“That’s awesome.”

I grinned. “Thanks.”

“By the way, your sister called.”

“Which one?”

“Jackie. She mentioned something about needing to get fitted for your dress for the wedding.”

“You up for a trip back to D.C.?” I asked. “We could go for the weekend. Maybe I can meet up with Kate for coffee or something. She sounded weird last time I talked to her.”

Things with my sister still weren’t back to normal, but planning Jackie’s wedding had smoothed some of the awkwardness between us. There was definitely something going on with her, but at least she’d quit blogging at Capital Confessions once she’d graduated college and started working for the CIA.

“Sure.”

“So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” I asked, threading my fingers through his free hand.

“Deposition in the morning. Then I have a few prospective client meetings in the afternoon. Then a meeting after work.”

He made a point of going to Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at least weekly. We’d both been nervous about how he’d adjust with going back to private practice, but so far he seemed to be managing it well. Having his own firm helped. He shared office space with a partner, but they kept their practices separate and made their own schedules.

I knew there would still be times that he struggled, knew we both had parts of ourselves that we were still working on, but we loved each other, and supported each other, and somehow we made each other better.

I squeezed his hand. “I love you.”

Gray smiled at me, his gaze intent, the voice that had teased me, seduced me, warmed me, hoarse with emotion. “I love you, too.”

We came from such different worlds, had taken such different paths to get here, and yet we’d both been searching for the same things.

A family. A home. Peace.

And even though it didn’t look like I’d imagined it would, even though it wasn’t what my family had wanted for me, my future was here with Gray. I’d finally found exactly where I belonged—

And it was just perfect.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my amazing agent, Kevan Lyon, and my editor extraordinaire, Kate Seaver. It’s such a privilege to work with both of you. Thanks to the entire team at Penguin for their support for the Capital Confessions series. I couldn’t have asked for a better home for these books.

Thank you so much to all of the bloggers and readers who have supported my career. Your enthusiasm for my writing means the world to me.

I’m so grateful for my wonderful family and friends. HUGE thanks to my husband who has fully embraced life with a writer on deadline. I couldn’t do any of this without your love and support.

And last but certainly not least, thank you to the University of South Carolina Law School Class of 2013. You guys made my law school experience so memorable, especially Michelle, for being there when I needed it most. This one’s for you.

Read on for a sneak peek at the next seductive

Capital Confessions novel …

Coming soon from Headline Eternal.

 

D.C.’s political elite is expected to attend this year’s concert at the U.S. Capitol to celebrate the Fourth of July. We can’t wait to see what scandals we uncover . . .

—Capital Confessions blog

Kate

“Why are you still here?”

I looked up from the project I’d been working on—analyzing newspaper articles from Syria to assist with a leadership profile my boss wanted on a Syrian general—my elbow nearly connecting with one of several cups of coffee strewn about my desk. Sometimes intelligence work could be really fucking tedious. When it was completed, the profile would serve as a reference document providing background information on the general. The goal was to use this information to not only get a better sketch of him, but also as a predictive and descriptive tool to understand his motivations and attempt to guess at what he might do next. The particular article had some useful information to put in the personal data section.

My boss, Richard Standler, stood in front of me, staring down at my cluttered desk.

“Just trying to finish up this report,” I answered, hoping I looked like the dutiful employee.

I’d only been working at the Central Intelligence Agency for a couple of weeks. I’d graduated from Georgetown in May with a political science degree, and gotten an entry-level job working as a political analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence. My job involved country risk analysis—looking at raw data, both classified and open source—things like media, internet sites, public data, and professional and academic publications—to make assessments on how U.S. interests would be affected by a particular country’s goals and behavior. In my case, I was assigned to the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis. I’d taken Arabic in college and was pretty much fluent, so that definitely helped.

It wasn’t the glamorous, car chase “spy” job everyone envisioned when they thought of working at the CIA—my greatest health hazard was probably getting carpal tunnel—but for someone who geeked out on international relations and security policy, it was pretty much my dream job.

“You do realize it’s a holiday, right? You didn’t actually need to come in today.”

Ugh. It was. It was also my twenty-second birthday.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m about to head out. I just wanted to get this finished.”

It was important to me that I made a good impression. I wasn’t great at office politics, but I was a hard worker and I hoped that would take me far.

“Do you have plans to go see some fireworks later?”

“No, I’m just going to head home after this.”

He shifted from side to side as though he was looking for something else to say, but finally he just nodded and gave me an uncomfortable smile.

“Well, don’t work too late.”

I forced a smile. “I won’t.”

I listened to his footsteps walking away, and then I went back to the report, grateful for the silence. Maybe it made me a freak, but I sort of liked working when the office was nearly empty. It saved me from awkward, stilted conversations with my co-workers. I was here to do a job, not to make friends. I was here to learn everything I could about what happened that day in Afghanistan when my fiancé, Matt, had never come home from his Special Forces mission.

We’d dated throughout high school, gotten engaged my freshman year of college after Matt had decided to give up his future at Intech, his father’s private security firm, and instead enlisted in Army. I’d only been eighteen, and my parents had definitely not approved, but I hadn’t worried or questioned my decision for a second. We’d had the kind of relationship that had been solid, and my future had always seemed like it was meant to include him.

Until I woke to a phone call telling me that his unit had been ambushed, and he’d been killed in Afghanistan.

There hadn’t been a body to bury; details had been scarce. Much of it was swept under the “classified” rug, leaving me with a whole lot of questions and a wound that seemed impossible to recover from.