Little beginnings sometimes have great endings. – Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography

I would tell you that I won’t rest until I’ve knocked him out of commission, but that’s not really true. I have confidence in you – you’ll manage it for me. – Briel handing off the baton to Jase

“That phone call to Amélie was ingenious, by the way,” Briel informed Jase. Even a month after her ordeal, Briel continued to learn new details about how her three best friends had managed to rescue her.

“Well, I can't take too much credit. It was, as with most of our plan, Nick's idea,” Jase shrugged dismissively. “When he realized that Liam had been monitoring your conversations, Nick turned the tables. He planted a virus back on Liam's computer and monitored Liam's conversations with Henry and Amélie. That's how he figured out the Millers needed to move and decided to go after Amélie. I just knew the best means for affecting her.”

Briel smiled contentedly. “Yeah, he is pretty amazing.”

“He's lying anyway,” Nick accused, standing to his feet and heading out of the cabin without explanation. “The whole thing was his idea.”

Jase, running his finger casually along the arm of the chair, adopted a disinterested tone. “So, what are you going to do?” he questioned curiously. “I don't see you retiring to a tropical island just yet.”

Briel laughed in response; she laughed much more often and more freely these days than she ever had, but the ring on her finger still sometimes weighed heavily on her mind. She did not want to enter a lifelong commitment with too much levity, even if Nick kept her in constant fits of laughter. “The Miller's had to move, remember? Both Liam and Henry had pinpointed their location. We live at the North Pole now.”

“Québec is not the North Pole. Besides, you're avoiding my question. Are you planning on staying home and playing with infants or what?” Jase stared at her incredulously, almost looking nauseated at the thought.

“Not yet,” she returned coyly. “Nick can find a job anywhere, and I’ve put feelers out with the CIA. They could send me on an overseas assignment that would keep Liam off my trail for a while. Besides, you know I can't retire until Liam is captured.” A seriousness temporarily overcame her high spirits, but Briel quickly shook it off.

“And Nick's okay with all this?” Jase still seemed confused over the mechanics of her relationship with Nick. Not that she had figured out all the answers, but she knew that Nick would somehow work it out to her benefit.

“Nick will do whatever it takes to keep me safe. You can understand that, I know.” Briel pierced Jase with her gaze and willed him to accept her assertion. Though his face twisted for an instant, the look morphed into one of curiosity tinged with some kind of sadness.

“How did this happen, Briel? I mean, you and Nick.”

Briel heard the melancholy color to his tone but ignored it, assuming that he would deny its presence anyway. “Are you hoping you don't catch it?” she teased, hoping to draw him out into a plain question. Unable to completely disregard Nessa's desires, Briel had begun to hope that Jase would fully engage in their relationship. Still, the nature of their profession complicated all matters emotional, and Briel knew that Jase had to protect himself from weakness.

“Actually,” he interrupted her thoughts. “I wondered how you knew about Nick. Did you meet him and just know? Or was there something else?”

Briel knew that Jase had yet to fully evict Felicity from his thoughts, that his incertitude about Felicity may have prevented his pursuing other options, but Briel knew that Felicity would not budge in her conviction.

“I would say first of all, maybe you have overplayed romance in its role of giving you companionship.”

Jase scoffed. “Hardly seems accurate coming from you right now.”

“Nick and I…” Briel chewed her lip. “Yes, it is very romantic.” She grinned. “But I can honestly tell you that the most important relationship I have had in my adult life was with Nessa. Her friendship brought me out of my cage.”

“And secondly?” Jase's openness surprised Briel, and she stared at him for a moment, unwilling to say what he needed to hear. Finally, though she knew the words would hurt him, she believed he needed to hear them.

“Secondly,” she turned to face him, gazing unwaveringly but sympathetically into his eyes. “You can’t have that kind of relationship right now.”

Jase glared at her with injury more than anger.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he huffed.

“If you want that kind of relationship, people have to trust you. And if you want people to trust you, you have to invest in them. Prove that you love them as much as you love yourself. I’ve seen hints,” Briel smiled gently, “but they are just a brushstroke in a confusing piece of art.”

Despite the harshness of her sentiment, Jase adopted merely a thoughtful expression, not the hurt Briel had foreseen. “Thanks for your honesty, Briel. Believe it or not, I think that answers my question.”

As she thought the thought, Briel shook her head in disbelief that she could even think it. Still, she knew as she spoke that she meant what she said. “You're my friend, Jase. It's taken me a long time to be able to say that,” she admitted candidly, “but it's true now.” Reaching toward him, she clasped his hand in affection. “I sincerely hope you can find as much satisfaction in your life as I have.”

Jase smiled a sad smile. “You're kind, Briel, but I don't think I foresee that future for me. I was sabotaged before I began.”

“I don't think you've been sabotaged. I think you're just deceived.” Even if he didn't realize it yet, he had found his path, at least as far as Briel could infer.

Jase's melancholy transformed into a kind of strange mirth, and he squeezed the hand that he held. “At least I know I'll always have an honest friend.”

Despite herself, Briel laughed at the backwards compliment. “That is very true. I am your friend. And I'm certainly not afraid to slap you in the face with reality.”

As Nick stepped back into the room, The fireplace roared, and the mid-spring cold effused through the interior, and all the light in the house withdrew into warm glowing pools. Jase nodded toward Nick, murmuring to Briel in a low voice. “Looks like you’ve found the perfect climate after all this time.”

Briel guffawed. “You know, that was the stupidest code language. We were basically playing ‘hotter and colder’ with spy words.”

“It was pretty dumb. And you know I was a jerk to insult you back in Phoenix.”

“Once I saw you in Banff, I wrote it off as insanity. You were pathetically desperate, and you lashed out like a child because you knew I wouldn’t really hurt you. Though I thought about it when I found out Nick knew about ‘the Code’ when you wouldn’t tell me.”

Confused, Jase shook his head. “You didn’t know what ‘the Code’ was?”

“How could I? You never told me. You and Terrence just threw it around like some mysterious magic word.”

A huge grin splashed across Jase’s face. “I had no idea. That must have driven you crazy!”

“Remember that whole thing about knowing I wouldn’t hurt you?”

Jase raised his hands. “Okay, okay…I guess I never realized I needed to explain to you. I mean, we had Lili.”

For a second, sentimentality threatened to wash over Briel, especially when she recognized the affectionate expression on Jase’s face.

“Ha. Yeah. I guess we had Lili.”

Just then, Nick finished crossing to them. Fortunately, Briel's arm had completed its healing the week before, because Nick grabbed her up off of the floor and nearly crushed every bone that his arms touched – and some they didn't.

“You are out of control, Nick.” Briel laughed at the idea of Nick's marrying any other woman, because no one else could survive his hugs.

“Well, I came to warn you.” This time he glanced at Jase. “My sister just returned from town, and I don’t think anyone is ready for that meeting.”

“Uh, yeah. I should go.” Jase's face fell again, and even in her joy, Briel felt a twinge of remorse for his unhappiness. “Congratulations,” he continued, rising to leave.

“Say hello to Nessa for me. She's welcome to come visit. I don't leave on assignment until two months after the wedding, so that gives her plenty of time to visit. No excuses.”

“If I see her, I'll tell her,” he promised.

“I thought you saw her every day?” Briel worried. Had something occurred in the month since they had returned from France? Briel had opened the front door to see Jase out, and she paused and looked back to ascertain his meaning.

“Well,” he awkwardly avoided Briel's eyes. “I've been out of town for a while, but I should see her when I get back to Boston.”

Briel would have accused him of some equivocation, but since he knew that the team had uprooted to Boston, he seemed at least to have kept tabs on them.

“Um, okay. I really miss her, though.”

“I'm sure she misses you, too. I promise, I'll let her know next time I talk to her.” With those words, Jase Hamilton smiled at Nick and Briel and turned away from them both, disappearing into the forest that abutted and enveloped the Miller property.

“What is it?” Nick asked immediately when Jase had disappeared into the trees.

“You know, sometimes that's really annoying,” came Briel's response. How could he always tell when something bothered her?

“What?” Nick laughed. “That I'm so irresistible?” He wrapped both arms around her and kissed along her cheek until he reached her lips. For one moment, Briel stood immobilized, but when her mind kicked in, she pushed him away.

“Be serious!” she commanded.

“Fine,” he acceded, grabbing her hand. “I seriously want to know what's wrong.”

“Well...You know Nessa is my closest friend.”

“Of course. She's your only friend outside my family,” he smirked at her lest she resent his teasing jab.

“My point is,” Briel pressed on with her concern, “that Jase is an idiot. For some reason he hasn't seen her for the last month. Is he blind or just heartless?”

With this, Nick yanked on her hand and dragged her to a dining chair. Pulling her down to sit astride him, he wrapped his arms around her waist. She encircled his neck with her own arms.

“He's neither one,” Nick assured her, gazing deeply into her eyes with a look of comfort. “He's afraid.”

This simple statement from Nick overthrew Briel's working paradigm of Jase Hamilton. In truth, she could have imagined several motives for Jase's bizarre behavior, but fear had never factored into her calculations - not for a man like Jase. The idea seemed completely unfathomable to Briel.

“What's he afraid of?”

“Do you remember how strongly you resisted me?” Nick queried.

A shrug of her shoulders offered tacit acquiescence.

“Well, you said yourself that you were afraid that you couldn't do your job right if you allowed this kind of vulnerability.”

“Okay, so you think Jase is afraid to be vulnerable?” The explanation fell short in Briel's mind.

“Even more so than you were. Imagine that you're a man who has spent his life as a chameleon, building an impenetrable armor. Somewhere inside, you think you're a good guy, but you've had to play so many roles that crossed the boundaries of your moral constructs that you're not sure. So, you wipe your conscience clean, and you lock your emotions in a box.”

“I can see all of that. So, then, if he's amoral, why avoid Nessa? Not that I want him too, but an amoral man would just take advantage of someone as vulnerable as Nessa.”

“He's not amoral. He has suppressed his disgust with himself, white-washed over it, not eradicated it. Nessa convicts him every time he sees her because she is so kind and loving and transparent. She is the opposite of the role he has forced himself to play. If he lets her into his life in any serious way, he knows he will have to choose which side of the fence to inhabit. That's a sacrifice he's not sure how to make.”

“You know, you really are brilliant,” Briel leaned toward Nick, planting a gentle kiss on his lips and then leaning into his chest. Just before he left her field of vision, Briel watched a pleased smile spread across his face.

“Of course I am,” he acknowledged as he pulled her tightly against him. Then leaning down to whisper in her ear, he said, “I chose you.”

Content beyond belief, Briel settled into his arms, allowing herself just a few moments of unrestrained and irrational pleasure. The delusion she had most feared had materialized before her, and Briel could not imagine a more satisfying outcome. Once again, she leaned up and placed her mouth onto his, mindlessly indulging in the warmth of the lips that would be hers for the rest of her life.