Page 25 of The Night Of
I stumbled the first few steps, white-knuckling the railing until I found my balance. I made it down the second set of stairs after the turn and past the uniformed Secret Service officer, down the Center Hall, and out through the Palm Room to the West Colonnade. The Rose Garden burst into bloom on my left. I sagged against one of the columns, my back to the roses as I closed my eyes.
“Sean?”
Fuck me. Why now, why him? I turned, and my gaze landed on Jonathan, stepping out from the open door to the Oval Office. He stared, a deep line creasing the center of his forehead.
I pushed off the column and strode down the colonnade, brushing past him and walking into the Oval Office without so much as a by-your-goddamn-leave.
Jonathan followed. The marine guard closed the heavy, bulletproof door behind him. It made a nearly silentsnickas the latch caught.
My palms were soaked with sweat as I crossed the office, pulling closed each of the doors Jonathan had kept open all morning. Because I told him to. Goddamnit. I yanked each one, almost slamming them, the old walls rattling so hard George Washington’s portrait bounced against the wall.
“Sean?” Jonathan stood behind the striped sofa, watching me storm around the office. His eyes tracked my frantic movements, my wild, almost desperate need to lock him in, keep him safe. Safe from what, I didn’t have a fucking clue. None at all. But I wasn’t going to lose another president. Never again, they’d said. Well, Baker had a bullet in his brain, and I didn’t know why, or how, and now Jonathan had asked me to keep him alive. Fuck.
“Sean, what’s wrong?” Jonathan reached for me, catching me by the biceps as I checked for the third time that the doors were locked and the curtains on the exterior windows were closed with the privacy shades. No snipers, no shooters. No vantage points. It was bulletproof glass, but still— “Sean!”
I whirled on him, finally looking him in the eye. Inches separated us, and we were closer, suddenly, than we’d been any other time. Save once.
Jonathan’s eyes tightened as he smothered a flinch.
It was enough to break me, down the center of my soul.
“Why are you doing this?” I pleaded.
“Doing what?”
“Being like this! Why the coffee, and the sandwich, and the blanket? And were you waiting for me just now? Watching for me?” I spun, checking whether he could see the column where I’d collapsed— Yes, he could. “Why, Jonathan?”
His gaze went white-hot as I said his name. He looked away, dropping his hold on my arm. His hand made a fist. “I didn’t realize you’d be offended by simple gestures of politeness, Agent Avery. I’ll refrain.”
I growled. “Do you know what she asked me? The First Lady? FirstWidow,” I corrected myself. “She asked me why I wasn’t there. Why I’d disappeared. She said she’d thought she was going to see a lot more of me.” My voice rose, the words trembling, quaking. “She has no idea—”
“Of course not,” Jonathan said quickly. His eyes slid to mine and then away. “No one does.” His jaw clenched and held, so hard and tense I thought he was going to crush his teeth. He couldn’t even look at me. So then why, for fuck’s sake,whywas he making me coffee the way I liked it, and why had he saved himself in the phone asMe?
“I don’t understand. Don’t you hate me?” I stood alone in the center of the Oval Office, over the presidential seal. It was the question I’d wanted to ask for months. For three hundred and sixty-seven days, I’d wanted to know how deeply, how bitterly, how intensely Jonathan Sharp hated me. I’d wanted to know so that I could finish ripping out my own heart, so I could bury those pieces at the ends of the earth.Hate me. Let me live inside your hate.
Jonathan’s shallow, sharp inhale was overly loud in the stillness of the office. “No,” he breathed. “I understand you don’t feel the same way I do, but I…” Agony rippled across his expression before he gripped the sofa back with both hands and stared at the far wall. “Cherish the memories of our time together,” he finished.
“What?” I hissed. “What the fuck are you talking about? What the fuck is there to cherish?”
Jonathan flinched. He turned his back and strode to the fireplace. His shoulders trembled. He was shaking, every part of him. “I’m sorry,” he choked.
“Don’t!” I snapped. “Don’t you fucking dare say you’re sorry!” I was on the edge of my panic, on the edge of everything. “How can you say you’re sorry tome?”
His head dipped forward. His knuckles went white where they gripped the mantel.
“I’m the one—” My voice fractured. The walls were spinning, the paintings of Washington and Lady Liberty and the American flag bleeding out of their frames. I blinked. There were four Jonathans in front of me. “I’m the one who ruined everything. I’m the one who destroyed us.”
“You left.” Jonathan’s voice sounded dead. Like he was somewhere beyond pain. “I don’t blame you. I expected you to.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You ran because of me,” Jonathan said. “You ran as far away as you could.”
“Because I was so fucking ashamed of what I did to you, Jonathan!” My voice rose until I was almost shouting. I barely managed to keep it low enough that I wouldn’t summon the entire Secret Service to this fucked-up conversation.
Jonathan turned and faced me again. Disbelief was etched into every line of his body. “What did you do to me?”
My mouth moved, opening and closing. I looked away, past him, beyond him. Stared at George Washington like the patron saint of American honor could possibly give a fuck about me. He’d have led me out and shot me like a rabid dog.
