Darkest Before Dawn

“Wow,” she whispered, heat flooding her cheeks, love filling her heart to near bursting.

“It’s a day I’ll carry with me every day for the rest of my life,” he said with utter seriousness. “Because on that day you gave me something very precious, Honor. You gave me yourself, and I take that—will always take that very seriously. I’ll never take it, or you and our child, for granted.”

“I love you,” she said in an aching voice infused with emotion he couldn’t possibly miss.

He kissed her, long and lingering, even as Reece gurgled happily as he kicked and waved his arms in his bouncer. “And I love you, Honor Hancock. Always. Forever.”

She settled more fully into his arms, snuggling into his heat and his strength, her fingers caressing a random pattern over his chest.

“Do you miss them? Do you ever regret not remaining with your team? Walking away and never looking back?”

He pulled back, his expression fierce as he stared intently into her eyes. “No! Never.” He shifted, turning so he could frame her face in his hands. “For more than a decade, Titan was my entire life. My family. Them and the Sinclairs, though I didn’t see them often. But, Honor, you are my family now. My entire world. You and our son. My sole reasons for living. You give me purpose. A reason for being, a reason to truly live. I never had that before. My missions were just jobs performed by rote. My heart and soul were never in them. I was resigned to the reason for my existence. I never had anything for myself. Didn’t want it. Until you. Do I miss that life? Hell no. I can’t imagine my life without you and our child. I don’t want to imagine it, which is why I will go to any lengths to protect you, to ensure that neither of you ever come to harm. Because without you, I have and am nothing. You are everything to me.”

Tears flooded her eyes as she stared at her husband in shock. Guy wasn’t a wordy man. Nor was he what anyone would call poetic or smooth in his speech. He was brusque, even abrupt at times, though she never took it personally. More often than not, he was just silent. His impassioned statement was so uncharacteristic and sincere that she felt each and every word in the deepest recesses of her soul.

She had no reply. What could she say in response to the most beautiful, eloquent words she’d ever heard in her life? And they were all for her. He loved her.

Tears streamed silently down her cheeks. Even if she had the appropriate words to offer, she’d never be able to speak around the knot in her throat.

“Don’t cry,” Guy said desperately, his expression one of sheer male panic.

If she weren’t so overcome by the moment she would have laughed, because Guy couldn’t stand to see her cry. He’d once confided in her that it made him feel utterly helpless, and for a man like Guy to admit to feeling helpless . . . well, that was huge.

Feeling a change in topic was desperately needed, and she still needed a little more time until she unveiled her anniversary present, she grabbed onto the first thing that entered her mind. Guy’s upcoming trip to the Middle East.

“Are you still planning to leave in two weeks?” she asked lightly, keeping a tight rein on the emotion swelling her throat.

His lips immediately turned down. He hated leaving Honor and Reece, but the alternative was Honor going herself, and he’d made himself clear, that over his dead body, would she ever return there.

Despite the majority of ANE being dismantled and left powerless, Honor was still a target to many who sympathized with ANE or were simply offended that a mere woman managed to topple an entire terrorist group. Never mind that she hadn’t done anything at all. Titan and KGI along with help from a CIA operative had headed up that operation.

Not even in the States was she safe, because the remnants of the ANE group would love nothing better than to assassinate her. And other sympathizers, terrorists, would delight in being the ones to take her out. It would be a badge of honor and they would be heralded as heroes to those who opposed everything Honor stood for. Her courage. Defiance. A woman surviving and coming out the victor when most would have died.

Honor had kept the vow she’d made to herself that ANE would not make her quit her relief efforts. Hancock had been equally insistent that she never set foot in the region ever again, and he’d been fully backed by Titan. Or what used to be Titan. Conrad, Cope, Viper and Henderson. Sadness still gripped her heart over the loss of Mojo. She hated that even one of Guy’s men had been killed because of her.

So a compromise had been reached and it had worked surprisingly well for all parties involved. Honor founded a charitable foundation that provided relief efforts to villages desperately in need, places that no one else would venture into. And the former members of Titan found that retirement wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, so they recruited new members to replace Mojo and Hancock as well as increasing their numbers, but they didn’t take missions. They didn’t act as Titan had in the past. Their one and only objective was to provide protection for Honor’s relief center and its workers. They even helped train local men and women in the villages so they weren’t so vulnerable to attack. It was an arrangement that suited all parties involved.

But Honor knew Guy, and she knew he would never be happy simply doing nothing but staying home with his wife and child twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year. So he acted as Honor’s emissary and made three or four trips to the relief centers a year to ensure that the doctors, nurses and volunteers had all the necessary equipment they needed, though Honor knew he wanted and needed that time to reconnect with the men who’d been brothers to him for over a decade.