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‘Me? Oh, I’ve come to buy myself out.’
He rather liked it that her mouth actually fell open a little. Though the urge to close it by claiming it with his own was incredibly powerful.
‘You’re leaving?’ she breathed.
‘That’s the idea.’
He didn’t miss the way she reached out, clutching the table beside herself, almost as if she needed the solid surface to keep herself from stumbling.
He liked it that he had that effect on her. Still.
‘Why?’ she choked out after a few moments.
‘Why do you think, Matz? It’s the only way we can be together.’
‘No.’ She began to shake her head. ‘No!’
This wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.
‘Why not? That’s what I want—to be with you. I should have seen it before, but the fact is that I’ve seen it now.’
‘No, Kane, you can’t do that.’ And this time there was no hesitation in her tone.
A heavy beat started up in his chest, echoing through his head. He pretended he didn’t hear it.
‘That isn’t quite the reaction I was hoping for, Matz.’
‘I don’t want you to leave.’
‘Well, I want to.’
‘For me?’
‘For us.’
Again she shook her head, and Kane found himself grinding his teeth.
‘I don’t want to play this game, Matz. We love each other, we both said it. But neither of us were prepared to give up our careers for the other. Only now I am prepared to. Because after all that’s happened between us, I realise that this career means nothing if I don’t have you.’
‘I still can’t let you buy yourself out,’ she gritted out.
He pushed off from the desk, taking a step closer to her, that fresh, citrusy fragrance pervading his senses, and that fire in her eyes stoking the flames that burned inside him.
‘I want to be with you, Mattie. I thought the army was the most important thing to me, and perhaps it was. But only because it was the only thing that filled the void that had opened up when I lost you.’
‘You’re saying you would choose me over the career that you love?’ she asked breathlessly, finding that her soul ached to hear the words.
‘I would. And I am,’ he told her simply. ‘But I know you, Mathilda Brigham. This isn’t your cue to start feeling guilty because you don’t want to quit too. That isn’t what it’s about.’
‘I won’t,’ she replied promptly, but there was a teasing quality to her tone that made him take stock.
‘Am I missing something?’
‘You might be.’
Okay, now she was definitely teasing him. Tentatively, given where they were, but it was there.
He studied her more intently.
