Hard Beat

Dropping my head in my hands, I try to comprehend how I was willing to go back on every single principle I’ve ever held. How was it just hours ago I was more certain than anything I’d ever felt in my life that she was the one? When I got back from this assignment, I was pla

Because it was that fucking real.

But obviously I don’t know shit, least of all what real love is, because every single thing was a lie. A big fat lie.

Why couldn’t she have done her job and been my partner without luring me in? In time I’m sure I’ll understand that maybe she was protecting her family and John back home by saying she wasn’t involved with somebody, but why do this to me too?

But she’s gone. I wish I could ask her, wish I could shake her shoulders and demand an answer, and then I wish I could kiss her senseless and feel her pulse race beneath mine. I’d give anything to get the chance to be mad at her, fight with her, tell her how much I hate her for putting me through this and then leaving me to sort through it all, but I’ll never get the chance.

Rage burns through my veins, leaving ash piles of heartache and disbelief behind. That staunch determination I walked in here with to get the story first, then get the girl and make a life with her is gone just like she is. I have nothing left to hold on to, least of all confidence in my own judgment.

I don’t know how long I sit in the meeting room with a broken heart, an aching soul, and a damaged psyche, but when I break from my thoughts, I realize the conference room is almost empty with a line at the door as people wait to file out. And I really don’t care, because a huge part of me that prefers the dark places I’ve learned so well to hide in after Stella’s death knows that the minute I leave this room, I fear she’ll cease to exist. As much as I’m hurt and angry and devastated, the notion still stabs deep within me because fuck yes she played me, made me fall in love with a woman who didn’t really exist, but the emotions I felt for her were incredibly real to me.

So a small part of me worries that if I step out of this room, I’ll then have to admit it was all a fake, and I can’t do that just yet because, call me a fucking sap, but I still love her. None of this takes that away.

The hand on my shoulder startles me. I’m on my feet and turning around in an instant and without a second thought when I see John’s face before me, my arm is cocked back, my fist flying. I co

“You son of a bitch!” I yell as bone meets bone again, every ounce of emotion I have fueling the impact of the punch. I hate him. I hate him with everything I have because he didn’t protect her. He had her when I didn’t, kept her when I couldn’t, and he failed as a husband to do the one thing he was supposed to do, keep her safe. And I know I’m being irrational and there’s no way he could keep her safe when she was off doing God knows what, but it feels good to unleash my confused fury on someone else for a change rather than let it eat me apart.

“You didn’t keep her safe! I loved her! I loved her!” I shout as flesh gives way to force, my voice breaking, my body vibrating with everything that I refuse to accept.

People in the room move, gasp, and I can’t even process how many punches it takes for one of their hands to grip my shoulders and pull me off him at the same time I realize that John isn’t resisting me. He isn’t even flinching with each punch I land, and all of a sudden it registers that he might be in the same boat as I am. He may have never known Beaux was a spy. He may have just lost the love of his life too.

I can’t hold on to the thought for more than a second because all I can hold on to is the grief that owns my every action and reaction right now, robbing my breath, stealing my tears, and a

I fight against the hands pulling me off John, and then I just give up and roll onto my back atop the broken pieces of a chair that we just obliterated. My chest is heaving; the sound of my labored breathing is the only thing I can hear besides my heart breaking as I lie there, John battered beside me, and despair stretched out in front of me.

“She loved you.” I freeze at the strained words coming from him lost in the shuffle of feet moving around us now that the show is over. I blink several times as I lie there, trying to make sure I’ve heard him correctly, because they were the last things I ever thought I’d hear come from him. I open my mouth to speak but shut it when I’m not sure exactly what to say. “We need to talk in private.”

And the way he says it has my curiosity piqued, my mind clearing some to briefly wonder how a civilian could be in on this meeting, but my thoughts are lost to the feeling deep down that I want nowhere near him right now. We may have loved the same woman, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like him. In fact, it is completely opposite from the way I feel. As soon as I catch my breath, I want the fuck out of here because I can’t breathe. Can’t think in here. I don’t want to believe the lies I was just told in this room… because they are lies. She can’t be gone. This can’t be happening.

How can her own husband make that statement? That would mean they’ve talked about me.

But he said she loved me. It’s the one thing I’ve wanted to hear more than anything, but at the same time right now, I’m not sure I can handle it.

“Go to hell,” I grit out between breaths, starting to push myself up because I have a plane to catch, and if I catch it, then I can run away and pretend like this meeting never happened and that she’s still alive and I’m still going to come back in a few days and fight like hell to win her over. To make her understand that what we have is real and true and worth it.

“We weren’t married,” John whispers ever so softly. I stop midway to standing and look over to him for the first time as my heart stutters in my chest. His eyes mirror the grief in mine, the loss burning bright, but they are also saying something else that I can’t quite understand. “Can we talk?” he asks, using his chin to indicate a doorway over to his right.

I stare at him, wanting to know and yet afraid to know more. But I follow John inside and shut the door behind us, leery, uncomfortable and overwhelmed because so many things have been thrown at me that I can’t comprehend any of them.

“Sit?” he asks, and I just lean a shoulder against the wall. I’ve had enough things knock me to my knees right now; I don’t think there’s much more that can. Besides, I fear that once I process this all, once it all sinks in, I won’t be able to move anyway, so sitting? No, thanks.

“What I’m about to tell you is classified and could get me fired and you in trouble, but you deserve to know the truth.” I just stare at the ground, my eyes shut, and fingers pinching the bridge of my nose because I’m so afraid of hearing what’s next and at the same time a small part of me holds on to some hope that he’s going to tell me that was all a farce out there. That Beaux’s alive. That when I open the door, she’s going to be standing there with that smirk on her face and green eyes looking for me. “I’m Dane Culver. Nice to meet you.”

My head whips up at his extended hand. What the fuck? “Wha…?” I don’t even bother finishing the word or shaking his hand.

“Beaux was my partner. I’m an agent too. Our marriage was a cover.”

“Wait a minute, so —”

“So that means how she felt for you was real. She loved you.” His voice is soft, sympathetic, but all I can hear are the words “She loved you.”