I take a deep breath, deciding to start at the most salient point. “I’m resigning my post as Vice President. The official resignation will come through my office tomorrow, but I wanted to talk to you first.”

Ash looks like I just slapped him. He staggers back, blinking fast, and turns away.

“Ash.”

“Give me a goddamn minute, Embry.”

I can’t, I can’t though, because that back turned to me and the pain in his voice…it scratches at me, inflames pain that I can’t bear. “You must have known that I couldn’t stand by and watch you fail to protect Greer.”

My words slam down like an iron curtain between us, and he turns around, his face blank. His pants are buttoned again and he leans back against the edge of the desk and folds his arms. No sight of the vulnerable, pleading man from just a minute ago—he is a dominant king once again.

“Watch me fail to protect Greer,” he repeats slowly, as if he isn’t sure he heard me correctly. One flick of his green eyes over my face, and he sees the entire truth. The same way he could know which outcropping of rock the separatists were behind, the way he could lead his men through the one safe path in a burning village—that’s the way he can look at me and unspool my words to their hidden truth. I still don’t know how he does it, even after all these years, but at least I know him well enough to expect it.

He lets out a long breath and then nods to himself. “As a Republican or a Democrat?”

I knew he would intuit the truth right away, but it still slices at me, that long breath, that resigned nod. “Republican.”

“I suppose Morgan will be your running mate?”

“If I make it past the primaries.”

“You will.” There’s a weary pride in his voice that guts me. I have to look away for a moment.

“So you see why I have to marry Abilene—I can’t have her pregnant with a child that’s potentially mine while I’m preparing my campaign.”

“So you’ll marry someone you don’t love all for the sake of spiting me.” His voice is the definition of blank, of tired. “You’ll hurt Greer to hurt me.”

“This isn’t about hurting you, Ash.”

He lets out an incredulous noise at that.

“I’m serious.”

He stands up all the way and takes a step closer to me. “So am I, Embry. Am I really supposed to believe that? You’re quitting your job to actively challenge mine because you don’t want to hurt me? You’re telling me that I’m failing to protect my wife, and then leaving us both for someone you loathe not to hurt me?”

I reach down for the resolve I stored away for an attack like this. “This isn’t about hurt, Ash. It’s about making choices to keep Greer safe. Someone has to stop Melwas, and you won’t do it.”

“How do you know?” he asks in a pained voice. “How do you know I won’t? Just because it doesn’t look like war and murder doesn’t mean I’m not going to do everything in my power to protect my wife and this country.”

“The difference is that I’m not afraid to do what needs to be done. And I think you are.”

“You’re leaving me. Because you think I’m a coward.”

I don’t deny it. I owe him that at least, to look him in the eye as the truth lands between us.

“Oh my God,” Ash says, running both hands through his hair and then lacing his hands behind his neck and pacing, pacing, as the truth burrows into him. He reacted before with a soldier’s impassive logic, assessing and studying the landscape, but now—now he’s reacting as a man. “Oh my God. You’re leaving me. You’re leaving me again, and I almost—I almost let you—” his voice shakes hard. “I can’t believe that I almost let you…”

He stops pacing and unlaces his hands, staring down at his empty palms. I wonder if he’s remembering the way my jacket lapels felt bunched in his hands as he arched into me.

My chest fills with cement.

Be strong. Remember Greer’s face in Carpathia, remember her tears.

“I should have known,” he whispers to himself. “I should have known.”

“Ash.”

He turns to me, and there’s so much anger and hurt rolling off him that I take a step back. “This is always how it is, Embry. Always. I give and I give, and you hurt me. You throw it back in my face.”

“Ash.”

“No,” he says with fury. “Don’t. You do this over and over again to me. I propose and you reject me, I propose again and you reject me again. I let you into my marriage, my heart, my bed, and then you leave me. More than leave me, you’re going to try to steal something for yourself that should have been ours.”

Despite his fury, his eyes glint with tears, and I feel like I’m being skinned alive. “I love you, Ash,” I whisper. “I always loved you.”

“Really? Because I always loved you, and apparently that wasn’t enough.”

I take a deep breath, reaching for the resolve again. “You make it sound like this is easy for me. It’s not fucking easy, Ash, it’s breaking my fucking heart. It broke my heart to tell you no both those times, I hated myself for it, but I had to—just like I have to do this now. Can’t you see that?”

I’m pleading now, both my hands spread wide, as if I’m begging for him to take them in his own.