This is it. The thought was strangely peaceful. This was how it ended.
But underneath the peace, something else. Not fear—something warmer. She’d asked. She’d been honest. For the first time in her life, she hadn’t performed.
Whatever came next, at least she’d been real.
Dakota . . .
The darkness closed in.
And then . . . arms.
Someone’s arms, wrapping around her from above. Strong. Desperate. Hauling her upward through water that fought them.
Her head broke the surface. She gasped—choked—coughed up harbor water while hands gripped her shoulders, her waist, keeping her afloat when she couldn’t do it herself.
“I’ve got you.” His voice, ragged and desperate. “Jayden, I’ve got you.”
Dakota.
She tried to speak, but all that came out was more coughing. He was already swimming, towing her toward something—a boat, she realized dimly. A tender, its hull bobbing in the harbor chop.
He came. The thought was almost too big to hold.
He came for me.
And underneath that, something else. Something that felt like an answer.
Hands reached down from the boat. Dakota was pushing her up from below, someone else pulling from above, and then she was lying on the hard bottom of the tender, the morning sun too bright against her closed eyes.
“Jayden. Jayden, stay with me.” Dakota’s face appeared above her, blocking out the light. Water dripped from his hair onto her cheek. His eyes were wild with something she’d never seen in him before—panic, chaos . . . fear. “You’re going to be okay. Just stay with me.”
He pressed something—a shirt, maybe, wadded into a makeshift bandage—against the wound. It should have hurt. Distantly, she knew it should have hurt.
But everything was getting soft around the edges. Fuzzy. As if the world were wrapped in cotton.
“—ambulance meeting us at the quay,” someone was saying. Ham, maybe. “Three minutes. Just keep pressure on it.”
“I am.” Dakota’s voice cracked. “I am. Jayden, look at me. Keep your eyes open.”
She tried. She really tried. But her eyelids were so heavy, and the darkness kept creeping in at the edges, and Dakota’s face above her kept blurring in and out of focus. “The president?—”
“He’s alive. He’s okay. Vic missed.”
She nodded.
Then she felt him lean down. Felt his lips brush against her forehead—gentle, desperate. The way you’d kiss someone you were terrified of losing.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered against her hair. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
The words came before she could stop them. Before she could decide if they were wise or safe or smart. “I love you.”
Her voice was barely a whisper, but she felt him go still above her. Felt his hands tighten on the makeshift bandage. Felt the weight of everything between them—the lies and the truth and the masks and the moments that had been real.
“I love you too.” His voice broke on the words. His hand found her face, cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing away salt water or tears—she couldn’t tell which. “I love you too, Tiffany.”
Tiffany.
Not Jayden. Not Lynx. Her real name. The name she’d given him last night, the one secret she’d chosen to share.
