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“It means I want my wife back.”

“But,” she whispers, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. “I cheated on you…”

I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Pip,” I scold as I reach out and pull her back into my arms. She struggles for just a second before her body practically melts into mine and she meets my gaze. “You know you’re lying. I know you’re lying. So let’s just stop and you tell me the real reason you left me back then.”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“I’m getting real damn tired of that word,” I growl, remembering how much it annoyed me last night as she refused to give me what I wanted. Scoffing, she slips out of my hands again and tries to push past me. With a sigh, I stop her and she glares up at me.

“Let me go. I have to get to work.”

“As soon as you tell me why you left.”

She rolls her eyes in mock annoyance but I can see the fear underneath the attitude. “What does it matter now?”

“Fine,” I snap, her words grating on my nerves. What does it matter? It’s fucking everything and I don’t know why she can’t see that. “I’ll make you a deal. You look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me anymore and I’ll never bother you again.”

Her gaze slams into mine and she doesn’t need to say anything. The nineteen-year-old girl I left behind when I deployed is staring back at me, love shining in her eyes as she shakes her head again.

“Just stop, Wyatt. The rocks you’re poking under are not pretty.”

I scoff as I pull her back into my arms. She can run as many times as she likes because I’m never going to make the same mistake I did ten years ago. This time and all the times in the future when she runs, I’ll be right behind her.

“I didn’t sign up for pretty, Pip. I signed up for forever, for better or worse. So, one way or another, you are going to tell me what happened back then and when you do, we are going to figure out how we can move forward from here.”

“It’s not that easy, Wyatt,” she whispers and I get the feeling that she is talking about more than just us. Whatever split us up ten years ago, whatever drove her away from me, is big and our biggest hurdle is going to be getting Piper to open up to me again.

“No one said it was going to be easy but I’ll be damned if I let you walk away from me again.”