Between Hello and Goodbye(75)

“I love you too, Faith,” he said, finally. Simply. “I’m in love with you and think I have been for a really long time.”

“Me too,” I whispered. “A really long time.”

He took another step closer, slipping his hands around my waist and pulling me close. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

“No. That’s it.”

“Good. Can I kiss you now?”

“God, yes.”

Asher bent his head and put his mouth on mine. His kiss was soft and deep and with an energy I hadn’t felt before. As if something that had been restless in him had settled into place.

Like serenity.

I felt the same, as if all my crazy chaos and self-doubt and uncertainty were laid to rest with Asher. He trusted and believed in me. And I believed in me, that I could love him the way he deserved to be loved.

“We should go,” he said after a moment. “I want to take you to dinner, and we can talk more about…things.”

I smiled and grabbed a tissue from the box on the table to wipe my red lipstick off his mouth. “Sounds good. I love talking about things but hold on. Where’s Silas? You two are clearly in cahoots.”

“Nope,” Asher said as we moved toward the door. “I clubbed him on the way over here, stole his town car, and stashed him in the trunk.”

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “That butthead. I could tell something was off when I talked to him the other day. He was giddy and Silas Marsh doesn’t get giddy.”

Asher’s eyes flared. “You talked to him?”

“Just to confess my-almost sins.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“There’s that okay again. Are you okay? You suddenly seem more nervous than I am.”

“This ceremony’s a big deal.” He tugged at his shirt collar. “You’re going to win, Faith. I can feel it.”

“Maybe,” I said as we stepped into the elevator. “Maybe not. I’m just so happy you’re with me. But Asher…we still have the same problems we had the last time I was in Kauai. Worse—I accepted the promotion. They’ve made me partner.”

He seemed unperturbed. “Of course, they did. Because you’re brilliant.”

I started to speak again but he kissed me silent, and my knees literally went weak at the intensity in it. The gentle, sucking pull of his mouth and the thoroughness of a kiss that felt like it was leaving a permanent mark on my heart.

“Wow,” I said when he broke away. “What was I saying?”

The elevator doors opened, and Asher put his arm in front of them, motioning for me to go first. “We’ll talk at dinner.”

He hadn’t been kidding about borrowing Silas’s town car; a driver opened the door to the sleek black sedan and took us to my favorite Italian place near the Bell Harbor Center.

At a table for two in front of the glittering water, Asher ordered champagne and tugged at his collar again, as if the suit were too tight. We lifted our glasses in a toast and then he set his right back down again, sloshing bubbly on the tablecloth.

“I can’t do this.”

My heart skipped a dozen beats. “You can’t…what?”

“Shit, no, I’m sorry.” Asher waved his hands. “Jesus, I’m already fucking this up. I was going to do this whole thing with dessert, but I’m not going to make it to dessert. I have to do it now.”

He reached into his jacket pocket at the same instant his cell phone rang. The timing was so uncanny, it was as if he anticipated someone was going to call him at that exact moment.

He frowned and pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s my captain,” he said. “Sorry, Faith, I should get this.” He hit answer, his expression wary. “What’s up, Cap?” He listened and his frown deepened. “No, I’m at a restaurant, why?” A pause, and I saw fear spark in his eyes. “No, you can tell me right the fuck now.”

The air around us suddenly dropped twenty degrees. My skin broke out in gooseflesh, and every muscle in my body tensed as the blood drained from Asher’s face, leaving him a ghastly pale white. He sucked in a breath and then another, struggling to breathe. With his free hand, he gripped the edge of the table, arm stiff and knuckles white.

“What?” he croaked.

I reached across the table to him. “Asher…?”

“No, he’s not,” he said into the phone. “No, he’s not…Nalani…? No. No. Stop fucking with me, Cap,” he said, his voice rising, hard with anger but fraying at the end with outright terror.

People at other tables were starting to turn. My heart was thundering.

“Asher, what is it? What’s happening?”

Asher’s eyes met mine, and I nearly let out a cry at the horrified shock painted over his features. He stared at me, through me, and then nodded stiffly, sucking in a slow breath.

“Okay, Cap,” he said, suddenly flat. Toneless. “I understand. I’ll be right there.”

He pulled the phone away with shaking hands and carefully set it on the table, as if it were made of glass.

“Asher…?”

He took another gasping inhale, and when he spoke, his voice was nothing like I’d ever heard. Airless and strangled.

“They’re gone. Both of them.”