Defiance (The Protectors #9)(54)

Everett studied me for a moment and then held up his coffee cup. I lifted mine and clinked it gently against his. “Bet that felt good,” he said softly.

I laughed and said, “You have no idea.”

He watched me sadly for a moment and then said, “Yeah, Nathan, I do.”

It took me a really long time to get what he was telling me. I shook my head in disbelief. He couldn’t be…

“How?” was all I could ask, though I wasn’t even sure what I was really asking. “You…you were married! You have a son.”

Everett smiled patiently and lowered his mug. “A son who won’t talk to me anymore,” he said quietly.

“Everett, I’m sorry,” I began, but he waved me off.

“I knew something was wrong when I married Eleanor, but I didn’t know what it was. I was in denial for a really long time. When Reese came along, I put everything that was wrong with the marriage behind me because I needed to make it work for my son. And we managed it for a lot of years – making it look like we were the perfect, happy couple.”

“What changed?” I asked. I’d seen the president and his wife together hundreds of times in the years Everett had been in the White House, and I’d never seen even a hint that something was off between them.

“I met someone who made me realize I’d been hiding who I really was. He…he was the worst possible person for me to fall in love with, and it came at one of the most inopportune times in my life, but none of that mattered. I knew as soon as I saw him that he was going to change everything for me. And for once, I didn’t care.”

The sadness that overtook Everett made my heart hurt. I glanced over my shoulder to see if Nash was still listening, but was surprised to find he’d left the room at some point.

“It’s okay, Everett,” I said as I reached my hand across the table and covered his. “We don’t have to talk about this.”

But he continued like I hadn’t spoken. “He was in the army, so he wasn’t free to be with me, either. I still had a few years left in my second term…so we settled for stolen moments whenever we could. My marriage to Eleanor had been over for a while, but we’d agreed to keep pretending the marriage was real until my term was finished. We didn’t even tell Reese.”

“Your son joined the military the year you became president, right?”

Everett nodded.

“Reese was how I met…”

Everett’s voice dropped off briefly. “Reese got hurt in combat. His mother and I flew to Landstuhl to be with him. His commanding officer came to visit him one day…” Everett shook his head. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him…he was just so damn beautiful. And when he shook my hand…”

I nodded in understanding. I knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I think it surprised him, too,” Everett continued. “He’d always known he was gay, but he’d been careful not to be open about it. Not after his younger brother was discharged from the military when it came out that he was gay.”

I stiffened at that and pulled my hand from Everett’s. “No,” I whispered.

Everett’s gaze shifted to the window, but I knew he wasn’t really seeing anything outside of it. I could see Nash walking back and forth across the driveway, his sharp eyes on his surroundings.

“Pierce?” I asked. “You…you were in love with Vincent’s brother?”

“Love,” he whispered. “God, that word doesn’t seem like enough to describe what that man did for me…the things he made me feel.”

I felt like I was going to be sick because I understood everything he was saying. Jesus, was that what was happening to me? Were the feelings I had for Vincent more than just the emotion that came with finding a piece of myself I’d been denying for so long?

My thoughts drifted to the story Vincent had told me about his brother. I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes as I realized what it meant. Vincent had lost his brother, but Everett…he’d lost so much more.

“Everett, I’m sorry,” I croaked.

His sad eyes returned to me. “All those months I’d worried about losing him in combat,” he murmured. He dashed at his eyes. “He’d decided to leave the army so that once my second term was up, we could be together. I was going to come out once I’d left office. I waited too long.”

Everett sucked in a breath and tore his eyes from the window. “Pierce and I got to be together a few times, but it was a lot of work to keep our secret. Eleanor suspected what was going on, but Reese had no idea until he walked in on me and Pierce one day in my private office in the residence. Eleanor had been out of town visiting her mother, and I’d dismissed my Secret Service detail so I could have some time with Pierce. Grady was the only agent who knew about us, and he worked really hard to keep my secret and to help me find a few moments here and there for me and Pierce to be together. We didn’t know Reese was stopping by.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“What didn’t?” Everett said softly. “He blamed Pierce, he blamed me…he didn’t care that I loved Pierce or that his mother and I had been over for a long time. He saw it as a betrayal and that was it. I’ve only seen him once since that night…at his mother’s funeral a few years ago. He left the military and I lost track of him for a while.”