Disclosure of the Heart (The Heart Series) (5 page)

“Hasn’t she always been that way?” I laughed.

“Why yes, she has.” He grinned. “And David…you remember my cousin David, don’t you?”

Working with the press for so long, I was a pro at keeping an impassive face regardless of the topic, but this wasn’t a professional setting. I let out a little gasp that I tried to cover up with a laugh. I couldn’t believe he’d brought up David that way. He was teasing me.

How could I ever forget the hot Cockney Brit I’d messed around with one night on a lawn chair? Adam and I probably would’ve never gotten together had Adam not been so jealous. And David was the same guy my friend Rachel had had a raunchy one night stand with a few years later. Though he was Adam’s cousin, David was definitely not an off-limits topic for Lisa, Rachel, and me. He was a legend. “Of course, I remember him.”

Adam smirked, and his eyes said exactly what he must have been thinking:
“Yeah, I bet you do.”
Aloud he said, “David works for Barclays in international finance. He travels often and spends a lot of time in the States, including DC. He says hello, by the way.”

“Please tell him hello for me, too.” I could feel my cheeks get warm. Oh, how I wished I knew what they’d said in
that
conversation.

“I will.”

“And how are your parents? Is your dad still teaching at Cambridge?”

“No, not anymore.” He winced and drank from his water glass before he continued, “He’s actually rather ill…with pancreatic cancer. My mum spends her days taking care of him.”

“Oh, Adam…I’m so sorry.” He was silent and grave. I thought he might choke up, so I tried being more matter-of-fact. “When was he diagnosed?”

“A few months ago. The outlook isn’t good.”

As he fidgeted with his fork, I no longer saw the thirty-three-year-old Adam, a man I wasn’t quite sure of. Before me now was Adam, the teenage guy I’d known so well. My heart caved seeing him so sad.

Instinct took over, and I placed my hand over his restless one to calm him. He nodded as I gave him a slight squeeze. He then looked down at our hands and smiled, and I realized what I was doing.
Shit, I’m holding his hand
. I glanced up.
In a restaurant, for crying out loud!
I immediately withdrew my hand and thanked God our food arrived just at that moment.

The conversation became casual, veering from foreign policy to political gossip to silly stories. He even got me laughing so hard at an anecdote about that asshole ABC News reporter Dan Roark, that I started to cry. As I dabbed my eyes, I saw my phone flashing and checked it.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just need to deal with it when I get back. It’s going to be another long day and not much sleep tonight.”

“So where are you living? Have you found a flat yet?”

I stared at my phone for a minute without saying a word. The time had come to tell him about Juan Carlos. It shouldn’t have mattered at all; we’d moved on with our lives, but I became hesitant. It was my turn to fidget, and the information came out slowly. “I’m crashing with Lisa right now. She’s doing some post-doc work at NIH and has a place up on Van Ness.”

“Lisa? That’s nice that you’re in the same city again. Do you plan to get a place of your own?”

“No, I…”
Why is this so hard for me?
I forced myself to be forthright. “I’m moving in with my boyfriend.”

It was an infinitesimal movement, but I swore Adam’s nose twitched. Yet after a second, he smiled. Was he happy for me? At that moment,
I
wasn’t. I felt like shit, but why?

“So tell me more about this boyfriend,” he said cheerily. “What’s his name?”

“Juan Carlos Jimenez. We’ve been together about a year.”

“Really? Juan Carlos Jimenez? I can’t say I’ve met him, though I know of him, of course. Did you two meet on the campaign?”

“Yeah, and we decided to live together last month.”

“So why aren’t you already moved in?”

“Just busy. He’s traveling a ton, and I have no time. We’ll make it happen, though.”

My voice had wavered a bit while Adam kept a silent smile, and I was awash with shame. I’d now disclosed everything only to realize I was crazy. If anything, I should’ve felt guilty for holding hands with any guy other than Juan Carlos. Instead, I felt I was somehow betraying Adam by having another boyfriend. That was insane, especially because it was Adam who had betrayed our relationship when we’d been young.

If we were going to move on from the past, we needed to talk about our new partners. And I knew he had one as well. I didn’t want details, though. God, no. I just wanted confirmation he was taken.

Without another thought, I shot the ball out of my court. “So what about you? Who are you dating? You have to be dating someone.”

“There’s someone. Back in London.”

“Someone?” Of course, I could guess who it was. I wasn’t above Googling him, and his social life was fodder for the British tabloids.

“Felicity Chambers. She’s also with the BBC.”

Felicity Chambers may have been with the BBC, but she looked like a Victoria’s Secret model. The photos I’d seen of them together came back to me, and trailing not far behind the images in my mind was a sharp pang of jealousy in my gut. I knew the emotion all too well, having spent a good portion of my junior year of high school jealous of his cheerleader girlfriend. It felt like it was happening all over again. I may have been pretty enough with an extra shot of smarts, but I wasn’t a Felicity Chambers.

I grasped for something nice. “I think I’ve seen her on TV. She seems like a good reporter.” I actually didn’t have any opinion on her reporting skills. What if she sucked, and everyone joked about her? But to stay positive—with an impulsive hope of making everything feel normal between us—I added, “And she’s beautiful.”

It didn’t work. The words had left my mouth, and I only felt worse.

Adam smiled, though. “She’s nice.”

“Are you two serious?” The question hung in the air, exposing all my insecurities. I was a communications professional, yet I was committing verbal suicide. With every sentence, I sounded more like a creepy ex-girlfriend, and it shouldn’t have been that way. I had a boyfriend who was a total catch.

“Serious? Not at the moment. We’ve been seeing each other for a while, but now that she’s back in the UK for good, we’ve put things on hold, so to speak.” He cleared his throat. “You know. Long-distance relationships are difficult.”

My eyes widened. Well, what in the hell was I supposed to say to that? Had he meant to say it like I knew something about the subject, or was it just a figure of speech? Of course I knew long-distance relationships were difficult. That was one of the reasons I had never let Adam and me have one.

He looked around the room. Maybe he wasn’t enthused by the conversation either. My phone vibrated, saving us both. It was Matt, so I knew it must be important. I apologized and took the call at the table, trying to keep talk of President Logan to a minimum. An inadvertent slip of information to the press—even just to Adam—was the last thing I needed.

When I finished, I had my marching orders from Matt. While I didn’t mind the work, I didn’t like leaving so abruptly. I sighed. “I’m very sorry. I need to get back to the office. Something’s happened.”

“Anything I might find interesting?” He smiled reassuringly. “That was a joke. I don’t want it to be like that between us. You don’t have to tell me anything if it will make you uncomfortable.”

I snorted at that.

“What? What did I say?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Like some of the conversation today hasn’t already been uncomfortable.”

“I’m sorry.” He laughed, seeming to genuinely appreciate my candor. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“I know, and I don’t want it that way either.” I wasn’t sure what way I wanted it, but any more of this awkwardness would kill me. I grabbed my purse from the back of my chair. “Sorry. This isn’t the best time for me to leave, but I’ve got to get back.”

“Nicki, before you do, I need to know something. Please. It’s important.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, when I took this assignment, I told my boss in London we were once school chums. I left it at that, though. If I told them anything else, I might not have been allowed to take the position. So I need to know…what have you said?”

So he’d called us “school chums.”
How quaint. How British. How amazingly inaccurate!
I’d lost my virginity to him. We’d fucked around like only horny, angst-ridden, lovesick teenagers could do. We’d once pledged our undying love to each other.
School chums?
Even my half-ass disclosures were better than that. And wasn’t “chum” the name of some kind of nasty fish? So I was a chum to him?

Bastard
, I nearly muttered out loud, but I shrugged it off. “I told Matt I knew you in high school and that we went out. Juan Carlos knows as well. I agree it’s not something we need gossip about.”

“Precisely.”

I stared him down as the same question reverberated inside me, wanting to get out:
Why?
Why had he taken the job—practically lying in order to do it? I understood why the BBC likewise wouldn’t want a White House correspondent who’d ever been romantically involved with a presidential press secretary. He could go soft on the administration or let something slip. So why had he risked his job? Was it just to take a choice assignment at the White House?

Whatever the answer, I wasn’t going to find out that afternoon. His eyes gave nothing away, and my phone buzzed again.

“Thanks for lunch,” I said, seizing my escape. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes. Tomorrow,” he said with a smile.

That night when I got home, Lisa didn’t even wait for me to put down my bag before she pounced. Leaning against the foyer wall, she asked, “So how was lunch with Adam?”

I dropped my bag on the floor, where it landed with a thud. “Fine, but you know I did other things today, too—like work, for example.”

“Whatever. Tell me what happened.”

“We ate lunch, and we caught up on our lives.”

“And?”

“It was a little awkward—”

“A little?”

“Okay.” I laughed. “At times, it was incredibly awkward.”

“That’s more realistic.”

“But we had a nice time, and there was no big revelation.” Hanging my winter coat in the closet, I sighed. “From what I can tell, he has a girlfriend, and I have a boyfriend, and we simply happen to work in the same field.” I shut the door. “Thus ends the story.”

“So it’s just a coincidence that you’re in daily contact again?”

“I think so.” I checked my phone to see a waiting voicemail from Juan Carlos. “If you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Hmpf.” She crossed her arms in dissatisfaction.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you getting at? Like this is fate?”

“Did I say that?”

“You’re a scientist, and I
know
you don’t believe in fate.”

“I don’t.”

“But now you don’t believe in coincidence either?” I threw my hand on my hip.

“Yes, I’m a scientist. Of course I don’t believe in fate, but true coincidences are highly rare.” She turned around and walked to the living room, grumbling from behind, “I believe in cause and effect.”

Alone in the foyer, I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the table where we stashed our purses and bags. The dark circles under my eyes caused me to take a step closer to get a better look. With each passing year, the person in the mirror had been slowly changing from Nicki, the girl I’d been all my life, to Nicole, the woman I now was. Lines had begun to permanently mark my face. I grimaced. Years of working stressful political jobs at a breakneck pace had taken their toll. I looked old.

Did Adam think I’d aged? That Felicity seemed younger than me. Adam was my age, and men liked younger women.