Phoenix (35 page)

“So you’re going to forget about your husband?”

“He’ll be fine. He can find someone else. There are plenty of girls around here who could hold his attention.”

Natalie shoved out of her chair and returned to her desk. “You and Jack. Jesus Christ. Part of me feels like we should lock you in a small room together until you sort things out yourselves.”

They’d undoubtedly destroy half the base before they were finished. “That would go over spectacularly, I’m sure.”

“I’m starting to think it’s a viable option. The two of you are being completely obstinate.”

“It’s not my fault Jack can’t handle reality.”

“Neither can you.”

Caroline narrowed her eyes. Natalie often challenged her but this was not how their sessions usually went. “What’s gotten into you today?”

“I’m sick of pussyfooting around this. You need to work this out with him. And either find a way to live with each other, or do the ‘moving on’ you claim you want to do.”

“I can’t be around him, Natalie. I don’t want to be around him. I don’t know how to feel. Half the time I hate him and the rest of the time I-”

“You what?”

No. She’d said too much already. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Too bad. We’re going to talk.”

Caroline scowled. “You’re not being very much fun.”

“I’m not here to validate you,” Natalie said. “You’re beyond that. You don’t need me to reassure you or hold your hand or coddle you. You’re a strong woman and you’re getting stronger. And you’re going to have to fucking deal with this shit.”

“That was quite eloquent.”

“You bring out the best in me.”

“What if I don’t want to deal with it?”

“You’re not a child, Caroline. You have to deal with it sometime.” Natalie laughed. “I like that you’re starting to get pissed at me for something other than making you watch your own speeches.”

Caroline must not have done a very good job of hiding her glare. “You are so not funny.”

Natalie grinned. “I think I am.”

Caroline hid her own grin behind her hand. “Is this even a therapy session anymore?”

Natalie laughed again. “Would you have described any of what we’ve done as therapy?”

“I don’t know. Compared to the other therapists I’ve seen, you’re not, um, normal. But I’m not normal, either.” Caroline broke out into the grin she’d been holding back. “I think we’re getting a little off base here.”

Natalie started twirling her pen in her fingers. “Want to be challenged?”

She wasn’t sure she had a choice, especially since her doctor had engaged her most favorite nervous tic. “I guess.”

“I’ll throw something at you. Remember in the hospital when you asked if I was interested in your husband? Well, I lied.”

It took mere seconds for Natalie’s comment to register. Those emerald eyes. Those pouty lips. Dr. Haddad was an extremely attractive woman. She’d flirted with him, flipped that jet black hair, done whatever it was that women in their twenties did to twist men around their little fingers.

I knew it. Mother. Fucker.

Caroline stamped her foot on the floor, pointing an accusatory finger at her. “You little bitch. You had your eye on him from the moment he got here, didn’t you?”

“That was quick. Jealous much?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

Dr. Haddad had a mischievous grin dancing on her lips. “We were making so much progress. It’s a shame it all has to end.”

That little shit. She’d been had. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” Caroline asked.

Natalie let out a short laugh, touching her finger to her nose.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered, staring at the floor. “Effing trickster.”

“He’s such a silver fox. I can only imagine what he looks like naked.”

Oh, that visual wasn’t helping. Caroline shook her head. “Stop, Natalie.”

Natalie laughed again. “Okay, I’m not being entirely truthful. I did develop a crush on him when I saw him at that fundraiser all those years ago.”

“He looked great that night,” Caroline said. “But that’s not the point.”

“You’re right, it’s not. I wanted to remind you that you’re still in therapy. And you have a few things to work on.”

No kidding. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“That was funny. If you could have seen the expression on your face…I would definitely not want to get in a fight with you. Especially if you were armed.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Caroline said. No doubt Natalie had waited for just the right time to spring that little test on her. “Jack always told me I was irrationally jealous. He found it flattering.”

“I think it’s funny,” Natalie said.

Oh, yeah. Fucking hilarious. “Whatever.”

Natalie twirled the pen in her fingers again. “I want you to remember something. It doesn’t matter how you think you’re supposed to feel. All of your feelings, whether you think they’re good or bad, matter. What’s in your heart matters.”

Was Natalie alluding to her divergent feelings for Jack? How could Caroline mentally collate all those conflicts when she could barely get up in the morning sometimes? “I know,” she whispered.

“I want to talk about something else,” Natalie said. “Something a little harder.”

There was a topic more difficult than her family life? What rock had her doctor been hiding under? “I don’t know if I want to.”

“I want to talk a little more about Jack.”

Of course she did. “I brought this on myself, didn’t I?”

“Indeed you did. Do you know what it was like when he arrived last year?”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“You’re going to have to hear it anyway.”

Caroline leaned back in her chair. Best to make herself comfortable. This would take a while. Natalie was the queen of saying shit she thought Caroline needed to hear. She didn’t know whether to feel comforted or terrified. “Whatever. Just say it.”

Natalie set her pen down. “Jack was a mess when he first got here. He was barely holding it together. I’m sure you know why.”

Caroline shivered, like she always did when she thought about that night in the forest. “I have a vague idea.”

“He didn’t say much when he first arrived, aside from doing enough for us to feel comfortable letting him in. We all knew who he was but he looked terrible. You know how he got here, right?”

Natalie seemed to be under the impression that Caroline and Jack spent a lot more time together than they did. A strange idea to hold onto, since so many therapy sessions involved talking to Caroline about her inability to communicate with her husband. “No, I don’t.”

“He trekked across Canada then made his way south to us. I don’t know how he managed to get here in one piece. I can’t even imagine-” Natalie’s voice broke, and she stopped.

Caroline stared down at her shoes. She
so
did not want to have this conversation. Especially since it sounded like Natalie had already discussed it in great detail with Jack. “When did he arrive?”

“The end of March. When were you two separated?”

“The beginning of February.”

“That’s a long time to travel, isn’t it?”

She was trying not to do any mental calculations. “Yeah.”

“It was odd,” Natalie said. “I could tell he was devastated, exhausted, totally drained, but all the soldiers automatically looked to him as a leader. Strange, isn’t it?”

Was that some sort of reverse rhetorical question? “No, it’s not. You’ve known him long enough to know why.”

“We knew to give him space. But I took a chance, thought maybe he actually needed someone to talk to. Especially after he found out – after we thought that you hadn’t made it.”

Caroline wanted to run out of the room. Told herself to run. But she stayed in her chair. Maybe Natalie was right. Maybe she was making progress. Or she was simply afraid to leave. Which made her a damn coward. “How bad was it?”

“I was in the meeting,” Natalie said. “We’d gotten some records from The Fed, from a guy we had on the inside. We got to yours and no one else had the guts to look at him. It was like the life drained from his body. He left immediately after that and everyone had the good sense not to go after him. A couple of days later I went to his apartment. It took a while for me to get him to open up. To convince him to come to my office to chat.” She looked around. “I like to think this setting makes it easier to keep it professional instead of loose and friendly.”

Caroline wasn’t sure about that. “He didn’t want to talk, did he? He has a hard time talking about difficult topics sometimes.”

“It took me a long time to get him to reveal himself. Once I did, all he wanted to talk about was you.” Natalie closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her lips. It was a long time before she opened them again. “He was so upset about what had happened. I think I’m the only person he’s cried in front of, besides you. I was so grateful that he’d trusted me with that responsibility since he felt he had to be something entirely different in front of the other troops. And I felt guilty because I wanted to help him but I was so inexplicably resentful of you - of both of you - for having this connection I’d never seen before.” She cleared her throat. “He’s so steadfast in his commitment to you, Caroline. Even now.”

No, this was definitely a conversation she hadn’t planned on having. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s what you want to hear. You miss each other. You have to find a way to deal with your feelings. Soon. But you and I are beyond that, at least for now. How do you feel about being off duty? Do you miss work?”

Caroline wished Natalie would have brought that topic up to start with. Maybe she could have escaped after ten minutes. “Of course I do. These last few weeks have been a pain in the ass.”

“Anything you want to do that you haven’t?”

Nice of Natalie to let that perceived insult slide. “I want to know more about our plans. The information we’ve gathered. I know they have the flash drive that Jack had, but not much else.” That was all she knew, and all Gig had told her too. And he was the intelligence guy for their unit.

“Jack would tell you more if you asked him,” Natalie said. “We have a lot more than that, though I don’t know all the details.”

“Apparently we have quite a few records from The Fed.”

Natalie shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. From one of the few contacts we have.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“Many of them.” She flushed. “I already had an idea about a few of your friends before we started talking.”

Natalie looked so shamefaced that Caroline knew she had to reassure her. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not surprised. You’re a thorough person. Are they very detailed?”

“Not all that much. Yours was the longest one I’ve read. They didn’t go into many specifics.”

Caroline supposed the records didn’t need to say much aside from the final result. “I see.”

“We’ve got a few other pieces of information, spies in certain areas, that sort of thing.” Natalie looked down at her hands. “And we take a few personnel risks from time to time.”

Caroline thought of Gabe. Something she rarely did, if she was honest. She hadn’t even talked about him during her therapy sessions. The realization flooded her with guilt. “We don’t appear to have a firm game plan.”

“No,” Natalie said. “We do not. Does that bother you?”

It had bothered her much more in the beginning than it did now. “A little, but it’s not like I knew what the hell I was doing when I started investigating Santos. That may have cost me, I guess. I just hope it doesn’t cost us.”

“It won’t. Jack and his advisors have backup plans in place, strategic designs. I know there’s been some backdoor movement in the international community. We’ve been putting feelers out since the secession. But not much has come of it.”

“Something has to happen soon, right?”

“One would think.”

“I want to go back to work,” Caroline announced. “I want to help.”

“Do you think you’re ready?”

She wasn’t quite ready for that sort of insight. “What do you think?”

“You’re close. I know it drives you nuts not doing anything all day.”

“Yeah. Going to the gym for hours at a time isn’t really cutting it.”

“Maybe we can do something about that.” Natalie looked at her watch. “Want to grab some lunch? My next appointment isn’t until this afternoon.”

An hour of easy conversation and extra dessert sounded thoroughly appealing. “Sure.”

Jack sat down in one of the chairs across from Natalie’s desk. “Thanks for meeting with me today.”

Natalie grinned. “Between you and your wife, I’ve been quite busy.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes. We talked for quite a while this morning before I went to lunch with her.”

“How was it?”

“Fairly pleasant, actually.”

Encouraging words he needed to hear after a restless night and an equally unsettling morning. “Good.”

“Were you worried about something?”

“Yesterday was stressful. I’m glad she’s okay.”

“Did anything happen? Between the two of you, I mean.”

He closed his eyes. “In a manner of speaking.”

She didn’t seem surprised by his evasive answer. “Okay. Let’s talk about it.”

“Not sure I’m ready to do that.”

“All right. Then tell me what you meant yesterday. About reverting to who you were. I don’t think we’ve resolved that yet.”

Fuck, he had no idea where to start. “Something happened between Caroline and me in her apartment. That day after she flipped out in your office when she watched that speech. It made me realize that I’ll never stop being who I was. Who I am.”

“What happened?”

“I had this moment when I knew I could take advantage of her. And I exploited her feelings for me.” He clenched his fists. “I feel terrible about it.”

Natalie pressed on. “Jack, what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” he said. “But it could have. I wanted to be with her so badly and I could tell she wanted me to act on it. I knew she was vulnerable so I stopped. But not before I screwed with her head a little.”

“So nothing actually happened?”

He wasn’t going to give her details. Not when he felt so fucking guilty about it. “No. But it could have. And it happened again last night.” He sighed. “I thought we opened a door yesterday. We were talking, she was opening up, and I blew it. I don’t know how to read her sometimes. I’ve been trying to project myself as this pillar of strength, this tower of confidence, but it’s an illusion. No doubt she’s figured that out.”

“I highly doubt that, Jack.”

Caroline had been so tired the day before. Tired and scared and completely susceptible to his manipulations. “I’m taking advantage of her.”

“But you haven’t. You said you haven’t.”

“I stopped both times. Last night I almost didn’t. She had to tell me to stop more than once.”

“Why didn’t you listen the first time?”

“She responded to me the way she used to, even though she was saying something different.” He hung his head. “She’s never said no to me before and I thought I could talk her into it.”

“Never?” Natalie asked.

He couldn’t blame her for being skeptical. “Never.”

“Really?”

Of course she wouldn’t believe him. “We were both, uh, very demonstrative when we were alone with each other. It was amazing,” Jack said, lowering his voice.

“Well.” Natalie blushed. “I guess it’s a good thing you were that compatible.”

“Doesn’t feel that way anymore.”

She twirled her pen in her fingers, refocusing. “You stopped last night. It took you a little longer than you think it should have, right?”

Why had he even done it in the first place? He knew better. “I did. But what if I fucked her up even more?”

“I doubt that very much. You’re learning her boundaries. And she’s letting you know what they are.”

Pretty words didn’t make him feel any less awful about it. “I’m an asshole.”

“Don’t you think your remorse is a sign that you aren’t the man you were all those years ago? What would you have done twenty years ago in the same situation?”

Goddammit. He’d told Dr. Haddad far too much about his past. “I would have toyed with her until I had my way.” He swallowed hard. “But there’s more to it than that. Things have been happening to me.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve been having dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“Inappropriate dreams.”

Natalie sighed. “Could you be a smidge more specific?”

Jack pursed his lips. “They started once Caroline arrived on the base. They haven’t happened all that often but when they have – they’ve been very graphic.”

She tried not to smile. “You mean sex dreams?”

He didn’t return her grin. “Yes. And in all of them she looks like she did before.”

“Like what?”

“A healthy weight. A smiling face. No scars or broken bones.” He closed his eyes, envisioning her as he did in his sleep. “And with that gorgeous hair.”

“What’s the problem? Do you think that means something about how you feel about her appearance now?”

“She’s beautiful,” Jack said instantly. “She’s always been beautiful.”

“What else bothers you about them?”

“They’re not healthy. They sometimes become disturbing. Harmful.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Some of them have been terrible.”

Natalie tented her fingers on her desk. “Tell me about them.”

He finally had her attention. Maybe she thought he’d been messing around before. “The first one started out safe enough, like those dreams I told you about before. When she would come to me at night. But by the end of it I was hurting her.” Jack took another deep breath. “I thought maybe it was because I was angry with her because she’d just arrived and had acted so terribly toward me. But I’ve had more dreams, worse than that one. Most of them have been harmless, but a few of them-” He wrung his hands.

“They bother you,” Natalie said.

Jack took another shaky breath, trapped within the kind of embarrassment and agony he didn’t care to show to anyone. “I can’t control them. I do things to her, Natalie. Appalling, unscrupulous things. Treating her like some plaything. Like a piece of trash, really.” He rubbed his palm back and forth on the armrest to try to calm himself. “In at least one of them I have very clearly damaged her emotionally and forced her to do things she didn’t want to do. Punished her. And last night-”

“What happened last night?”

“I had a dream that I coerced her in her apartment.” Jack leaned back in his chair. “It was almost like I – it came very close to sexual assault. She let it be known that she didn’t want to do it. And what she thought of me after the fact.”

His therapist was silent. Excruciatingly silent. Jesus Christ, she’d finally figured out how fucked up he really was.

“I’m an awful person,” he whispered. “What’s wrong with me?”

She fiddled with her pen and looked at Jack. “Commander, I don’t want to get too personal, but did any of this mirror anything the two of you have done before?”

That was
way
too personal. “We had an adventurous sex life.”

“Any fantasies involving dubious consent or rape?”

“Not really. I mean, we-” He had to be careful with this one. “We did some kinky stuff. But it always involved enthusiastic consent.”

“I believe you. Go on.”

He didn’t really want to, but whatever. Maybe expressing things out loud would help cleanse his soul. “There were parallels. But I would never – we never did anything close to what I did in the dreams. I can tell the difference between passion and pain. I’m not that heartless. Neither one of us was into sadism or masochism.”

“Why is this really bothering you?”

He’d made so many mistakes. Done so many horrible things. Over the course of his entire life, not just in the past few years. “I treated her like I treated the women before her,” Jack said. “Like she meant nothing. Except it was worse. Much worse.”

“Have you ever forced yourself on a woman before?”

“No.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe. I don’t know anymore.”

“How many of these dreams have you had?”

“A few,” Jack said. “I’ve told you about the two that were the worst.”

“Any other dreams beyond that?”

He wasn’t going to elaborate. A simple one word answer would do, for the most part. “Yes,” he said. “But those have been normal, relatively speaking.”

“So it hasn’t been that often.”

“No,” he said. “Often enough, though.”

“They make you feel bad, right?”

Couldn’t she tell? “Just a little.”

“May I ask you another personal question, sir?”

Jack let a tiny smile slip free. “You don’t have to keep calling me
sir
, Natalie.”

“I like to occasionally remind myself that I’m treating someone who’s more important than me.”

“That’s not how I’d describe it.”

Natalie waved her hand at him. “Whatever. May I ask it?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you treat Caroline like the other women? What made her different?”

“At first I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I’ve tried to figure it out. I talked to her that first night and thought she was the most amazing person I’d ever met. Good and kind and thoughtful. And funny too. She was still dealing with her husband’s death. I probably could have exploited that.”

“But you didn’t.”

Dear God, he’d considered it. So many times. Those first few months when he’d jerked himself off, imagining he was inside her. Wondering how he could get her into bed sooner. “I didn’t. I wanted her to like me. To want to be with me someday.” Jack chuckled at himself. “I sound like some gangly adolescent boy mooning over his dream girl, don’t I?”

“I think it’s quite charming,” Natalie said.

Her words didn’t stop him from feeling silly about it. Or guilty. He wasn’t sure anymore. “I wanted her to spend time with me because of who I was. Not because of money or power or anything else. I never felt like those other women were with me because they genuinely liked me. But Caroline did. I didn’t want to take advantage of that. It seemed cruel. I did want her, very badly. But I knew if I pushed too fast I’d wreck my chances.”

“So you changed for her.”

The puzzle pieces shifted into place. “I guess I did.”

Natalie’s smile was just a bit too self-satisfied. “About time you finally figured it out.”

Goddammit. She was right. “When I was around Caroline, I felt good about myself. I tried not to lie to her about who I was, I swear I didn’t. But it was hard. I knew she’d never been with a man like me before.”

“What do you mean?”

Like Dr. Haddad didn’t know. “Shallow, ruthless, cruel.”

“Perhaps you should try to be a little less negative for the sake of this conversation.”

Natalie might have tried to hide her eye roll, but Jack caught it. “Why should I?” he asked. “It’s the truth. She knew how I’d made my money, how I’d used people. Her first husband was nothing like that. He was a decent person.”

“And you weren’t?”

“Not until I met her,” he said quietly. “She saw beyond my past. But now when she looks at me, she knows it was all a façade. I really am the horrible person I tried to convince her I wasn’t. She knows the truth.”

“Jack, you’re not a bad person.”

He swallowed the bitterness in his throat. “That’s what Caroline said when we were first getting to know each other.”

“She’s right.”

“I disagree.”

Natalie shoved the pen in her desk. That was a new move. “Why are you here?”

“What?”

“At this base. Leading this rebellion, insurgence, underground movement, whatever you want to call it. Why are you here?”

“Because of her,” Jack whispered. “I had an obligation to her. I felt-”

“Oh, bullshit,” she snapped. “I’m willing to grant you a little leeway but this isn’t just about Caroline. Why are you here? Why did you get involved?”

“My wife forced my hand when she showed me all the classified documents she’d obtained.”

She sniffed loudly. “Again with the Caroline kick. Get off that for a minute. Would you be here if she hadn’t prodded you?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Probably not.”

She pressed on. “Do you consider yourself patriotic?”

“Of course.”

“Why’d you run for office?”

“I wanted to give back to the country that gave me so much.”

“In what sense?”

“I benefited tremendously from our economic system. Financially, personally. I wanted to make sure others had the same opportunities.”

“You answered that question without hesitation.”

“Campaign programming,” Jack mumbled.

“You don’t think Santos shares your values?”

Was that meant to be rhetorical? “What do you think?”

“I think he’s a megalomaniac hell bent on totalitarian rule.”

A quite succinct and accurate description. “Not very free market or capitalist, is it?” he asked.

“Probably not.” Natalie stared at him. “You really think this is all about Caroline?”