He caged me and whispered in my ear. “Why does a black hole sound so dirty?”
I groaned, and despite my brainwaves going haywire, I snorted at his attempt at a joke. “You haven’t changed either,” I huffed.
When I’d met Reed during the special ops mission, I had immediately known that I needed to stay far away from him. But my idiotic heart hadn’t gotten the memo that I wasn’t supposed to fall for him. My rational side knew that he would tear through me like a tornado. I couldn’t afford to have feelings for a man whose very existence was a mockery of my carefully planned-out life.
But no matter how much I tried, he had gotten under my skin. In that nightmare of a war-torn country where innocence was stripped away from all of us, Reed had been the only thing that had kept me feeling sane.
But that was then, and this was now. And I needed to remember professional boundaries. I took a deep breath. “So, how can I help you?”
I felt him stiffen—the first sign of his confident façade cracking.
“You know I’m the one who responded to your medevac call?”
I blinked. Of course, that was it. Here I thought he had somehow come back for me. Of course he hadn’t. Why did that realization hurt so badly, though?
“Oh. Of course.” I adjusted my glasses clumsily because there was no space. He was all around me. Looming over me. “Sorry. I have been busy with paperwork for that call and tending to Viktor and Sam. The two men you rescued.”
I looked up at him. “Thanks. Waypoint appreciates what you did.”
“And you, Dr. Park?”
I cleared my throat, fighting for my professionalism. “Of course, I do as well, Pilot Harmon. You must be here for your flight-clearance physical. It won’t take long.”
He didn’t answer immediately. He just kept looking at me. His eyes roamed all over my face as if greedily drinking in the view. His gaze lowered—down my throat, over my chest, hovering at my crotch.
Unbelievably, my long-dormant dick suddenly woke up.
This was mortifying.
He kept undressing me with his eyes until they snagged on my hand and froze.
I followed his gaze.
My ring.
Our wedding band.
Well, not really, because could you call a piece of scrap bent into a circle a wedding band? A wedding with no ceremony, a handful of bleeding soldiers as witnesses, and bombs and bullets as background music was, after all, not a real marriage.
Our rings hadn’t matched. We’d never gone to a store together. No one had proposed or had dinner by candlelight. Our story wasn’t something my friends here would understand. That’s why I had never shared it.
I couldn’t help but look at his hand. When my gaze landed on his finger, my insides twisted so painfully that I gasped without meaning to.
There was no ring on Reed’s finger.
2
Daniel
I needed space. He was crowding me, and my brain couldn’t function with him being this close. Before I could open my mouth, Reed stepped back.
His brows were bunched up, his smile had vanished, and he was frowning. He had always had an uncanny knack for reading my moods. It was frankly frightening because I wasn’t an overtly emotive person to begin with. Whether it was due to my Asian heritage or just my wiring, I didn’t know, but expressing feelings had never come easily to me.
I turned my back to him, put the iPad away, rested my palms flat on the countertop that ran the length of my clinic, and took deep breaths.
“Daniel?” His voice was uncertain and held a slight tremor. Almost as if he was in pain.
I gave myself a stern warning. There was no need to fall apart just because he was not wearing his ring. Hadn’t that alwaysbeen what I had known already? He was a free man. I had never expected him to uphold the sham of our wedding. I wore the ring because it gave me immunity. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
