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Megan looked at her sister. “Give it up,” she said quietly.
“I’m right! You got it on with the sheikh!”
“Such an adult turn of phrase,” Megan said coldly.
Bree batted her lashes. “Was he good?”
“I am not going to discuss Caz with you.”
“Caz, huh?”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“I am?”
“Yes. What happened in Suliyam happened. It didn’t mean a thing. I’ve stopped thinking about it, and I’m not interested in talking about it.” Megan’s voice trembled and she glared at her sister. “You hear me, Briana? I am not going to talk about this,” she said, and burst into tears.
“Oh, baby!” Briana hurried to her sister’s side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Honey, I’m so sorry! I was just teasing, you know? I never expected…”
“No. Neither did—neither did—”
Megan buried her face in her hands and wept. She hadn’t cried, not once since she’d left Caz. She’d been all business when she got home, picking up her mail from Mrs. Hansen across the way, going to work the next day, calml
y telling The Worm that she’d be happy to bring someone else up to speed on the Suliyam assignment but that she was sorry, she’d have to sign off.
The Worm, as she’d anticipated, was overjoyed.
“In that case,” he’d said, all but rubbing his hands, “you’re fired.”
She’d anticipated that, too.
The only thing she hadn’t anticipated was the yawning emptiness in her heart, the questions that raced through her head like a cat chasing its own tail. Was it true? Had Caz been planning on putting her out of his life, or had he only said those terrible things because she’d wounded him? She told herself it didn’t matter, that what counted was that she’d left him, left Suliyam, that he’d be safe…
But it did matter.
Hadn’t he loved her at all? Hadn’t she been the world to him, as he’d been to her, and the moon and the stars, all rolled into one until the end of time?
She could keep those thoughts at abeyance during the day. Interviews, networking, phoning old university classmates and the people she’d worked with over the years kept her busy.
It was the nights that were brutal.
She lay awake, remembering Caz with her body, her heart, her mind. The feel of him, in her arms. The taste of his skin. The way he’d sat beside her, holding her close as he talked about his plans for his people.
She dreamed of him, longed for him, ached for him. But she hadn’t cried for him, until now. No tears. None, until someone who loved her asked a couple of simple questions, and then the tears she’d kept inside burst free.
Bree led her to the sofa, made soothing noises and patted her back, kept an arm clamped around her while Megan wept until there were no tears left. Then she wiped her eyes with one of the napkins she was still holding and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what happened just now.”
Bree took her hand and patted it. “You okay?”
Megan nodded.
“You sure? Good.” Bree’s voice hardened. “Now tell me what that son of a bitch did to you.”
“It isn’t his fault. I—we—I thought I’d fallen in love with him, and—” She let out a gusty breath. “I did fall in love with him. And it was a mistake.”
“Because he didn’t love you?”
