Unfaded Glory (21 page)

In that moment, Damara believed she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The most treasured.

The most loved. It was such a pretty fantasy; it was so easy to surrender. She let herself forget that she was a job, a mission, and that it was “his honor to serve her.” She forgot that he'd said he didn't want her, because right now, he did.

And it made it that much harder to swallow the words on her tongue. So instead she surrendered to the sensation, lost herself in his hands, his mouth and his touch.

She let herself drown in the connection between them, that moment when nothing mattered but each other. It was as if her body was not her own; she writhed and arched, begged and moaned. Damara would do anything to keep feeling the bliss he gave her.

She learned that he liked it when she used her nails on his back just a little bit, that he liked it when she was loud, when she spoke of the things she wanted him to do to her. She learned that the more she turned him on, the longer he played with her, taunted her and dragged out her pleasure.

His body was becoming more familiar to her, and it no longer seemed taboo to touch him anywhere she chose.

Damara loved dragging her hands over his biceps, and his back—his shoulders. She especially loved his butt. It was perfect for grabbing and kneading while he thrust into her.

She loved everything about him. Especially his scars. They were what made him perfect. His flesh wasn't ruined, but it was obvious he didn't sit in an office for a living.

With his scarred hands on her breasts, teasing the puckered buds of her nipples, she'd have sworn he hung the stars in the sky.

He moved inside her, his body seeming to be too big, too hard for her to accommodate, and yet she did and took the utmost pleasure in it.

Especially when he buried his face in her neck and they clung together while passion racked them both.

* * *

B
YRON
'
S
CHEST
BURNED
like a bastard, but there was no way he'd turn her down. The clock was quickly ticking down on their time together, and he wanted to remember everything about Damara that he could.

For all her talk that he was some kind of poet, he wasn't. He was a simple man with no way to express the complex things she wrought in him. He tried to tell her with his body what he couldn't—shouldn't—with words. If he told her that he loved her, it would only make things harder for them when they had to go their separate ways.

Part of him wanted her to know. She'd changed him. He'd never think he deserved her, and he still bore the guilt of his past actions and failures, but thus far he'd been responsible for her. He'd protected her.

He'd kept her safe.

That wasn't something he'd thought he was capable of doing.

He looked at her face and decided that maybe even in her heart, she was his. That was a dangerous thought. If he allowed himself to think of her as his, he didn't know how he'd ever let her go.

Byron wasn't a good enough man to acknowledge his love for her and then release her. He was too selfish.

Although he supposed this trip to Castallegna would do it for him.

Her unwavering belief in his goodness would be crushed. At first, he thought it would melt away like spun sugar. There were lots of things about Damara that were delicate and sweet, but once spun sugar was gone, it just dissolved, leaving only a sticky residue that faded. But not her belief in him. It would be more like glass or iron nails. After it was broken, it would stab into her.

Byron was in love with his wife, and when she walked down the aisle, it would be a mockery of everything he wasn't supposed to want. But he knew it was as close as he'd get to ever having the real thing.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “What?”

“Just thinking.”

“Stop it.”

He laughed, but there was no mirth. “I wish I could sometimes.”

She sighed. “Me, too.”

“You're my wife, Damara,” he said before he could think better of it. He should have kept his mouth shut. No reason to point out the obvious because it was like a bramble of thorns. There was no way to pick it up, to interact with the fact without it slicing into tender things.

“There are worse things to be.”

It was just a piece of a paper, a contract that was as easy to dissolve as the spun sugar he'd been going on about in his own head. Spun sugar and poison. It didn't mean anything.

Only, it did mean something. It meant everything.

He wanted to blame the holes in his chest for all of these feelings. It was as though they'd burrowed through all his defenses, leaving wounds not only in his chest but in that place where he locked down all the things he didn't want to feel.

“What's wrong, Byron? Are you in pain? Did we tear something open?”

“No, Princess. I'm fine.” He'd meant to use her title as a way to put some distance between them, but it had become an endearment.

“No, Ranger. You're not. Tell me.” Her palm was on his heart again, as if she was checking to see if it was still working.

It was working overtime, working harder than it should. He couldn't shut the damn thing off. “I'm sure this wasn't what you'd imagined would happen when we met in Tunis.”

She laughed, the sound sweet. “Oh, you'd never guess at some of the things that go through my head. I really am a silly little girl sometimes.”

He remembered when she'd spoken of starlight and heroes, wishes and hope. He'd be those things for her, just not in the way she wanted. It was all he could do.

“Your heart is beating so fast. What are you thinking about?”

“Things better left for the moment they happen.” Any other answer that had sprung to his lips was better left to dust.

“Oh.” Her voice was a whisper. “When you decide to take a life, how do you do it?”

“What?” He peered down at her.

“How do you know it's the right thing? How do you know—I mean...it's forever.” Coming from anyone else, he might have thought the question to be rhetorical, some introduction to a debate, but from Damara, she really wanted to know.

“Yes, it is forever,” he acknowledged.

“Are you going to answer the question?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Why not?
Because he couldn't answer her. He couldn't put those things in her head, the things he'd seen. Worse, the things he'd done. “Because it doesn't matter.”

“I think it does. I mean, you don't just grab a list of names and throw a dart at the wall. Right?”

“I do what my commanding officer tells me to do.”

“
You
were a commanding officer. If you'd caught those guerrillas, would you have killed them?” She searched his face for some deeper meaning to his answers.

He didn't know if she was looking for his redemption or a way to make it right, but he didn't have anything to offer her.

“If I had to. Ideally, they'd be tried for war crimes and human rights violations.” Yes, ideally, justice would be served. But in his reality, he'd have rather just slit their throats and been done. If they'd crept up on them in the night, if they hadn't tried to take them back to stand to pay for their crimes...

“They killed a lot of people?” she asked softly.

Scenes of the villages those guerillas had raided flooded his mind. Those were images he'd never get out of his head. Even with all the horror he'd already shared with her, this was a step further than he'd take her—or anyone else. “Horrifically.”

“Then why can't my brother be tried for his crimes?”

He tried not to bristle at her question. “Because as long as he draws breath, he is a threat to you and Castallegna.”

“What if he were sent to prison in—”

“
Bratva
can get into any prison, Damara. They can find him and use him, or be used by him wherever he's sent.”

“Maybe like the days of old when royalty was bad I could just lock him in a tower.” She sighed. “Please don't hurt him, Byron.”

The plea in her voice was almost enough to make a man forget his vows, his honor. He'd lost it once before. He wouldn't lose it again.

“We shouldn't talk about this now.”

“When will we talk about it, Byron? When we're flying into Marseille? When we're docking at Castallegna? When I'm crying at a state funeral over my brother's body?”

They wouldn't talk about it; there was nothing left to say. He'd do what had to be done and that would have to stand for his goodbye.

His chest hurt, and it was more than just his healing wounds.

“I'm going to tell you this just once and then we don't have to speak of it again. I want you to take this with you when this is over. Remember it.”

He reached out and touched her cheek.

“When you walk down that aisle on Friday, with Christmas candles burning and the smell of holly and evergreen in the air, that's the only time that's ever going to happen for me. I never wanted to get married, have a family. So, that's okay. And I know this is a farce, but for those few hours when we say our vows, when we have the reception, when we do all those things that people are supposed to do,
it will be real.
”

Her bottom lip trembled.

“It could be real forever,” she whispered. “If you wanted it to be.”

“By not doing my duty? By you not doing yours? There's no happy ending for us. The best we can hope for is to save Castallegna and you.”

“You could stay.” Her voice was so quiet he almost couldn't hear it.

“I couldn't. What would you do with me? What would I do with myself? There's a darkness in me, Princess. It's why I'm good at what I do.” He didn't make mention of Abele again, but he knew that she wouldn't want him there after he did what had to be done.

“I could stay with you.”

“Damara.” He realized he sounded as shocked as the school principal who'd caught him selling his dad's smokes for a dollar each in the boys' bathroom.

“I know. I couldn't, could I? No matter how much I want to.” Damara shook her head slowly as if the facts of the situation had just become something solid and tangible.

She buried her face in his neck. He'd give almost anything to keep her there.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I
T
WILL
BE
REAL
.

Those were the words that Byron Hawkins had said to her about their wedding. He loved her. This ceremony that was just supposed to be a show, a publicity stunt, a tool—it had sped way past pretend a long time ago.

“Are you ready, Damara?” Sonja stood outside the dressing room with her trusty clipboard.

She laughed nervously and checked herself in the mirror. “Not quite.” Damara still had to apply her cosmetics.

“I told you that we have someone to do that for you.” Sonja clucked over her like a mother hen.

“No, no. I need to do it myself. I'll be out in a few.” Damara leaned forward in the cup of her hands, studying her face in the mirror again.

“I wish you were here, Mama.” She sighed at the mirror. “You, too, Papa. And you could tell me what I'm supposed to do.”

She'd dreamed of her wedding day when she was young, thinking about the handsome prince and his crown. He'd be strong and smart, kind and gentle. Her mama would dress her hair and help her with her dress, and her papa would walk her down the aisle, his steady hand guiding her toward her future.

Damara supposed she'd gotten part of it right.

Her prince was strong, smart and gentle with her. There was a kindness in him that had been beaten down, crushed out of him, but that made the beautiful things inside him all the more precious.

She picked up the tube of red lipstick, and it glided smoothly over her lips. Damara remembered her mother showing her how to do it just so, all those hours at her knee before state functions.

Damara took one last look at herself, looking for traces in her own face of people she'd loved and lost.

She saw her mother's eyes, her father's nose. More than that, she felt their presence in her heart. Her love for them was with her, so that would have to be enough.

Whatever happened from here on out, Damara knew that this was real for her, too. She'd pledged her heart to this man, and it was no farce, no act. And when it was all over, she'd carry him in the same place she carried the memories of her parents.

She finished applying the rest of her makeup. When she opened the door, she saw Sonja standing there with a tiara of twined holly and roses.

“You look beautiful, Princess.” She affixed the tiara to Damara's hair. “I think we're ready.”

Dread knotted her gut. Not because of what it would be like to walk down the aisle to face the man she loved, but what came after. She exhaled, trying to push all her doubts and fears away. She had faith in him and herself.

“I think I'm ready.”

“Dan is here to walk you down the aisle.” Sonja opened the outer door.

Damara supposed it was only fitting that the man who'd put them together in the beginning was the one to give her away. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.

“You look stunning, Highness.” Renner stood tall and proud, his every step smooth and sure.

But everything faded from her awareness. Everything but the man in front of her.

She didn't hear the music, didn't see the roses and holly all over the chapel. It didn't matter. None of it did except for the man standing at the end of the long red path.

He was supposed to be wearing his dress uniform; instead, he was wearing a suit of dinged-up armor.

It was not at all shiny.

And it was perfect.

She brought her hand to cover her mouth to keep from crying. The symbolism there, what it must have cost him to be there with his heart, his darkness, all of him on display in front of everyone—the world—as he pledged himself to her.

With this armor, he was telling her all the things that she already knew, but he was telling everyone else, too. This was all he was; this was what he had to offer. Dinged-up armor. He wasn't Prince Charming, he wasn't a knight in shining armor, but what he did have was hers.

So many cameras flashed it was like a starburst above her head, but she moved forward looking only at her groom. Her feet carried her forward faster than they were supposed to. She practically ran down the aisle.

It was very unprincess-like, but Damara didn't care and neither did the onlookers. They seemed to be taken with her obvious love for her groom. She flung herself into his arms, and he kissed her.

For a moment, this was everything wonderful and a dream come true. If she could carve it out of time and put it away in a box like a piece of tulle from her dress, she would. She'd keep it forever.

She melted against him, and the roar of the crowd clapping and cheering in the chapel was almost deafening. The minister coughed politely to draw attention to himself. When she would have acknowledged him, Byron refused to let her go.

He finally broke the embrace and they faced the minister.

“That part is supposed to be last,” the minister stage-whispered. A titter sounded among the crowd in response.

But Damara's whole world had become Byron Hawkins—all her senses were focused on him. He was all she heard, all she saw, all that she breathed in as if he had become her very air. She wasn't even aware of herself nodding or speaking in the right places, until it came time for his vows.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hand. “I can't pledge you anything that doesn't already belong to you. I can't promise to share my dreams when we already traded them under a starry Mediterranean sky. I can't promise to give you my heart because it already beats in your chest. What I can offer you is a man in dented armor who will defend you, your life and your honor to the death. I can offer my queen a champion.”

She nodded, pulled him to his feet and kissed him again.

A queen's champion.

He'd admitted his love for her and declared war on her brother all in a single breath. Yet it didn't surprise her. That was just how he did things. She shouldn't have expected anything less.

Before the minister could instruct him to kiss her, she was in his arms again and his poet's mouth crushed against hers. Their life together could have been so beautiful, if only they'd been allowed to live it.

Byron swept her up into his arms, and, rather than let her walk out of the chapel on her own, he carried her out to the waiting car that would take them to the community center for a small, informal reception.

Damara didn't speak. All she could think about was how he'd said today would be real for him.

The town had come out in support and to celebrate. Even with the heavy security at the front door, the community center had a small-town, homey feel to it with banquet tables lined with potluck dishes. All sorts of casseroles and things Damara hadn't heard of. None of which Byron wanted to let her taste without first allowing him to taste it.

She found it easy to lean against him. His body was so large and warm. She could burrow into his side and hide there forever. She wouldn't have to face what was coming. No matter how she planned and plotted, she couldn't see any outcome where she didn't lose her brother
and
Byron.

She could almost hear her father's voice telling her that no matter how much she may have wished it, life was not always fair. She could do her best to level the playing field, but sometimes it didn't work that way.

Hiding with Byron was what she'd been doing. All along, when she started to believe the fantasy with him was something real.

But no, he'd said this was real to him. He meant every word.

Yet, in the grand design, it meant next to nothing because they couldn't be together.

Even so, when the music played for their first dance, Damara moved into his arms easily. They spun around on the dance floor as if it were a cloud rather than wood and wax.

“Thank you for this,” she whispered in his ear.

“Don't ever forget what I said, Damara.”

Her heart constricted. “Never. I'll keep this memory with me always.”

She was only vaguely aware of the camera flashes, but she didn't find them intrusive. She wanted as many pictures as possible so there was proof that this day had happened. And she wanted them not just so the world would see but for long nights when this was just a memory, faded and yellowed like old vellum.

“Are you okay?” She referred to his wounds.

“It wasn't as dire as all that. I've had worse.” He tightened his grip.

“Then why did you pass out in the car and bleed everywhere?”

“Not one of my finer moments. But if the shooter really wanted me dead, I would be. They didn't hit anything vital. It hurt—I'm recovering. They patched me up fine. Don't worry about me.”

“Easy for you to say. What would you have done if
I'd
gotten shot?”

“I don't think that's a question you actually want the answer to.”

He guided them across the floor so gracefully, so smoothly, it was hard to remember that they were dancing and not flying. It occurred to her that her husband danced the same way he drove a stolen Patingale—as though it was art.

“I don't need you to answer it because I know.”

“Do you now?” he whispered in her ear.

“Stop trying to change the subject.”

“How am I trying to change the subject?” His breath was warm on her neck, and she shivered in his arms with delight.

“You know exactly what you're doing. Let me remind you, Lt. Hawkins, that turnabout is fair play.”

“That's what I'm hoping for.”

“You're a bad man.” She laughed but then stopped, realizing what she'd said. Damara had spent all her time trying to convince him that he was no such thing, and now a few careless words might have undone all that she'd wrought—if anything. “I didn't mean that.”

“Today, it doesn't matter. Today, I'm going to make love to my wife, just once. Once before this is all over.”

“Yes,” she whispered and clung to him just a little more tightly.

Their embrace was broken when Renner tapped on Byron's shoulder. “May I have this dance?”

She wanted to say no; she wanted to sneak away with Byron and hide them both from all the things the rest of the world demanded from them.

But she put on her princess face and smiled. Byron stepped back and allowed them the dance.

She didn't know why she expected him to be awkward or bumbling. He wasn't. He moved with a certain skill and grace. Damara rather imagined that planning a covert operation was much like dancing. “You're an excellent dancer.”

For the first time, she saw Renner give her a genuine smile. “My wife forced me to take ballroom lessons when we got married.”

“Smart woman.”

“Yes, she was.” A brief cloud of sadness passed over his face, and then his hard facade was back in place. “At seventeen hundred hours, you and Hawkins are going to slip away toward the kitchen. You're going to giggle, you're going cuddle and you're going to look like any other young couple in love. If anyone notices, they'll believe you're eager to be alone together. But you're going to slip out the back door. There's a car waiting to take you to the airport.”

He spun her around and then brought her back in close. “The Italians have lent us the use of their navy to secure your harbors. Interpol is willing to assist. And I have some men on the ground. A small operation. You're going back to Castallegna, Princess. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she answered in a voice with much more surety than she actually felt.

Of course she wanted to go home, but that meant so much more than just going home. It meant her time with Byron was over. It meant that she'd have to face her brother. It meant that she'd have to make hard decisions. People could get hurt. People could die.

Byron could die.

Or he was going to kill Abele.

It occurred to her again that there was no way that this could end happily. The best she could hope for was a democratic Castallegna.

“Are you really ready?” he asked. “I've seen the way you two look at each other.”

“I said I'm ready. I know my duty, and Byron knows his.” It was an effort to keep the sting out of her voice.

“Despite what happened in Uganda, Hawkins is a good man.”

“Have you told him that?” She didn't bother to hold back the sharp edge to her tone.

Renner pulled back from her, looking almost startled. “Why would I do that?”

“Because no one else has.”

“Haven't you, Princess?”

“He doesn't listen to me when I say it.”

“I think maybe he does. Otherwise, he wouldn't have donned not-so-shining armor for you.”

She didn't like the way Renner looked at her. As if he knew something that she didn't. “What better for a queen's champion?”

“Are you a queen?” He raised a brow.

“I suppose I will be for all of five minutes. I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't want a title. I will bring my father's dream to Castallegna.” That was when she realized it wasn't only her father's dream. It was her dream, as well. She wanted this for herself, too.

“I know you will.” He guided her back to Byron, his expression that of a doting, benevolent relation. “Enjoy your dance.”

Byron swept her around the floor once more. “Did he tell you the plan?”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“Not really, but when I think about it, I don't think I ever would be.” It was an epiphany she wasn't happy to have had. Nothing could ever be easy.

He gave her a bittersweet smile. “No, you wouldn't.”

“How do I do that?” She looked up at him and actually expected him to have an answer.

“The same way you hid on the plane to get to Tunisia. The same way you got on that bike with me. The same way you escaped
Circe's Storm.
You jump.”

“And just hope for the best?”