“God, I can’t believe I am doing this, I promised myself that I wouldn’t, but…shit. Look, I’m asking you to choose me, too,” she said, and the part of him that wasn’t furious with her, with himself, admired the way she lifted her chin, and how she was holding on to her pride. “Not necessarily now, but at some point.”
He felt the ground rock and sway. Didn’t he make a choice every time he flew into a disaster zone? He chose the people having the worst day of their lives. He chose the kid trapped beneath a slab of concrete. The mother bleeding out. Communities that risked having their population devastated if surgical teams didn’t land fast enough.
How could he choose her, choose his own happiness, above what they needed? Because hewantedto choose her, more than he wanted to keep breathing, he lashed out again. Because he had to create distance between them, a space that couldn’t be easily breached.
He. Had. To. Go.
“We’ve only been together a short time, Wren, and you are already making demands and expecting things from me I’m not ready to give. It reminds me of how my father tried to control me, and I don’t like it. Neither will it work.”
It was another verbal punch, and this landed as hard as the one before. So hard in fact, that Wren gripped the edge of the bedside table. “Dane, come on…”
He didn’t back down.Couldn’t.“This is exactly what the General does. He exerts pressure and lays on the guilt. It’s emotional manipulation, Wren. I don’t accept it from him, and I sure as hell won’t accept it from you.”
Her breath caught. “That’s not what I was trying to do. I amnotyour father,” she said, her voice shaking. “And may I point out that you were demanding answers from me about Alex not fifteen minutes ago.”
That was a fair point, but not one he could consider now. Then Wren spoke again. “Forget trying to score points off each other, I’m not going waste time on that now. The point I’m trying to make is that I am someone who thinks that, maybe, I love you enough to want a life with you. And I’d like to have a quick chat about how we go forward.”
Love? Please!
The word felt like a trap. His father was supposed to love him, but his love had been the definition of toxic. Clare promised to love him but barely managed to stay married to him for a year before starting an affair. Love meant making promises that couldn’t be kept. The more you loved, the more you opened yourself to obliteration when it walked out on you.
Maybe there had been a few minutes, here and there, with Wren that had made him think he could handle loving her, being loved by her. But now he realized that he was better, smarter than that. So was she.
“You obviously have no idea what love is, because it sure as hell doesn’t come with ultimatums.”
She started to respond, then pulled her words. She shook her head, her face now bone- white and her lips bloodless. “I’m not going to beg you to choose me, Dane. I promised myself I’d never do that again.”
She pushed her fingers into her forehead. “This isn’t about you leaving, it’s not even about how long you’ll be away. It’s about you putting me, if not first, then on an equal footing with your work. This is about respecting me enough to take five minutes, ten, fifteen, mainly because I’ve never been in this position before, to hug me, to reassure me, to tell me that we’ll be okay. But you couldn’t do that, so maybe all I am is a summer fling.”
No, come on! That wasn’t fair. He was about to protest when his phone buzzed with another update.Could they not give him five fucking minutes?
“I’m not going beg you to stay, I now know you’ll always choose a crisis above me. I get that you feel you have to … it’s who you are, and this is what you excel at. But I can’t be with you knowing that work will always take priority over me and my feelings. I lived that life as a child, and I won’t do it as an adult. I love you, but I love me, too.”
He wanted to say something. To fix the mess he’d made. How could he explain that two things could be true at the same time? To tell her she was enough, that he was sorry, and that she was everything. But he was also terrified by the risks, because loving her meant putting everything on the line, and he didn’t think he could survive losing her. Shit, hehadto leave. His phone pinged again, and he looked down. It was another SITREP. More casualties.
Reality wasn’t standing here with her; reality was a devastated region in Kashmir, remote and under-resourced. Dane turned away because if he kept looking at her, he might give in to temptation and stay.
If he stayed, people would die. And he was irrevocably out of time.
So he grabbed his suitcase and left without touching her, walking out of the room without saying goodbye. He couldn’t speak; hell, he could barely see out of his burning eyes, conscious of the fierce ache in his chest.
Had he broken something he might never be able to fix?
* * *
Wren’s legs dissolved, and her butt hit the floor. This couldn’t be happening, could it? But, judging by the ice in her veins and the prickles of frost on her skin, it very much was. Dane had left.
Of course, he had; it was what the men she loved did.
For a second, Wren couldn’t breathe. Her pulse stuttered, her body tensed, and a massive glacier rolled right over her. A low, mournful voice, rising from the depth of her soul, whispered the words, somehow managing to be as loud as a shout…Here it is again. The leaving had arrived. He’d chosen, without any discussion, something else. His something else wasn’t as shiny as her dad’s had been, but it was more urgent, more important. Something better. More worthy.
It didn’t make a lick of difference that Dane’s choice was worthier; he was still gone. It still hurt the way a lightning strike would.
Her father’s face flashed in her mind, smiling that distracted smile as he packed a duffel bag, handing out excuses that got vaguer with every departure. Eventually, he didn’t even bother to explain; he simply walked and didn’t look back. Then Wren remembered Alex laughing, telling her he’d met someone, going into vivid detail about how amazing, talented, incredible Jess was and how lucky he was to have met her, to be her man.
Every man she’d ever loved and trusted—and shit, she did love Dane—failed to talk to her about … well,her.Her feelings and her opinions were never considered.
And now Dane—steady, solid, maddeningly calm Dane—had done the same.
