“Because we’d only been dating a year. Plus, it was long-distance. And even though we talked about you getting out and us buying a home, nothing was set in stone. I was worried the baby would change things. Maybe make you question us.”
“Never.”
He said it like a vow. Like the idea of questioning anything to do with them was ridiculous.
She nibbled her bottom lip hesitantly. “Howwouldyou have reacted?”
“To the news that you were expecting our baby? A whole human being that was half you and half me, who would bind us together for life and make us a family?” Another darkening of his eyes. “It would have been the best day of my life.”
The old ache returned to her chest.
A deep frown cut into his brow. “When you lost me and the baby…when you were hurting…did you regret us?”
Gosh, that was such a loaded, heavy question. “Honestly? On my darkest days, I wondered if I would have been better off never loving you.”
His jaw clicked, pain skittering over his features before she continued.
“But every time, I always realized the same thing.”
“What?”
“That even though the pain of losing you hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced, I’d do it again and again, just for one more day of loving you.”
His head dropped, his forehead touching hers. “I needed to hear that, Callie. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”
He kissed her, and it felt like every painful bit of their past faded just for a moment.
When he lifted away, she cocked her head. “Dad said you went to him and asked where I was?”
“I did. I didn’t get any information, and he gave me a pretty big black eye for my effort.”
She gasped. “No, he didn’t!”
“He did. My team had just finished debriefing and all that shit after eliminating our target. I got last-minute leave to come home and make things right with you, but I couldn’t find you. So I went to his house, and the second he opened the door, he hit me. Told me to never come back.”
“And you let him.” There was no way her father could have gotten the drop on a man like Lock without him allowing it to happen.
“I deserved it. I deserved worse.” He slipped a lock of hair from her face. “He told me you were gone. That you weren’tcoming back and the damage I’d done couldn’t be reversed. I didn’t understand at the time. I thought after a few months, you’d return.”
She swallowed, thinking about the day he’d broken things off with her. What that period of time must have been like for Lock. “That must have been hard for you, losing meandWinnie. I’m sorry that you lost him. He was a good guy.”
“He was the best guy. I was so angry for so long. I lost him and you in the span of an hour. It was a great motivator for me to find the asshole who killed him and end him.”
“Who was he? The guy who killed Winnie?” She wasn’t sure if she truly wanted to know, but once the question was out, she couldn’t take it back.
“His name was Malone. He was an IT expert in a terrorist organization. An organization my team had been tasked to take down.”
The idea of Lock being involved with such dangerous people made fear curl in her belly. “After killing Winnie, Remi, and Hollie, he must have known you were coming. He would have been prepared.”
Lock frowned. “That’s the thing I always found strange. He was easy to find, and he almost looked surprised when we breached his apartment. Surprised we’d found him or surprised we’d come…I wasn’t sure.”
“Did you question him?”
“He reached for a weapon and a team member eliminated him before he could talk. Kill shot to the head.”
She shuddered at the thought.
Lock ran a soothing finger down her arm. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff.”
