AllFreeNovel
Share Us
What if Ben damaged relationships the same way? After all, it was all he’d ever known.
He wrenched his head from his black thoughts and back to Thea.
‘When you and I had that one date together you completely blindsided me.’
‘How?’
He’d had a feeling she was going to ask that.
‘If I’m honest with you, you scared the hell out of me,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘I’d only met you a few hours earlier and you’d already had this unimaginable effect on me.’
He still didn’t understand how one person could have such an impact on another in so short a time.
‘But surely that’s what made it all the more exciting?’ Thea frowned. ‘It was intense—and unexpected, and a little scary—do you think I wasn’t feeling just as overwhelmed as you? But I just ran with it. I wanted to see where it would take us.’
Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t do overwhelmed. I set a goal in life, put my head down, and work to achieve it.’
‘So what about the passion, the spontaneity, the fun?’
‘They’re overrated,’ he answered simply. ‘That’s why when I was walking you home I was telling myself I needed to b
ack away from you. Instead I found I was wanting to meet you the next night, willing the time away before I could see you again. And then Dan opened that door and bellowed his head off.’
‘That was just Daniel being Daniel—he’d have come around quickly enough,’ Thea objected.
‘I know. But it was the excuse I needed. That’s why I had to walk away, there and then. And Dan knew me well enough to suspect why, so he let me do it. It was for your sake more than mine. Like I said, I wasn’t a good match for you.’
He met her eyes, holding them steady, ignoring the look of disbelief which chased across her delicate features. Features which he could trace in his dreams—had reconstructed in his dreams even when he’d been redeployed. Even when he’d reminded himself that his life wasn’t on Civvy Street—wasn’t a safe life like Thea’s. His life was working in war zones. And being the partner of someone who did that that was not a pleasant life.
He knew that from bitter experience.
Watching one person love with all their heart while the other stay closed off and unreachable was the most soul-destroying thing he knew. He could never have done that to Thea. He could never have made her happy. He would never have deserved her.
He hadn’t banked on Dan dying less than two weeks later. Lying in Ben’s arms as the life drained out of him, choking out his last words to make Ben promise to take care of Thea. His best friend had gone, and for a short while he’d struggled to keep his emotions in check. The grief had almost overwhelmed him. It had taken every ounce of willpower to rein himself in, to stuff those feelings down and carry on with his life. What good would talking about it do?
‘How do you know we weren’t a good match?’ Thea asked at last. ‘Maybe I could have helped you. Aside from one date, you didn’t really know me.’
‘That’s not true,’ Ben told her. ‘True, we’d never met before, but I already knew what kind of a person you were. How strong you were. Dan used to talk about you all the time. He was so proud of you.’
Ben stared out of the window, as if remembering.
‘I knew what you’d been through with your parents’ death, and yet how caring, how open, how loyal you were. In no small part due to how close and supportive you and your brother were to each other. How much you share. Shared.’
Thea struggled to control an unexpected wave of sorrow. ‘You mean unlike the way you never talk about your feelings?’ she said sadly, worried about breaking this fragile moment.
‘It’s not what I do,’ admitted Ben, seemingly lost in his own head.
‘Why not?’ She spoke gently, but he either couldn’t hear her or didn’t want to hear her.
Still, he was right, she realised. Physically, he might push himself way beyond anything his body should be doing at this stage—but emotionally? Emotionally was a whole different ball game. Ben barely even acknowledged his limitations to himself, let alone discussed the accident with her.
Had he always been this way? Was it something to do with the childhood Ben had had? From what little she knew of it, in his childhood he had been instilled with almost impossibly high expectations and a heavy sense of responsibility.
‘You’d been through so much, and yet you’d managed to grow into a rounded, caring person.’
Ben continued to face out of the window, but she doubted he actually saw anything there.
‘You supported your brother’s career even though he told me you hated it, worrying every time he went to war about if he would come home. So I knew you deserved someone who could make you happy, and that certainly wasn’t me. You didn’t need the uncertainty, the instability, of a boyfriend who was a soldier too.’
