The guards stepped forward again, looking at me apologetically. “No, Agent Taylor. We have orders to escort you to the airport, not Miss Spencer. You’ve been reassigned,” the same guy stated. He held out an iPad, nodding down for me to take it.

I frowned, taking it from his hands and looking down at the official transfer request document that was signed and stamped by the President himself at the bottom. Front Line, LA office, immediate start.

My heart was crashing in my chest. “I don’t understand. Why the hell would I be getting a transfer? I just spoke to the President like an hour ago!” I countered, confused.

“Ashton,” I heard Anna say from behind me. I turned quickly, seeing her standing there, just watching me. “You’ve been transferred, because I asked for it,” she explained, looking at me with her face stern and cold, showing no emotion whatsoever. My blood seemed to turn to ice in my veins. She’d asked for me to be transferred? I turned back to the guy and handed him the iPad before slamming the door in his face and turning to Anna.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, stepping closer to her.

She stepped back, keeping the distance between us. “I’m sorry, but I can’t have you here. You complicate things, you make everything harder for me, and I just can’t cope with anything else. It’s best for me if you just leave. You and I have been in this little protected bubble for the last couple of days, and I thought nothing could come along and burst it, but I was wrong. You and I just can’t work, so it’s best that it stops now. That way, I can just get on with things and learn how to deal with it on my own. I’m sorry, but you have to go.” Her voice didn’t waver once. I looked into her eyes, and my heart started to break, they were the cold, heartless eyes that she used to have when I first started my assignment.

I gulped, swallowing my panic. “What?”

“I have too much going on right now, I can’t cope with having you here too and knowing that you think you’re in love with me,” she replied matter-of-factly, almost as if we were discussing the weather.

“That I think I’m in love with you? I don’t think it, I am freaking in love with you!” I corrected, shaking my head incredulously.

She frowned. “Look, I have more important things to deal with than some agent trying to seduce me while I’m upset and vulnerable. It’s best for me if you just leave so I can get on with it and deal with this all in my own way without you getting in the way all the time.”

“What the?” I gasped. “You actually think that I preyed on your vulnerability so that I could seduce you?”

She ground her teeth and shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant, it came out wrong,” she muttered.

“Then what?”

She huffed in frustration. “There are lots of things. Carter being out, the fact that I still love Jack, the way you lied to me all this time about Carter’s letters and the reason you’re assigned to me. I have so much going on in my head that it feels like it’s going to explode, and most of them are because of you!”

Jack. I knew that Jack would come up at some point; for the last two days I had been waiting for her to freak out about the how close we’d gotten. “Anna, I know you love Jack and that’ll never change, but Jack’s not here anymore, I am. How the hell am I supposed to compete with a guy that’s not here anymore?” I asked desperately. “Look, I don’t need to complicate things for you. We’ll work all of this stuff out together,” I replied, stepping closer to her again. “As for the letters, I had no choice. It wasn’t up to me.”

She shook her head fiercely. “I just need to get back to basics, and I can’t do that with you here. You have to leave.” When she said it, she looked straight into my eyes. I could see she wasn’t lying, her face betrayed nothing.

“You love me too though, I know you do,” I said confidently, raising my chin challengingly.

Her eye twitched. “No,” she whispered. “I care about you a lot, I really do, but it’s not love. When you told me you loved me, I just said it back because I knew that’s what you wanted to hear. But it’s not true. Yes, I care about you, but my heart will always belong to Jack. I’m sorry. I was happy pretending otherwise, but now with this Carter stuff, I don’t have the energy to keep up this act. I just don’t have the mental strength to have you here. You’ll get over it. A few cold beers and one night stands and you’ll be right as rain again. You deserve better than me anyway.”

It was like she’d reached into my chest, ripped out my heart and showed it to me. My blood ran cold. Her hard, resigned eyes never wavered as she spoke. “You’re lying. I don’t know why, but you are. You love me, I know you do!” I couldn’t let her do this; I’d show her that she loved me. Before she had a chance to answer or react, I stepped forward, pressed my body to hers and kissed her. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that she wasn’t kissing me back. I pulled back. Her eyes were still hard, her jaw tight.

“Finished?” she snapped angrily.

My mouth fell open in shock as she shoved me away from her. “Anna, don’t,” I whispered, now terrified because she looked so serious and resigned. She really did want me to leave. “We’ll work this out. If you’re not ready for a relationship, then I’ll wait. We can go back to just being friends. Just please don’t send me away with Carter on the loose,” I begged.