Four and a half years ago…
“To Elite Protection!”
Ren added his voice to the drunken cheer. Christmas music thrummed through the walls from the dance floor, but in the room Max had rented it was quiet enough that they could hear one another speak without shouting—though Tank had already reached the point of drunkenness where he was shouting anyway. Candy laughed helplessly at some story the former lineman was telling about his glory days which had his wife rolling her eyes, and Ren froze with his drink halfway to his lips, watching her smile move across her face.
God, she was gorgeous.
“You’re a braver man than I am, Pretty Boy.”
Ren looked up as Cross threw himself down beside him, slumped in his chair from seven or eight drinks too many.
“How’s that?” he asked, restarting the arm lifting his own whiskey to his lips. He didn’t usually drink to excess and even though Max had arranged a car to take everyone home, he was still in full possession of his faculties tonight. Though the whiskey had loosened his muscles and smoothed away all the edges, leaving the world a softer, warmer place.
“Candy scares the shit out of me,” Cross slurred cheerfully. “I mean, yes, God yes, that is a lot of hotness in one little package, but even if she couldn’t kick my ass, I’d fear for my life if I ever broke her heart because you know the entire company would happily beat you senseless for hurting her. I gotta hand it to you man, you’ve got balls.”
“We aren’t together,” Ren corrected him.
“No shit? Fuck. I just lost twenty bucks.”
“Let that be a lesson to you. Don’t bet on my sex life.” Ren narrowed his eyes. “Who were you betting?”
“Hmm?” Cross asked blearily.
Ren started to repeat the question, then realized Cross’s gaze had wandered across the room where a trio of wanna-be starlets had snuck into the private room, thinking they’d found their way into some kind of VIP area.
“If you aren’t with Candy, you wanna play wingman?” Cross asked, straightening himself up with the careful dignity of the overly inebriated. “I can stand next to you as that face draws every woman in a two-mile radius to your side.”
Tank chose that moment to sweep his wife off her feet and carry her to the dance floor, leaving Candy laughing after them. Alone. Ren shook his head. “Nah, you go ahead. I’ve got a kamikaze mission waiting for me.”
Cross snorted as Ren picked up his glass and crossed the room to Candy.
* * * * *
Present day…
There was something Candy wasn’t telling him. A lot she wasn’t telling him, if he had to guess. Ren was pretty sure he’d just gotten the public version of her public-private family, even if she had given him the CliffsNotes of all their scandals. He wanted to push for the full story, but that would only send her into retreat. Still. He knew he wouldn’t be taking anything at face value when they landed at Reagan.
And he’d already learned more about her background in the last hour than he’d ever dreamed of knowing.
“What do they think of me?”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“You must have told them something about your husband. What do they think of this man who swept you off your feet and then never even picked up the phone to introduce himself? Do I remember our anniversary? Am I a workaholic? Do I drown kittens or save small children from burning buildings in my spare time?”
He thought he detected a blush and her gaze locked on her empty peanut package. Candy was visibly uncomfortable with the topic of their marriage. Interesting. “I don’t talk about you much except when my mother goads me into it and then you’re just…I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You’re you.”
“So I do remember our anniversary?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s never come up, but yes, I’m sure you would be the kind of husband who remembered anniversaries.”
“I’m very thoughtful,” he said with exaggerated humility, making her lips twitch with a smile. At least she didn’t look nearly so panicked around the eyes anymore. “What kind of relationship do I have with your father?”
Now she was definitely blushing. “I guess he would probably say that you’re friends.”
“Really?” Definitely something there. Intriguing. “When do I get to see these infamous emails?” When she looked even more uneasy, he lifted one brow. “Shouldn’t I know what we’ve been saying to one another all these years?”
Candy bit her lower lip—tugging his gaze down to the movement—and for a second he thought she was going to brush him off, leave him flying blind, but then she mumbled, “Fine,” and bent down abruptly, tugging her tablet out of her carry-on and turning it on.
He waited while she accessed the internet, concealing his impatience as she brought up “his” email account. It surprised him a little how greedy he was for another glimpse into this story she’d concocted.
She tossed the tablet at him, unbuckling her seatbelt and rising in the same motion. “Knock yourself out.” She braced a hand on the back of his seat, stepping past his knees in the space afforded thanks to their first class seats, and moved quickly up the short aisle to the first class lavatory.
He watched her walk away—always putting distance between them—and wondered exactly what he was going to find when he looked at these emails. What was he going to learn?
He opened the folder, organizing them chronologically from oldest to newest, and began to read.
* * * * *
The emails had been a bad idea. Writing them in the first place. Stupid. So stupid. But she hadn’t been able to resist.
Showing them to Ren was an even worse idea, but she hadn’t been able to think of a way around it. At least she didn’t have to sit there and watch him read them. She pressed down on the cold water lever, holding her fingers beneath the faucet until the tips were ice cold then pressing them against the back of her neck. She would hide in this lavatory, splashing her face with cool water until the flight attendant came to roust her out.
Maybe she could stay here all the way to DC.
Candy hadn’t felt so off balance in years. She’d built up a wonderful life for herself in California. She had a job she loved, an overpriced condo she could barely afford, and until recently she’d had a comfortable friends-with-benefits thing going with Pretty Boy to keep her warm at night. Life had been good.
And yes, things with Pretty Boy had been more awkward since he started seeing Jessica, but she had it under control. She needed to be in control.
But now she felt off-kilter. Like she couldn’t control anything and just had to go along for the ride. She braced her hands on the sink, reminding herself to breathe and wishing she hadn’t left her Tums at her seat.
This was what happened when you lied. You lost control of the situation because you were busy spending all of your time protecting the lie and you lost your ability to adapt to the needs of the moment.
In order to save the lie, she’d had to bring Pretty Boy home, letting him see behind all her masks, even as she was forced back into her oldest one. The mask she’d worn as little Candice Raines, political princess. Before everything changed.
He was going to learn about Venezuela.
Candy shook her head sharply, shaking the thought away. Her family didn’t talk about it. They wouldn’t talk about it. Even with her so-called husband.
She could do this. She could manage the situation. She was good at that. Calm. Controlled. That was Candy, damn it. She wasn’t this basket case.
She’d gone back to DC half a dozen times in the last decade and never felt this panic. It was Ren. The idea of him seeing through her that changed everything, but she could handle this. He wasn’t trying to delve into her inner psyche. He wasn’t even trying to get back together with her. He was dating Jessica. Playing house with her. And thank God for that. Candy didn’t think she could have done this if he’d been pushing for more. No. He was just doing her a favor. Being a pal.
They’d keep things distant. Friendly.
So what if at this very moment he was reading fake emails she’d written to her father outlining their domestic bliss? She’d been selling the marriage lie. That wasn’t what she really wanted. It had just been a stupid fantasy. A clichéd dream.
“Ma’am?” A gentle tap at the lavatory door startled her out of her memories. “Ma’am, are you all right in there?”
“I’m fine!” Candy scrambled for the door, her reprieve over. When she stepped out of the lavatory, another flight attendant—this one equally statuesque, but a decade older with deep mahogany skin and kind brown eyes—hovered near the door. “I was just feeling a little ill,” Candy said apologetically, spreading her hand over her abdomen.
The flight attendant followed her gaze to her stomach and smiled knowingly. “Of course. Just let me know if there’s anything I can bring you which would help.”
Candy smiled, smoothed her skirt—which was so damn conservative and tasteful her mother might as well have picked it out—and headed back to her seat where Ren was still reading emails.
He looked up absently when she slipped past him, but his attention returned quickly to the tablet and she popped her headphones into her ears, turning to look out the window so she wouldn’t have to watch him read.
There was nothing in them about Venezuela. Their family didn’t talk about it. Even if her life was cleanly broken into before and after by that day when she was twelve years old. Even if it was what had caused her obsession with security and led to her career at Elite Protection.
No, the emails were all friendly chit-chat. Safe. But she still felt raw. Exposed. Because Pretty Boy was seeing the version of him she’d created as her husband.
She couldn’t watch him read that stupid fantasy—the husband who adored her, who would do anything for her and never break her trust. The version of Ren in those emails was pure wish-fulfillment and she didn’t want to watch him realize that.
She closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep. Normally, Candy was a big believer in vigilance, in knowing exactly what was coming for you, preparing for every contingency, but today she didn’t want to see.