As she walked away from the podium next to her father, he looked at the clock. It was past midnight and he’d been awake for close to two days straight. What was he doing? He needed to sleep because tomorrow he and his team would travel back to their base in Djibouti and prepare to end their deployment. They’d been in country for five months. Everyone felt eager to get back to the States and relocate the unit to Kentucky.

But he stayed awake, stealing glances at the video of a press conference that had nothing to do with him. The woman standing next to the vice president of the United States was so far out of his league that he couldn’t even pretend to belong inside her orbit. He needed to put all of this aside and get back to work.

He thought back to the dossier he had on her. Her ex-fiancé’s actions had driven her to Africa in the first place, and he wondered if the fallout still lingered in her social circle.

She didn’t have anything to do with him, though, did she?

He lay on the single bed and stared up at the barracks ceiling. The vice president’s departure had freed the barracks rooms for his team’s use, so they had checked out of the hotel this morning. But now, instead of sleeping, he kept imagining Cynthia’s bright blue eyes staring up at him as they argued their way through the jungle of Katangela.

With a huff, he rolled over onto his stomach and willed his mind to shut down and give him some rest.

Chapter
Nineteen

WASHINGTON, DC

Cynthia slipped her credit card out of the leather folder and signed the bill, then sat back against the wooden chair. She’d stretched out this lunch as long as she could. Going back to work held no appeal to her. She’d been back in civilization for four weeks and still felt so out of place. How could she continue to do this?

She grabbed her coat and purse and left the restaurant, ignoring the ever-present Secret Service shadow assigned to her. In the four weeks since she’d returned, they’d been less invasive than she thought they would be, and she felt thankful for that. However, the day she didn’t require their services anymore would make her very happy.

Back at her office, she slipped on her lab coat and grabbed the tablet, accessing the patient’s chart as she walked into the exam room. “Good afternoon, Ms. Ibsen. I’m Doctor Myers.”

The woman sat in a comfortable recliner, her three-thousand-dollar purse on the table next to her. She brushed her black hair out of her face as if to make sure her enormous diamond ring caught the light just so. Cynthia almost rolled her eyes.

“I have to say I’m not happy to be handed over to a new doctor.”