“How do you feel about your relationship with Nikolett?”
“We have no relationship.”
“You do. You have relationships with everyone in your life, even the mailman. But relationships, like love, are a spectrum.”
Eric’s back teeth ached as he clenched his jaw. He closed his eyes, fighting down the frustration and anger caused by Elijah’s annoyingly reasonable tone. He couldn’t throw Juliette’s pet mental health specialist off a cliff because he found the man’s questions irritating. It would only prove Juliette right.
“She is an admiral within the Masters’ Admiralty, correct?”
“Yes.” Eric’s teeth had mostly unclenched.
“And as the fleet admiral, you will have to interact with her. For this reason alone, it’s inaccurate to say you have no relationship. You have to have some sort of relationship with her, even if it’s formal and professional.”
“Okay, fair point.”
“Is that what you want? To create and maintain the emotional distance required for a formal, professional relationship?”
“I don’t need to. She already did that.”
“She created deliberate emotional distance, or she retreated because she was hurt?”
Eric sat up. “Does it matter? One way or another, the space is there.”
“It does matter.” Elijah leaned back on his hands and stuck out his feet, stacking his ankles. “Why does an army retreat?”
Eric took a moment, seeing where this was going, but answered anyway.
“To avoid unacceptable loss of life.”
“Certainly an argument could be made that any loss of life is unacceptable, but yes. Retreat is used to avoid loss. What loss means depends on what one is retreating from. You say it’s strategic, and it can be, but at the end of the day, retreat is about avoiding loss.” Elijah looked at him. “What was Nikolett avoiding losing?”
“Her sanity,” Eric said with a snort.
But Elijah just waited. He’d learned to wait out Eric’s knee-jerk flippant responses. Another highly annoying trait.
The tide was coming in, the sound of the waves louder than it had been when they started their run. Every so often sea spray hit his face, peppering Eric with sharp, salty drops.
“Her heart. She was afraid I’d break her heart.” Eric bent his knees, resting his forearms on them, back hunched. “No, I’m pretty sure I already broke it. Maybe she was avoiding me shredding it past the point of repair.”
“You did this deliberately?”
“Break her heart? No. Be a complete asshole by running hot and cold and then trying to force her to marry someone else so I wouldn’t be tempted to sleep with her again? Yes. That I did deliberately.”
“Why?”
Eric slanted a look at him. “I told you why. And it sounds nuts. I know that.”
“This isn’t a trap. There are no ‘gotchas’ in therapy. It’s just a question.”
“Every woman I’ve ever loved has died because I didn’t protect them.”
“And how does that relate to Nikolett?”
“I already told you this.”
“It bears repeating.
“I love her. I love Nikolett. Actually, I don’t just love her, I’m desperately in love with her in a way I never was with either of my wives.”
