Sean was in a frenzy. He was pushing past people, calling attention to himself and ignoring everyone snapping pictures of him. He didn’t seem to care about that. Despite Knight’s clothes, he knew that anyone could tell he was secret service.

  They weren’t supposed to be calling attention to themselves, but he certainly couldn’t tell Sean to slow down.

  “Cooper,” he said into his mic. “What’s the last location?”

  “Gift shop,” she replied immediately. “Next to the Elephants.”

  “Who had eyes on her?”

  “I did… and then I didn’t,” she said.

  Knight swallowed. It wasn’t the time for a reprimand, but if she had just done her job right, Ellie getting lost wouldn’t have happened.

  “Got it,” he said.

  He sped up until he caught up with Sean, who seemed to be quickly walking toward nothing. He put his hand around Sean’s arm to stop him. Sean looked at him over his shoulder, his eyes ablaze, his mouth half-parted. Knight knew that Sean wanted to tear him a new one right then, but they didn’t have time for it.

  He could shout at him after they had found his little sister. “Follow me,” he said, letting go of Sean’s arm.

  Sean hesitated for a second then nodded slightly. Knight hoped that he would do as he was told.

  He couldn’t look back and check on the president’s son right then. The most important person in the world was the president’s daughter. If she was in danger, they were all in danger.

  His agents were talking to the cashier and the other person on the floor. There were a few people still in the gift shop since his agents were waiting to evacuate, but it was clear everyone was on edge.

  Knight let his gaze drift to Sean for a second. He had paled and he looked like he was about to throw up, his gaze darting all over the room at all the families that were there.

  From what was happening, it was clear he couldn’t see anything. Knight pursed his lips as he tried to think about where she would go. She was small and fast, so he didn’t really blame Agent Cooper for it. Children got lost constantly.

  It was almost always nobody’s fault.

  As he tried to think, he caught Sean getting on his hands and knees. It wasn’t dramatic, it was matter-of-fact and probably, all things considered, a good idea.

  After all, neither one of them had the vantage point of a child. Sean had only crawled for a little bit when Knight caught the smirk on his face. He had stopped in front of a rack of clothing and was staring intently at it.

  When their gazes met, Sean nodded slightly at Knight. Knight moved over to where he was, his hands and knees dragging on the tile floor. He could see a small pair of feet with mismatched green and yellow socks.

  “Ellie,” Sean said.

  Knight watched him intently. He was ready to take the clothing rack away and pick her up and drag her back to the car, even if she was kicking and screaming when he did it.

  Sean didn’t seem to want that. He put his hand out to stop Knight from doing anything.

  Knight bit on his lower lip, still on his hands and knees, as he watched Sean. “Gosh,” Sean said. “Where could my sister be?”

  For a second, Knight felt like there was no air left in the room. Everyone had quieted down and he could feel their eyes on him, but especially on Sean.

  Then they heard giggling. Knight let out a sigh of relief as he watched what happened next with some awe. Ellie came out from under the rack, clinging to Sean’s legs when she did so, and giggling as if she had just played the most hilarious trick in the world.

  There was a smile on Sean’s face. Relief had washed over him and he didn’t look like he was going to throw up anymore. Then he got down to Ellie’s level and spoke quietly. “Don’t do that again,” he said. “You worried me.”

  She pouted. “But you weren’t even there.”

  Knight could see Sean’s throat working as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. “I’m here now,” he said, grabbing her and holding her close.

  Sean’s gaze met Knight’s for a long second, until Knight found himself looking away.

  “I’ll handle this,” he said as he got to his feet and straightened up, brushing himself off when he did. He was going to go evacuate the gift shop, talk to his staff and find out what had gone wrong, but mostly, he needed to get away from Sean.

  Because Sean was looking at him like he wanted to kill him and Knight didn’t think he could blame him.

  He was supposed to be helping Sean, not making things harder for him.

  When he tried to meet Sean’s gaze, he wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was talking to his little sister, ignoring everyone around him. Maybe that was for the best, he told himself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was six o’clock and the sun was still in the sky, but at least his sister seemed to have tired out. He was carrying her around as she clung to him. He was tired too, but he had never wanted a nap less.

  If there was anything he had learned from the horrible experience of the day, it was that he couldn’t leave Ellie alone or under anyone else’s supervision.

  He didn’t understand why Knight had insisted he have a nap. Sure, he was tired, and he wanted to get some space away from his sister, but he had thought, mistakenly, that everything was going to be okay.

  Every single scenario kept running through his head. She was only five and if she had managed to outwit a small army of secret service agents, then there wasn’t much hope for her if someone did want to harm her.

  And that wasn’t out of the question. She might have been an innocent child, but she was still the president’s daughter and his father hadn’t exactly been an all-around popular president.

  Being catholic, once divorced and a democrat didn’t make him especially popular with about half the country. Sean had been threatened enough times in his life to know that it was often serious. When it was just about him, he didn’t care.

  He didn’t care much about his own life. He had always thought it was okay, but the thought of dying had never scared him.

  With Ellie, things were different. She deserved to have a life. She deserved to grow up without the scrutiny that had surrounded every single one of his experiences, without the press coverage of every fling and every mistake.

  But for that, she needed to grow up. The thought of something happening to her made him feel nauseous. There was a vague moment when he wondered how pissed his father would be, but it came and went in an instant, almost as if it had stopped mattering the moment it materialized.

  When he was walking toward the car, Knight began to walk next to him. He looked tired, but Sean hadn’t seen him after the scare. He had seen some other agents, but they had mostly left the siblings alone as they went to explore the different animal enclosures and then got ice cream, all before Ellie had fallen asleep on him.

  He had ignored Knight since then and Knight had given him a wide berth, seemingly able to tell that Sean needed some space away from him.

  There was a moment of silence between them as Sean sped up slightly. He didn’t think that he was going to lose Knight or anything like that, but he did hope it would send a message that he wanted to be left alone.

  It did nothing. Knight kept up with him. “Mr. Connor,” he said.

  Sean blinked. He was sure Knight had called him by his first name before, but now he was back to calling him Mr. Connor. His voice was quiet and he wouldn’t meet Sean’s gaze when he looked up at him.

  Sean wanted to be angrier than he was, but he couldn’t find it in himself. “What?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Sean blinked, practically stopping. He hadn’t been expecting Agent Knight to ask him that, and he certainly hadn’t expected it to sound quite that earnest or nice.

  If Sean hadn’t known better, he might have thought that Knight was being nice to him. He did know better, he reminded himself. Agent Knight was never nice to him, not unless he wanted something.

  “Yeah,” Sean replied. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You just—you don’t look fine,” Knight said quietly.

  Sean glared at him. “Do you think that because my dad asked you to stay with me, you get to comment on my appearance all the time?”

  Knight blinked. He looked like he was taken aback by the comment, but at that moment, Sean didn’t care much. He would have had a good brawl with Knight right then and there if he hadn’t been carrying Ellie.

  But he couldn’t, because, for starters, it would have attracted far too much attention. He wasn’t deluded to think he would actually beat Mr. Secret Service in a fight, but he liked to think about landing just one punch on that perfect jaw of his.

  Maybe it would hurt. At least a little.

  Knight sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied. “I wanted you to get some rest and I just—I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think.”

  “You didn’t,” Sean replied quietly. He didn’t want to wake Ellie up and he was sure he was going to start screaming at Knight if he allowed himself to. “I thought she was going to be okay.”

  “I know,” Knight replied. “So did I.”

  “I take my eyes off her for half an hour,” Sean said. “And the moment I wake up, you tell me she’s lost?”

  Knight shook his head. “I thought you’d want to know,” he said. “I would have found her.”

  “Really?” Sean replied, raising his eyebrows. “Because it seems to me like you’re the one who lost her. Tell me, weren’t you getting ready to evacuate the zoo?”

  There was a flash of something in Knight’s face. Sean couldn’t tell what it was, mostly because he had never seen it before. It wasn’t anger. It looked like… embarrassment, almost. Shame.

  Sean sighed. He held Ellie’s head close to him. She wasn’t exactly small and he knew he should not have been carrying her. He was exhausted, but it didn’t matter. He would have carried her until his legs gave out in exchange for the knowledge that she would be okay. He was about to apologize to Knight—he probably shouldn’t have been so hard on him—when he opened his mouth and Knight waved him off.

  “Listen,” Knight said. “If it had come to it, I would have told your father that this was my fault. I didn’t want to—”

  Sean’s mouth dropped open as he stared at Agent Knight. “You think this is about my father?”

  “If—the child is—”

  “The child,” Sean said, his cheeks burning, “is a fucking person. And your people lost her, not me. I don’t care about what you say to my father if that happens, all I care about is finding my sister.”

  “Sean—”

  “Fuck you,” he said. He was vaguely aware that his sister had begun to stir and was opening her eyes. He dropped his voice to a whisper then as he sped up. The car felt like it was too far away and he didn’t know if Knight was actually going to leave him alone. “It’s Mr. Connor.”

  From the corner of his eye, Sean could see Knight as he cast his gaze toward the ground. “Yes, Mr. Connor,” he replied.

  It didn’t feel right, Sean thought, but that didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that things were back the way they were supposed to be.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rocky Knight stared at the popcorn ceiling in his bedroom.

  He had tried, very hard, to fall asleep. But it didn’t matter how many times he closed his eyes or tried to meditate, he knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  Every single time he had practically drifted off to sleep, he had been reminded of his conversation with Sean. Worse than that, he could see Sean’s face, the color in his cheeks, the way his jaw had hung open.

  Regardless of their history, he thought that it might have been the first time he had ever managed to offend Sean Connor.

  And it sucked.

  He could remember the way his blue eyes looked, like he had just been betrayed by Rocky Knight.

  Like he was seeing him for the first time.

  It made him feel like shit. If that was how Sean really saw him, then there might have been less hope for him that he had originally thought.

  He had wanted to help and it seemed like all he had managed to do was upset him. He had been so ready to have Sean fail on him that he hadn’t realized that he was the one in danger of failing Sean.

  And he had done so. Spectacularly.

  As if that wasn’t enough, he had made Sean feel like shit about it. He had never intended to make Sean feel bad, it had just sort of happened. There was one thing to be said for being embarrassed, but to him, it was more than that.

  He was upset. He was angry. With himself, mostly, but a little with Sean, too, though he didn’t know why he was upset with Sean. Sean hadn’t done anything wrong.

  He sighed before he decided that it was time to get out of bed. Maybe a little light cardio would help him get some sleep. He had never been good without sleep.

  He didn’t want to be one of those agents that reached for the gun prematurely, because that kind of thing ruined lives, at the very best.

  He normally only wore a t-shirt and boxers for bed, so all he had to go was get his shorts and throw them off before finding his sneakers. His house was immaculately tidy, but he didn’t know where half his things were. His mother-in-law suite was regularly raided by domestic staff members, and while Knight was gratefully for all their help, he couldn’t help but miss his privacy.

  There was something to be said for that shitty apartment he’d had when he was still in college, the one that smelled funny because it was right next to the dumpster.

  At least there he could do whatever he wanted with his shit and there was no threat of anyone seeing any of his embarrassing things. He didn’t have any embarrassing things anymore, he thought as he laced up his shoes.

  He didn’t have the opportunity to have embarrassing things.

  He didn’t have the opportunity to have an apartment to himself. Maybe that was part of it, maybe he just wasn’t used to embarrassing himself anymore.

  The night had cooled down considerably and he felt a little better the moment he opened the door. He usually ran with his headphones on while he listened to embarrassing indie music, but he wanted to clear his head.

  He was planning to run around the estate and return to his suite in about thirty minutes. He felt better after a little while, his feet hitting the ground quickly and his heartbeat pumping.

  He could feel the sweat dripping down his face and into his mouth, into his eyes. It felt good. It felt better. He wasn’t thinking about anything except his body and the wind against his skin and he was enjoying it so much he practically missed the silhouette sitting next to the lake.

  He knew better than to stop abruptly. If this was an intruder, it didn’t seem like they were actively on the move. He went for his gun before he realized that he didn’t have it on him and he was reaching into an empty pocket instead of his holster.

  He made a show of panting and slowing down. Acting certainly wasn’t required for a secret service agent, but Knight knew from experience that it was a very useful skill to have.

  He turned around and focused on the silhouette. A man, definitely, but he was under the cover of darkness. Worse than that, if he caught Knight looking for him, he might jump into the lake.

  Then Knight might lose him for good. He could easily take a suspect down on foot, but he had yet to chase one in water, and he didn’t want to find out if he was any good at it that night.

  If he was quiet enough, he might have been able to take down the person skulking around the lake. He took a few seconds to assess the situation, and when he was about to pounce, the person turned to look at him over his shoulder and Knight realized, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that it was Sean Connor.

  The president’s fucking son.

  He didn’t look like Sean, though. He was wearing a black shirt that Knight had never seen before and his legs were hanging off the edge and into the lake. His shoulders were slumped forward and his back was curved, which wasn’t at all like him.

  If there was one good thing about Sean, it was his posture.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but he found himself struggling to say anything. He didn’t know what he could say. He wanted to sit down and put his hand on Sean’s shoulder, but he didn’t think Sean would want him to.

  It took him another few seconds to recognize the glass bottle in Sean’s hand. He was partly covering it with his body, but he wasn’t doing a very good job.

  “Hey,” Sean said, setting his gaze on Knight’s face and flashing him a toothy smile. “Sorry.”

  Knight swallowed. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

  “I snuck out,” Sean reply, then giggled. “Through the window.”

  Knight blinked. He had seen Sean drunk before, but he didn’t think he had ever seen him quite as drunk as he looked right then.

  “Okay…”

  “From the second floor,” Sean said, then put a finger to his lips. He looked young right then, almost disturbingly young, with only the outline of his face visible from the moonlight. “You know, there’s a—well, no. I shouldn’t tell you. Because then you’ll tell my dad.”

  “That there’s an easy way to scale down the wall of your room?” Knight asked, smiling despite himself. “Yeah, that’s an open secret, Sea—Mr. Connor.”

  Sean looked at him for what felt like a very long time. “You can call me Sean,” he said after a little while.

  “Okay,” Knight replied. Sean looked like he was about to burst into tears and Knight wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to do. He shifted his weight between his feet and stared as Sean looked away from him.

  “You can stay,” he said. “If you want to.”

  Knight swallowed. He probably should have just walked Sean back to his room and made sure that he was safe there, but Sean didn’t look like he was going to go back to his room even if Knight did his best to put him there.

 

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