Chapter Forty-Two

Katy

Mortified, I watch as Briggs salutes my husband, and Gavin takes a pull of his cigarette and slowly exhales it into his face.

Briggs lowers his hand as his eyes flash with murder.

“Gavin!” I snap, his eyes flitting to mine, and in them, I see the look that I’ve been expecting for months—betrayal.

I didn’t think this through.

This was never supposed to happen.

I open my mouth to speak as they face off, both rattling with a rage I’ve never felt from either of them—Gavin with jealousy, Briggs at his reaction.

You did this, Katy.

“Oh, good, you’re all here.” A woman’s voice sounds behind us as Gavin and Briggs stare each other down, the weight of it crippling me.

Turning in the direction of the voice, I see a tall woman in a power suit, designer heels, perfect makeup, and dark hair tied back in a sleek knot walking toward us. She seems oblivious of the situation and dives right in. “Kathryn?” she questions, damn well knowing the answer as she extends a hand toward me. “I’m Liv with the Today Show.”

I shake her hand, my eyes still locked on the two men in front of me. “Nice to meet you, Liv.”

She squeezes my hand subtly, tugging it toward her, and with that small gesture manages to steal my attention while her eyes implore mine in a follow my lead, I’ve got this way.

There’s no mistaking that she saw it—our connection—and if she saw enough from her side to be worried, I can only imagine the conclusion my husband has drawn on his.

“Christopher Briggs,” she says in a sharp, bright tone that tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing. “I have to say I’ve been excited about meeting you two all week.”

Briggs takes a step back, his eyes lingering on Gavin, who looks at him so darkly I feel the cold sweeping over us and seeping into my bones.

What the fuck have I done?

When I decided to do the show, the sole idea was to spread some truth among the speculation of what happened to us in the media. And the more I thought about it, I knew I couldn’t do it without Briggs. I’d spent a lot of the last month trying to be honest with myself, instead of medicating my harsh reality away. I was ready to take hold of my life and try to start living it again, not just for Noah and Gavin, but for myself. This meant coming clean with Gavin—admitting to the strength of what I feel for Briggs, of my need for him, and my hesitance to let him go.

Seeing that he was okay with my own eyes was a recommendation from my therapist. She didn’t necessarily believe it would bring closure but would help to ease some of my anxiety. I jumped on her reasoning because seeing him was all I wanted, had wanted, since returning home. At the same time, I wanted desperately to be Gavin’s wife and Noah’s mother. To be her. I am two different women, living in two separate worlds, in love with two different soldiers. In the haze that’s now my life, clarity is all I prayed for.

All of this I set in motion to try and stop the spiral, but it seems I’ve just thrown all three of us into a tailspin. I asked Gavin to come with me without a second thought, knowing what seeing Chris would do to me, but never thinking for one second my reaction would be so fucking obvious or that I wouldn’t be able to control it, or that their meeting would turn out like this. When Briggs stepped out of the limo, he was all I could see. All I could feel. And I let myself revel in the few seconds I was in his arms because in them I felt safe. I counted on Gavin to understand. I expected far too much.

Rattling with panic, I follow Liv’s lead as she attempts to separate the two of them.

“Gavin,” she says softly, “I’m so honored to meet you.”

She extends her hand, and he shakes it gently, finally ripping his eyes away from Briggs. After a few brief words of forced pleasantries, I realize Gavin won’t even look at me, and it’s all Briggs seems to be doing.

Liv’s voice interrupts my scrambling brain. “So, we’re upstairs in conference room four. My assistant is checking you in as we speak.”

“Thank you,” Gavin says with a morbid tone.

I feel the implications in his voice as I step back helplessly, feeling my life slip away from me.

“It should only take an hour or so,” Liv assures Gavin, and he nods in reply.

“You two ready?” she asks Chris and me. Without waiting for an answer, she enters the hotel, and we both follow. I don’t look back at Gavin to give him the reassurance he needs as we part, even though I know I should, because I’m too afraid of what I’ll see.

Briggs and I step into the conference room, and he brushes the back of my hand with his. Instantly my eyes find his, golden embers of anger and hurt still burning inside them as I stumble in my heels. Chris is there immediately to stabilize me before pulling out a rolling chair from the table. I take the offered seat as Liv looks curiously between us.

“I’m going to go grab us some coffee.”

Scanning the room, I see it’s already set up with every sort of refreshment imaginable and meet her gaze with a silent thank you.

“I’ll be right back.” She shuts the door behind her as Briggs walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the bustling city below us. The room is small in size but seems much larger due to the distance he’s putting between us.

Self-loathing is a feeling I’m all too familiar with, but in this moment, I’ve never hated what lies beneath my skin more. I’ve hurt him in the worst way, stripped his pride, and forced him into a situation he doesn’t deserve.

“Please look at me,” I say on a whisper that reaches him.

He remains stationary as I take a deep breath and stand.

“Don’t,” he says, shaking his head. “Just give me a second.”

I nod, though he can’t see it. I’m sorry will never be enough for what I’ve just done to him.

“You haven’t told him,” Briggs says after a bout of silence.

“No.”

“Anything?”

“No.”

With his next question, he turns back to me. “Why?”

Seeing him is breathing easy, so I inhale deeply as my eyes burn the look of him into memory—newly bronzed skin, longer hair, the same breath-stealing symmetry of features that encase his full lips. He’s still the perfect picture of an American soldier, except that his eyes shine with a different type of depth, the depth of an older soul. It’s the subtle differences that I notice most, that tell me this soldier has experienced far too much war.

“How are you?”

He ignores my question.

“Why haven’t you told him, Katy?”

I don’t want to discuss me. I’m sick of me. I want to know about the life of the man who stands in front of me, down to the last detail.

“At first I wasn’t ready.” It’s the truth.

“And now? What will you tell him?”

“He won’t understand,” I shake my head. “You just saw that.”

He’s so insanely gorgeous standing there, palm against the glass, face blank, his eyes void of the light I saw in them just minutes ago. We’re both bare.

“Why am I here, Katy?”

I pause, digging deep because he deserves the whole truth. “Have you watched the news? What they’re reporting? What they’re saying about us?”

“You know better than to read into that shit.”

My mouth gapes. “This isn’t just about us. It’s about Jones’s wife, and Morrero’s mother, and Alicia.” Bracing myself on the table against the onslaught of emotion, I continue on. “Alicia, Mullins’s mother…she came to see me for answers.”

“What did you tell her?”

“As much as I could to give her a little peace, but how could I possibly relay to her the horrors her daughter experienced in her final moments? The families…they deserve to know.”

“To know what exactly?”

“The truth about this highly coveted institution and the true cost of being a soldier.”

“Did you forget, I’m still a soldier, Katy? And so is your husband.”

“They have a right to know.”

“They do. They know their husbands, wives, and children made sacrifices and exactly what the cost is. They’re living it.”

“But they deserve more.”

“You know we can’t discuss the specifics. That’s all classified, Scottie.”

“No, but we can shed light on the uniform.”

“The uniform I’m wearing? The one I put on with pride every day?”

“How can you say that?”

“How can I not? I’m a soldier by choice and everyone who signs those papers had the same choice.”

“Fine. Why don’t you be the one to put the pen in my son’s hand when the time comes?”

Briggs scrubs a hand over his face. “If it’s his choice, I have to respect that, and so do you.”

“Unbelievable. I just thought—”

“Thought what? That what happened to us would change how I feel about serving our country? If anything, it’s given me so much more to fight for.”

Eyes locked, I sink at his words, knowing any further argument is pointless. He’s firm in his stance and if what happened to us hasn’t changed his mind, nothing I can say will. I have no choice but to make peace with it. “All I’m asking of you is, to be honest when the time comes.”

“Katy…”

“I’ve missed you so much,” I tell him as my heart begins to pound with awareness of his presence. There’s an invisible line between us I can’t dare to cross.

His shoulders sag at my confession.

He opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted as Liv knocks twice before entering with a carton of drinks in her hands, the look on her face apologetic.

Taking my seat, I thank her for the offered coffee, leaving it untouched in front of me as Chris takes the chair opposite. Tension runs high the whole meeting as we go over a script of questions in preparation for the show. None of them broaching the subjects I have any interest in confronting. Red markers in hand, the two of us cross some of them out. As POWs, we’re limited to the amount of information we’re able to reveal, which only makes the task that much harder.

“I’m not answering anything on this page,” Briggs says with certainty as he slashes the page with a big red X. I look over to see they are all questions in regards to our relationship since we’ve been rescued or questions about our personal lives.

“We’ll work around it,” Liv assures as I sit back in my seat and eye him. When he lifts his gaze to mine, I see guilt.

Irony-laced jealousy runs through me as I cast my gaze to the floor. After nearly two hours of negotiating, Liv closes the meeting, shaking both our hands. Chris stands to follow her out, but I remain sitting, my arms crossed protectively over my chest.

“You’re going to leave it like this?”

“I’m not leaving any fucking thing, Katy.”

I stand and smooth down my dress. I need to get back to my husband. I’m well aware his mind is racing with a thousand unanswered questions, and I want more than anything to erase his doubts, but it seems like an impossible task at this point. Clarity is an illusion when I’m with Briggs.

“Tell me something better than I’m sorry to say,” I beg him. “I can’t say that to you; it’s not enough.”

He studies me, and my skin begins to burn from the contact. Hunger, lust, ache, need, and love runs rampant over his face and in his eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures me before he turns and leaves the room.