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  Still, in those first horrible minutes after the door closed she’d tried to convince herself it was for the best. He didn’t really love her. He couldn’t. Not if he could use her feelings for him to manipulate her into putting aside her story when he knew how important it was to her.

  “I’m not asking you to put it aside forever.”

  But he shouldn’t have asked her at all . . . right?

  Understanding and patience—wasn’t that what she’d said?

  Brittany sat down on the couch, suddenly feeling a little queasy.

  She had to stop this. She’d done the right thing. Saved herself a lot of future pain. There were too many uncertainties, too many ways it could go wrong. Their respective jobs for one. His difficulty in dealing with his feelings for another. The fact that he was at the center of one of the biggest military disasters in US history, which could potentially turn into one of its biggest scandals—or a third world war.

  What chance did they have? Was she really going to be okay being with someone who lived a life of secrets? Who couldn’t tell her anything? Who might be involved in the kind of secret operations that she was trying to shine lights on?

  But maybe she wasn’t asking the right questions. Maybe she should ask herself whether she would be okay with a guy who went to work every day willing to put his life on the line for others, who served his country with distinction, and who was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country, his friends, and the people he loved.

  Would she be okay with a guy who wanted to protect her, who would do anything to keep her safe, who didn’t want to hurt her? Who could make her laugh even in the darkest of times? Who listened and understood? Who was as strong and sexy as he was gentle and considerate? Who both respected her and disrespected her at exactly the right times—the latter when they were naked?

  Yeah, she’d be okay with that guy. She’d be more than okay. She’d be lucky and proud.

  Now it was too late to tell him that.

  It’s for the best. But no matter how many times she said that, it didn’t feel like the best. It felt miserable. It felt lonely. It felt as if she’d just lost the only man she’d ever love.

  And if a broken heart wasn’t enough, when Brittany’s life went to hell, it really went to hell. In the space of one wretched evening she had no John, no story, two coworkers who wanted to be rid of her—one so badly she’d hired a PI to investigate her—and probably no job.

  Saving her job. That was what she had to think about. Brittany wiped the tears away. Not whether she’d done the right thing. Not whether she should have given him a chance.

  Not whether she’d made a mistake.

  It was too late for second thoughts. John was long gone, and she knew she would never find him again. Not unless he wanted to be found.

  But it wasn’t too late to save the only thing she had left.

  Five years ago, when she’d thought her career was over, John had shown her how to open her eyes a little wider. Reminded her not to give up too easily. He’d made her see that what felt like rock bottom might actually have a few feet of water above it.

  Brittany walked into the paper the next morning prepared to do battle with a new story idea.

  But that few feet of water evaporated quickly.

  * * *

  • • •

  “So, let me get this straight?” Brittany looked directly at Nancy. “One of my coworkers hires a PI to break into my apartment and spy on me, and I’m the one defending myself?”

  When Brittany had walked into Jameson’s office, both Paulie and Nancy were sitting there, waiting for her. They’d taken the two seats on the other side of the desk, leaving her to stand and feel as if she were on trial.

  Apparently she was.

  Realizing that the jig was up, Nancy had gone on the offensive, joining forces with Paulie to discredit Brittany before Jameson. Nancy had admitted to hiring the PI because she was worried that Brittany was manufacturing evidence . . . again.

  Nancy turned to Jameson. “I admit it was extreme—”

  “Extreme?” Brittany was outraged at the understatement. “He destroyed my apartment and threatened me!”

  Nancy looked at her as if she were being dramatic. “He looked through a few drawers, which I believe the situation warranted—especially with her history of conspiracy theories. I was worried about the integrity of the team—about the integrity of the entire paper. I don’t need to explain what it would do if it became known that one of the paper’s investigative team reporters was manufacturing ‘proof’—it would destroy our credibility.”

  “That’s a serious claim to make,” Jameson said calmly. “What proof do you have?”

  “She doesn’t have any proof,” Brittany interrupted. “Because there isn’t any. I am not making this up.”

  “Then where are your sources?” Nancy said smugly. “Weren’t you telling us all yesterday about a big meeting last night and some ‘explosive proof.’ Where is it? According to the guy I hired, no one showed up last night.”

  Brittany opened her mouth, but quickly realized the problem. If she admitted it was a sting and that she’d lied about the meeting, she would have to explain why or she would sound like . . . a liar.

  She would also have to explain the men who were with her. Nancy had obviously talked to her PI and realized that no one had called the police. By not doing so, Nancy realized that Brittany didn’t want the police involved. She must have guessed that Brittany wouldn’t be able to reveal who they were.

  She was right.

  “They must have been scared off by your PI,” Brittany said.

  “Or there wasn’t any meeting,” Nancy replied. “And you were lying about it to support your next article.”

  There was no next article. Not a Lost Platoon one anyway. But she couldn’t let that go.

  “I’m not lying,” Brittany said to Jameson. She pulled out the file of documents she’d received from her mysterious source and handed them to him. “You’ll see the deployment order. Naval Warfare Special Deployment Group has to be Team Nine. In Norway, I found a man who was able to place my brother there at about the same time.”

  Jameson flipped through the documents quickly and handed them back to her. “I guess you haven’t read the morning paper yet?”

  Brittany shook her head. She’d skipped coffee at home and come straight to the office. “No. Why?”

  He handed it to her. She looked at the headline: FOURTEEN SEALS LOSE THEIR LIVES IN A TRAINING EXERCISE.

  Her stomach dropped. “What is this?”

  “The navy has acknowledged your brother’s death,” Jameson said. She gazed down at the list of names, seeing Brandon’s staring back at her—and John’s—among a couple others she recognized from her time in San Diego. “They don’t say it,” he continued. “But it’s clearly a response to the public interest spawned by your articles and the ruckus in Iowa by the woman who claimed to be pregnant by one of the missing SEALs.”

  Brittany was reading it for herself. There was no mention of secret teams or clandestine missions, only “the tragic loss of life” of “fourteen SEALs” in “one of the worst training disasters ever to befall the US military” off the coast of Alaska when a storm caused their helicopter to go down. There were no further details, only that the incident was under investigation.

  “This is ridiculous,” Brittany said, handing the paper back to him. “It’s obviously CYA. They don’t even say when it happened.”

  “Maybe so,” Jameson said. “But it’s the official statement, and you need something more than a redacted order that mentions Norway—not Russia—to disprove it. I went out on a limb for you, Brittany, but you are leaving me hanging out to dry here. If we don’t publish something more—something with proof—to refute this, we are going to look like idiots.”

  It was clear he wanted t