Samiah switched the balloon bouquet to her other hand so that she could hit the elevator button to take her up to postpartum recovery at St. David’s Women’s Center. When the doors opened, she stopped in at the nurses’ station and showed them the name tag that had been printed out for her at the hospital’s security desk, then continued down the sterile hallway, gently knocking on the door when she came to room 228.
“Come in,” came Bradley’s voice in a loud whisper.
Samiah walked into the room and instant tears sprang to her eyes. She gasped at the sight of the tiny baby nestled in her brother-in-law’s arms. He put a finger to his lips and gestured his head toward Denise, who was asleep in the bed.
Ouch. Her big sister was in dire need of a hairbrush and edge cream. Then again, after spending the past nine hours pushing out an eight-pound baby, Denise no doubt cared little about her edges.
Samiah set the balloons on a nearby credenza and made a beeline for her new niece.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, scooping the delicate bundle from her brother-in-law’s arms. “Could she be any more precious?”
Little Aislinn, who was named after Bradley’s late mother, had her father’s green eyes and pert nose, but everything else screamed Brooks.
If there was anything that could lift her spirits after the abominable mood she’d been in, Samiah had found it in this precious new life that would fill their family with joy for years to come. As she looked upon her niece’s beautiful face, Samiah immediately understood why her sister had endured so much. She’d never said it aloud, but she’d thought Denise and Bradley were crazy for spending the thousands of dollars they’d shelled out for fertility treatments. She’d watched her sister take countless shots and suffer through over a dozen painful procedures to become pregnant, and wondered why.
She got it now. This baby, this perfect little human she now held, was worth it all.
“She’s so gorgeous,” Samiah said to her brother-in-law, who looked almost as ragged as her sister. His red hair stuck up in various spots, and it looked as if he hadn’t slept in at least twenty-four hours.
The baby stirred, and then, a second later, started bellowing.
“Oh, shit. What’s wrong?” Samiah asked.
“That’s the call of the hungry.”
She turned to find Denise pushing herself up on her elbows, her fatigue still evident from the deep shadows under her eyes. She held her arms out.
“Bring my love to me,” she said.
Samiah carried the baby to her sister’s waiting arms and felt her tears returning as she watched her cradle the nursing baby against her breast. The love on Denise’s face was unlike anything Samiah had ever seen.
Bradley came up behind Samiah, clamping a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to go downstairs and get something to eat,” he said. “Either of you want anything?” After they both declined, he gave out kisses, first to Samiah, then Denise, then to the top of his newborn’s head.
Once alone, Samiah turned her attention back to her sister and niece.
“She really is the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen in all my life,” Samiah said.
“I wholeheartedly agree.” Denise smiled down at the baby.
Perching on the edge of the bed, Samiah patted her knee. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore. But it’s that good kind of sore. The kind of sore you don’t mind.” She looked up at her. “How about you?”
“Sore sorta fits,” Samiah said with a laugh. “But not the good kind.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Denise said.
Samiah waved off her concern. “I’ll be fine.” She started to rise, but her sister grabbed her wrist.
“No, no, no,” Denise said. “You still owe me the whole story about what happened. And I don’t want to hear any of that ‘I can’t talk about it’ crap.”
“I thought you learned everything you needed to know from Twitter?”
Her sister gave her the stink eye. “You know Twitter doesn’t tell the whole story.”
It had been a week since federal agents stormed the offices of Trendsetters. Samiah had gone upstairs by the time the local reporters from several news stations arrived, but there had been ample activity for them to capture and upload to their Twitter feeds.
She’d managed to fend off Denise’s incessant questions by telling her that employees had been asked not to discuss it, but Samiah knew that excuse would eventually crumble under the pressure of her nosy sister’s badgering.
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I want to know all the dirt.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dammit, she’d come here to escape thoughts of what happened last week.
“Everything,” Denise reiterated. “And I’ll know if you’re leaving anything out.”
Samiah dropped her head back and released an exaggerated sigh. Yet once she began her narrative, she found herself sharing everything, including the romance she’d started with Daniel.
“Are you shitting me?”
“Hey, watch that language in front of my niece.”
Denise covered the baby’s ear. “I can’t believe you were dating a hot federal agent and you didn’t tell me!” she hissed. “How could you keep that from me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Samiah said with a shrug. “Well, except for Taylor and London, but only because I felt guilty about reneging on the boyfriend project thing we have going on.”
Denise flapped her fingers toward the credenza that held the flowers and balloon bouquets. “Grab my phone.”
Samiah retrieved the phone and settled back on the side of the bed. Still cradling the baby, Denise one-handedly scrolled. After a minute she turned the screen to face Samiah.
“Which one is he?”
Samiah stared at the cadre of men and women gathered together, all with determined looks on their faces. She winced at the stab of pain that pierced her chest at the sight of Daniel.
“The one not wearing a blue jacket,” she said.
“I was hoping you would say that. He is sooo damn fine. What is he? Black and what?”
“Korean,” Samiah said.
“I seriously cannot believe you didn’t tell me about him, especially after how worried I’ve been about you after that mess with that Craig character.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s probably because of what happened with Craig that kept me quiet when it came to Daniel.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anymore. He’s no longer in Austin. I guess he’s off saving the world.”
She was about to add “like he did when he was a Marine,” but she had no idea if Daniel had even been in the military or if it was part of the persona that had been created for him. Was the adorable story about how his parents met true, or had he made that up? She found herself questioning every single thing he’d ever told her. Not knowing if it had all been a lie was the most difficult part in all of this.
And yet she no longer blamed him.
Did his betrayal still hurt? Of course it did.
Was she still angry? Hell yes, she was still angry.
But this past week had given her time to work through all that had happened, and after considering things from his perspective, she found she could no longer fault him for simply doing his job. She argued with herself that he never should have allowed their relationship to flourish, but he had tried to put the brakes on it.
She remembered how he’d pulled away after that very first kiss. But then he’d come back to her, almost apologetically, as if it pained him to do so, as if he knew they shouldn’t be together, but he couldn’t help himself. Hadn’t she felt the same way? Hadn’t she tried to fight her feelings for him because she didn’t want anything—not even a relationship—to get in the way of her finally achieving her goals when it came to her app? And hadn’t she failed miserably?
How could she fault Daniel for not being able to pull away when she hadn’t been able to do so either?
No, she no longer blamed him for the sore heart she’d been tending to this week. Eventually, once she had a bit more distance from the raw pain that thoughts of his betrayal continued to heap upon her, she might find a way to even forgive him.
And, just maybe, once the hurt subsided and she could fix herself a cup of coffee at the office without her soul wincing, maybe then she would be able to look back on these last two months and actually smile.
She wasn’t there yet.
For now, she would continue her steadfast effort to put Daniel and everything about him out of her head. She was content to find her joy in this new, precious baby girl that had entered their lives.
* * *
Daniel sensed the moment she spotted him. Her steps halted midstride, and her shoulders stiffened.
He had been standing in her condo building’s lobby for over two hours. The afternoon security guard, whom he’d never met before, recognized him from the news coverage of the Trendsetters bust. He’d spent over an hour asking Daniel about everything under the sun when it came to his undercover work. Thanks to easily uploadable cell phone pictures and searchable hashtags, it would be a while before he could go out in the field again. The takedown had happened so quickly that he forgot to assume the guise of the clueless coworker. Now his face was everywhere.
His relief had been immediate when the evening security guard took over. This one, who had been on duty several times when he’d previously visited, kept his eyes on his paperback novel and allowed Daniel to wait in peace for Samiah to get home.
Now, he wondered if he should have come here at all. Now that she stood only a few yards away, it felt as if he was forcing this meeting. She didn’t owe him anything, not even her time.
But he had to see her. He needed at least one more chance to explain himself.
The past week had been the hardest of his life. He no longer questioned whether she hated him. How could she not hate him after the way he’d betrayed her trust? But maybe if he knew the extent to which she hated him, he could gauge whether he had any chance whatsoever of earning her forgiveness. Not that he deserved it.
He’d spent the past week toiling over what he would have done differently if given the chance. The hard truth was that there was little he would change. Except for one crucial thing.
If wishes were being granted, he wished he had never left her bed the night he stole her access card. If he could rewrite the past, he would have come clean to her as he held her in his arms. He would have told her the real reason he’d taken the job at Trendsetters and would have tried his hardest to impart just how important it was to access that database.
And he would have asked her permission to use her credentials to infiltrate the security system.
There was a possibility she would have turned him down. Maybe she would have even gone to the powers that be at Trendsetters and clued them in to what he was doing, but it would have been better than him going behind her back. With that one decision, he’d shattered her trust in him. He wouldn’t get it back. He didn’t have a right to it.
Still, he hoped for the chance to tell her how sorry he was. If that’s all she granted him, that would be enough.
Daniel stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting for her to make her next move. She’d entered the building from the side door near the garage, and had been on her way to the alcove that held the mailboxes when she’d spotted him. Her steps had immediately halted. Puzzlement shrouded her expression, as if he was the last person she’d ever expect to find here.
And why should she expect to see him? He hadn’t contacted her since she’d asked him to leave last week. He’d wanted to—had erased no less than a hundred text messages before he could send them. It hadn’t felt right to contact her via text. Even a phone call seemed too impersonal. He had no idea what state she was in, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause more pain.
Instead, he’d waited until he could get a day off and booked a flight to Austin. He was scheduled to fly out on a six a.m. flight back to Virginia in the morning. Even if the only thing this trip accomplished was giving him these few moments with her, it would have been worth it. Just seeing her face again, breathing the same air she breathed, made him whole.
Daniel walked to where she still stood, just to the right of a round glass table that held a large vase filled with fresh flowers.
“Uh, hi,” he said.
Silence followed his ungraceful greeting. It was awkward and tense and so incredibly uncomfortable it made his skin itch, but his comfort wasn’t important right now.
Finally, she responded. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone back to DC.”
“Virginia,” he said. “Vienna, just outside of DC. That’s where I’ve been since…well, since the day after I last saw you. The debrief after months-long operations takes some time.”
“Are you back in Austin?”
“Just for today,” he answered. “Just for right now. I have to fly back tomorrow.”
“Tying up loose ends, I assume? Like the apartment you share with your ‘friend’s brother’?”
Damn, even her air quotes seemed angry. Daniel swallowed hard. There had been so many lies.
“I moved out of the apartment last week. And my roommate, well, I guess you figured out that Quentin isn’t exactly what I presented him to be.”
“Is he your partner at whatever place you work up there in Virginia?”
He shook his head. “Quentin is with DHS, Department of Homeland Security. I’m an agent at FinCEN.”
“Fin what?”
He looked over both shoulders and stuffed his hands farther into his pockets. “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network,” he said in a slightly lower voice. “It’s a division of the Treasury Department.”
She nodded again, but didn’t speak. Tension-filled seconds continued to tick away as they maintained this awkward tableau. What should he do? Should he move toward her? Should he offer to relieve her of the shopping bag she held? Should he accept that this is how things would end and say goodbye?
No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t leave without clarifying any misconceptions she might have about the operation he’d conducted here. At the very least, he had to make sure she understood that he hadn’t set out to use her.
“Samiah, can we…can we go up to your place?” He raised his hands. “I just want twenty minutes to explain to you what happened.”
“I don’t need you to explain anything. I already know what happened,” she said. She clasped both hands around the shopping bag’s handle and sent it on a gentle sway. The crinkle of the plastic hitting her thighs was the only sound in the lobby.
“Not all of it. It wasn’t all a lie,” he whispered past the emotion clogging his throat. “I need you to know that, Samiah. Please,” he pleaded. “Give me twenty minutes.”
She pressed her lips together, her expression evolving from pensive to conflicted to, thankfully, one of acquiescence.
“No,” she answered.
Daniel’s head jerked back. “No?”
“No,” she repeated. Then she turned on her heel and left him standing in the middle of the lobby.