The sadness and bitterness in her voice made him realize that she wasn’t just talking about him. When their marriage had been destroyed, she’d lost picket fences and tricycles in more ways than one. Complications from the miscarriage had resulted in Kate’s not being able to have children. He didn’t even want to think about what he’d said when she told him.
“Karma.”
“God, Kate, I’m so sorry. I wish I’d been there for you.”
She must have realized he meant it. Her eyes filled with tears, making his chest feel as if he’d just swallowed a bottle of acid. “Me, too.”
He would have given anything to put his arms around her, tell her he loved her, and try to take her pain away, but he knew she didn’t want that from him. She didn’t want anything from him.
But he intended to change that. He couldn’t go back in time and change what happened, he could only go forward. He would have to prove to her that it could be different. Thathewas different.
He’d fought his whole life with the odds stacked against him; he would do it again. Except that nothing had ever mattered more. Not getting out of those foster homes, not becoming a SEAL, not Nine, not anything.
This was one fight he had no intention of losing. He would do whatever it took to get her back. Even if it meant that he had to fight dirty.
Good thing he was good at that.
For the first time in a long time, the darkness that followed him felt a little lighter.
• • •
Kate got angrier and angrier as the flight went on. Colt didn’t get to do this. He didn’t get to waltz back into her life when she’d finally picked up the pieces and say he was “sorry.”Sorrywasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. And he sure as hell didn’t get to play on her heartstrings by offering up false fantasies.“What if I want to be that guy?”He’d had a chance, and as he said, he’d fucked up. There weren’t any do-overs for the suffering and heartache he’d put her through.
What were they supposed to do? Try again and pretend none of it ever happened?
What had really changed other than now he knew she hadn’t been lying about an affair? He was still ready to believe the worst of her. Just a couple of weeks ago he’d seen her go into a hotel room and accused her of cheating on her then fiancé.
She didn’t want to think about how that had ended up. She’d been doing far too much thinking about that kiss as it was.
But the sexual attraction between them had never been the problem. Clearly. Even now just sitting next to him—when he looked like hell—she could feel the quickening of her heart, the rush of blood through her limbs, the prickle of her nerve endings on suddenlysensitive skin, and the feeling that her senses were tuned to every small sound, movement, or shift in the air between them. The heat that radiated from his body didn’t help. He was crowding her. His shoulders were too broad—they kept touching her—and he was sucking up all the air!
She’d been shocked when she’d looked up and seen him talking to the flight attendant. She’d never seen him look so ragged—even after a long op in whatever not-so-lovely part of the world they’d sent Team Nine to. He looked like a man being eaten away by guilt and cheap whiskey.
Three years ago, after he’d said all those horrible things and left her in the hospital, she might have enjoyed it. She’d hated him then. Or thought she had. But now...
Now she just felt sorry for him. He’d sabotaged his happiness because he thought that was his lot in life. Her problem had been not understanding that, and letting her happiness get caught up along with his.
Colt had been dealt a bad hand, and he was determined to play it out that way. No matter how much she’d loved him.
Loved. In the past, she reminded herself. The past month of having him in her life again had been difficult, wreaking havoc on her objectivity and hard-won recovery.
That kiss in the elevator was proof of just how much havoc. Undeniably, no one had ever made her as hot as her ex-husband, and maybe no one ever would. She could accept that. But it wasn’t a substitute for love, respect, and trust. Without those, all she had was a spectacular—really spectacular—climax and lots of misery.
No thanks. Been there, done that.
She wasn’t going to let him push his way back into her life and do it all over again.“What if I want to be that guy?”
Every time she heard his voice in her head, and she felt the accompanying tug in her chest—no matter how small—it made her even more furious. She wanted to scream, yell, and rail at him like a madwoman. He didn’t get to be that guy. He’d has his chance. He’d done this to them, not her.
Keeping that anger contained during the flight took up every bit of the good and proper manners that had been drummed into her since childhood. By the time they’d landed, picked up the car, and driven to the address she’d connected with Travis’s ex-girlfriend, Kate was close to violence.She, who’d never struck anyone in her life, wanted to sink her fist hard into that perfect washboard stomach—what almost-forty-year-old guy had a body like that anyway?—and return the sucker punch that he’d just given her.
That guy... Her fists clenched. That guy wasn’t him and it never would be.
She got out of the car and slammed the door, maybe a little harder than she intended. She just wanted to get this over with. The sooner they talked to Joelle—Travis’s ex—the sooner she could get rid of her unwanted bodyguard.
“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll let you know if I need you.”
His eyes narrowed to green—piercing green—slits. Those stupid nerve endings were buzzing again. “Not a chance. And you need me whether you like it or not.”
