughts.
Mostly.
“I’m sorry about what happened today. I had no idea that Carl would...”
“Question me? Interrogate me? Suspect me?”
She gulped. “Any of those things, I suppose.”
Joe shrugged. “Hey, just another day getting my life turned upside down by the Bennetts. Not like that hasn’t happened before.”
Vivian nodded. “I guess I deserved that.”
She didn’t deserve any of it, he thought. Yet she deserved all of it, too.
“You ruined my life,” he said and laughed. Because she would hear one thing, but he knew it to mean something else entirely.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she laughed, too. “Wow, that felt good. For so long I’ve thought about how to tell you that. At one point I thought maybe skywriting it over an Orioles’ home game. ‘Joe. Hunt. I’m. Sorry.’ Big block letters so I would know you would see them. It actually feels strange to finally say it.”
It would have been easy enough to say she had nothing to be sorry for. It would be easy for him to ask forgiveness for screwing up and letting her get hurt. But they’d both be lying if they forgave each other.
“I did try to fix it. I didn’t know you had been fired. I thought you had resigned. Cindy, remember her?”
The agent who should have been on point detail that night instead of him. “Yeah. I remember her.”
“She told me what really happened. I went to Daddy, but he didn’t want to listen...then I sent a letter to your superior at the time and I explained to him what happened. You deserved your job back.”
“That was you,” Joe said, remembering the odd call he’d gotten from Tom, his old boss, a few years ago. It had been right after Bennett left office after his second term. Tom determined that Joe hadn’t been given a fair hearing. Tom wanted to know if Joe would consider reinstatement under suspension, on condition of a formal review of the incident.
Joe had been too far removed from his old life to think about going back. No, he had his freedom, his business, the life he’d built after his spectacular failure. It wasn’t great, but he owned it. Grasping at the past didn’t feel like a solution because nothing could be undone.
Things could only begin again.
“I thought you would go back,” she said.
“I didn’t want it.”
“I thought maybe the Colonel...”
“The Colonel was dead by then.” So there was no hope of regaining his father’s approval. Not that Joe would have wanted it. He could be just as stubborn as his old man.
“I know. I just meant I thought you might do it for him.”
Joe looked at her. “How did you know about the Colonel?”
“Your mom,” Vivian said as if it were obvious. “You must know we still keep in touch. We’re friends on Facebook. I get to see all the grandchildren your siblings are producing. Your nephew Mike looks exactly like you. He’s mastered your serious frown.”
She was smiling like it was a shared moment between them, but his mind was blown. No, he didn’t know she was in touch with his mother this entire time. On Facebook? It was inconceivable.
Did his father know that? Vivian Bennett hadn’t been a popular topic in the Hunt household after the kidnapping.
“Why are you here?” he asked again, suddenly irritated. With her, with his mother for not telling him she was talking to Vivian. And that his mother knew how Vivian was doing while he did not. That his mother would have seen pictures of that life on freaking Facebook of all things.
“To apologize for Carl’s visit. It must have surprised you to learn I was back in DC.”
“I knew you were back,” he admitted. “Too many people I know who knew you. They loved telling me, too, like they expected some kind of reaction. You have to love people and their desire to create drama.”
Another lie. He had heard she was back, that was true. What she didn’t know was that he’d gone to her store in Georgetown. Vivian’s Creations. He’d played out a dozen scenarios where he opened the door and walked inside. Said hello.
In the end, he’d left without entering.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. It was more like he didn’t want to be the one who made the first move. Which was ridiculous. It was entirely possible Vivian never wanted to see him again. He thought maybe it would be better if they met in a Starbucks, or the Metro. Some place where they could run into each other casually.
Except Carl and the puppy showed up before any of that happened. Now she had come to him. Yes, this was much better, he decided, letting go of his irritation. Because he was pretty damn sure she hadn’t tracked him down to Dom’s to apologize for a few questions from the Secret Service.
“No, Viv, I mean why are you really here?”
She squirmed on the stool and then reached to fiddle with her diamond earring, something she did when she got nervous. Only they hadn’t been diamonds back in college. Just simple hoops or studs.
It made him wonder how well she was doing with her business that she could afford diamonds. Despite Daddy being loaded, she’d never wanted his money. She used to talk about it all the time, making her own way. Becoming her own woman. Someone who wasn’t always in the shadow of her overbearing father.
Joe had pointed out that having Daddy pick up the college tab was a pretty big helping hand. Joe’s father certainly wouldn’t have paid for any private college. His children had the option of the military or bust.
Still, there was a part of him that couldn’t help feeling proud that she’d earned her success.
“You mean why did I come back to DC?” she asked, and he knew she was playing innocent. He let her have a pass. None of this shit between them was easy.
“Yeah. Why now after all these years?”
“Daddy’s getting older. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but I realized