AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bishop’s eyebrows rise. “And who’s going to do that? Not even I will be able to talk my dad into that one.”
I pause, look up at him. “Victoria. No one knows the courthouse better than she does.”
I can see Bishop turning the idea over in his head. “Why would she do that?” he asks finally. “She’s no fan of Callie’s.”
“Who is?” I ask, and we smile at each other, grim an
d quick. “But I think she might do it anyway. No matter what, I can’t imagine Victoria is one hundred percent on board with executing Callie in the town square.” I shrug. “Maybe if I talk to her, if we talk to her, we can get her to help us.”
“It’s a risk, Ivy,” Bishop says. “What if she blows our cover? What if she tries to kill us herself?”
“This is all a risk,” I say, frustrated. More with myself than him. I wish I could talk myself out of going, find some loophole in my conviction that if I don’t finish what my family started in Westfall I’ll never be able to fully move on, some part of me forever stuck. “But that’s the best idea I have. I think it’s worth considering.”
Bishop nods. “Okay, let’s keep it on the table for now. See what develops.”
“Before we even get to the point of rescuing Callie, we have to get back inside Westfall,” I remind him.
“That’s not going to be a problem.”
I raise my eyebrows. “It’s not?”
“I’m Bishop Lattimer. The president’s son. The patrol guard will let me back in.”
“What about the rest of us?”
“He lets me in. I bash him over the head, knock him out.” Bishop spreads his arms. “You’re in.”
I can’t help the smile that slides across my face, even as I’m shaking my head. “That easy, huh?”
Bishop smiles back, but his voice is serious when he says, “It better be. That’s the simplest part of this entire plan.”
I look down at the pile of clothes on the bed. I hate being reminded of the risks we are all taking. The risks Bishop is taking for me. But even filled with fear over what’s coming, uncertainty about how we’re going to attain our goal, I’m suddenly grateful for this moment, this conversation.
“What?” Bishop asks, reading my face as easily as always.
“I was just thinking how different this is, the way we’re talking. With my father and Callie, they were always the planners. They made all the decisions without ever asking my opinion. I was expected to keep quiet and do what they said. Sit in the corner like a potted plant until they needed something from me.”
Bishop snorts out a laugh. “Which is probably the reason their plan failed so spectacularly.”
“You mean because I’m no good at keeping my mouth shut?”
Bishop’s smile fades. “No, because you’re too smart and too valuable to be a potted plant.”
How does he do that? With just a few words, he turns me inside out. My throat knots up, but there’s no time for weakness now, no time for tears. His eyes darken as we look at each other, and I would swear the temperature in the room is rising, pure heat radiating off both our bodies. I am suddenly acutely aware of the bed between us.
“Hey,” Bishop says. “Last night?”
Images of our tangled bodies flash across my vision. “What about it?” I manage, my voice husky.
Bishop reaches across the bed and cups my cheek in his hand, runs his fingers along my jaw. My breath stutters out of me. “No regrets?”
“Not a single one.” I turn and press a kiss against his palm. “Part of me is wondering why we didn’t do it sooner.” But I know why not; it wouldn’t have been the same if we’d come together with lies between us, with the shadow of my father’s plan hanging overhead. We needed to be wiped clean before we could start building something new.
Bishop smiles. “Yeah? So does that mean there are better than even odds of it happening again tonight?”
I laugh, the tension that’s been enveloping me all day dissolving into happiness. “I think that’s a pretty safe bet.”
Chapter Fifteen
