Ethan felt my silent sobbing shudders, but his response was simply to hold me a little tighter, showing me that even with my great loss, I still had him. The rubbing on my belly must have gotten a little stronger too, because that’s when it happened.

A fluttery little tickle from inside my womb. A brush alongside the front of my belly that reminded me of the beat of butterfly wings. I froze, and covered over Ethan’s hand with my own, pressing on the spot where I’d felt it.

“What?” he asked worriedly. “Are you hurting—”

“I felt our baby. Moving around inside me. Like butterfly wings flapping.” Like a message from an angel.

He kept his hand on me, probably hoping he could feel what I was feeling but I doubted it was possible quite yet. As we lay in bed together worrying about bad things that couldn’t be changed, I realized something very important. I would never make it through this without Ethan. His strength pulled me through the hard parts.

Ethan never let me give up.

The words that came out of his mouth next, showed me just how much I had been blessed when he’d found me, regardless of my losses.

“I love you,” he lulled at my ear, “and this little person loves you…so much.” He splayed his fingers wide, swirling them over my stomach in a show of affectionate possession when he told me the last part. “He’s there watching. Your father. He loves you from another place now, but his love is still there, Brynne, and it always will be.”

OAKLEY didn’t waste even a day in reaching out. I’d thought a few days before the request came through. But, no, I suppose not. The Senator didn’t have much in the way of time to work with. The US election was less than a month away, and time stopped for no man. I’d played out the scenario in my mind as soon as I saw the news report in the restaurant at lunch. That cocksucker was going to use his son’s war injury to propel his running mate into the presidential seat. And it was going to work.

The call came through on my mobile while I was smoking my one cig for the night.

“Blackstone.”

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“I want insurance that puts the past to rest once and for all.”

“Of course you want insurance. We all want it. How do you propose for that to happen, Senator?” I dreaded whatever he might suggest. Probably because I had an inkling for what it might be. The earlier call from Brynne’s mum was a good f**king clue.

“A simple showing of support to an old family friend should do it. Hospital visit. Media will be taken care of.”

Bingo. I cringed at the idea. “My wife will never agree,” I told him, picturing how I’d left her in bed after crying herself to sleep. Drained and exhausted, and very emotional from the argument with her mother. That insensitive bitch had stretched my patience to its last reserve today. What sort of f**king cow thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional and physical welfare? And now this arsehole. I stubbed out my ciggie and lit another.

“Make her agree, Blackstone.”

“I know you care for nothing but the success of your campaign, Senator, not even what’s happened to your son, but I don’t give a maiden queen’s first f**k about your politics, or your ra**st son.”

I’d give Oakley points for laying it all out on the line. He wasted nothing on words. Just went straight to the issue in that tonal American accent of his that seemed almost devoid of humanity. “Don’t you think it’s better to be a couple of indiscreet teenagers who had a lapse in judgment years ago, and who’ve put it firmly behind them, than to worry about extortion should their shameful secret be brought to light? If they are still friends, then no crime ever occurred. Simple insurance, Blackstone. I think you should care very much.”

As much as I hated to admit it, Oakley’s “insurance” scheme was really very clever. But the cleverness of it wouldn’t help Brynne. It would hurt her. “I care about the welfare of my pregnant wife, who was made ill tonight by this whole shitstorm blowing up in media. And that, Senator, is not going to help you one iota. I can’t make her go and see him. She won’t do it.”

He responded with, “Within the week, please,” and cut the line. Fucking bastard. I stared at my mobile, sure the number he’d called from was already deactivated. The tingle of fear scratched its way down my spine. I lit another Djarum and filled my lungs. I didn’t know how to fix this problem, and it had grown exponentially in a matter of hours. The US presidential election was propelling this one. How in the goddamn shitting hell did one fight that monstrous beast?

So I got up and left my office. I went to sit outside on the balcony, where I started smoking in earnest. One Djarum after the other, until I was high from the pumping nicotine and spice that fueled the addiction I couldn’t deny.

The smoke drifted away on the cool nighttime breeze in lazy, wafting swirls. I had a flash of longing that my problems could magically do the same. Wishful thinking. Real life never worked that way. My hand was being forced in this. Sometimes my experience with poker was a curse…because I knew the odds here. I could see when folding was the only option.

It wouldn’t help Brynne to bring her into Oakley’s circle, but I feared it was already too late for that. My poor girl was going to be hurt.

CHAPTER 8

“I found Ethan outside on the balcony smoking a few nights ago. I’d been upset earlier about…the Lance Oakley situation…and woke in the middle of the night to find the bed empty. I got up to use the bathroom, and then went looking for him. He’s been trying to quit smoking, and was doing well from what I knew, but a few nights ago…I could see that he’d fallen off the wagon.”

“Nicotine addiction is no less difficult to break than drugs or alcohol,” Dr. Roswell said in her non-judgmental way.

“I think it’s more than nicotine addiction in his case, though.”

“How so, Brynne?”

“Umm, he once told me about his time as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan.” I hedged with what to tell her because it felt like a betrayal to share Ethan’s story without his permission. I decided my need for information superseded his privacy. “He was held and tortured for twenty-two days. During his time in captivity, he suffered cravings for cigarettes to the point he nearly went mad. He told me that the cigarettes were a reminder that he survived. That he was alive after all that he endured—able to smoke another day. He has terrible nightmares and suffers through them, and when I try to help him he shuts down. He won’t tell me very much and I think he feels ashamed. It’s horrible…I worry so much about him.”