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Enough that her mother bit back the retort which was on her lips.
For several long moments the two women faced off against each other. It took everything she had, but Fliss refused to back down. Not this time.
‘You will regret this.’
‘No.’ Fliss shook her head. ‘The only thing I regret is not doing this sooner.’
Perhaps then she wouldn’t have lost someone as special as Ash from her life.
* * *
Ash had no idea where he was heading. He’d been driving in circles for the last two hours without seeing anything. He’d left Fliss’s house intent on driving back home, sorting his kit out and leaving early for the next posting. Anything to get his mind off Fliss. But his heart had known what his head hadn’t yet been ready to accept.
However hard he tried, he couldn’t shake her from his head. Her desperate, ravaged face, or her defeated stance. Everything about her marked her as a different person to the Major he’d been instantly attracted to. The woman he’d fallen in love with. It killed him to see her allowing herself to be pulled down as she had tonight, but he couldn’t have stayed. He’d tried to help her see the truth but she hadn’t wanted to listen.
Pressing his foot on the accelerator, Ash tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head. But, however fast he drove, he wasn’t going to outrun it.
The control he’d kept tonight, not for himself but for Fliss, told him how far he had come in less than a month. And that was down to her. If he loved her the way he claimed to, should
n’t he be prepared to fight for her? Shouldn’t he try for longer than one evening, to help her to fight for herself?
And he did love her. He loved her intelligence, her focus, her dry sense of humour, her hidden sense of adventure, as much as he loved her lips, her body, the way she always broke apart in his arms.
Checking the road around him, Ash felt a rush of adrenalin surge through his system and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the slick, if illegal, U-turn he had just executed in the last turning lane of the dual carriageway.
By the time he got back to her house it was bathed in darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ASH SPOTTED FLISS the instant she stepped out of the car with the General. Ash stopped dead on the field where he was supposed to be warming up with his team, his chest constricting. The inter-battalion rugby match was the last place he’d expected to see her, and he couldn’t help wondering if she was sending him a message.
He watched her nervously smooth down her dress, barely even noticing the garment itself, and then, as though sensing his eyes upon her, lifted her head and looked right at him.
For a moment he thought he saw a hint of a smile but, before he could respond, a bellow pulled him up sharply.
‘Heads up!’
Split second reactions served him well as he caught the well-placed throw of a teammate, pulling the ball into his gut and taking off down the field for thirty or so metres before lobbing the ball to another team-mate to do the same back up the pitch.
By the time he looked up again, Fliss was already disappearing into the marquee set up for family and friends.
He should play it cool.
Instead, he found himself yelling an excuse across the field before striding over the grounds and into the tent. He marched straight up to her, the people milling around only cranking the tension up further, making the need for formality all the more crucial.
‘Major.’
‘Colonel.’
‘Colonel.’ The deep voice of Fliss’s uncle had Ash swinging around. He hadn’t even noticed the old man there.
‘General—’ Ash greeted him as protocol demanded ‘—it’s very good of you to take time out to attend our rugby match.’
‘I hope it’s going to be a good match; I want to see that trophy returned to its rightful place.’
‘The lads are all geared up, sir. We fully intend to have that trophy in your hands by the end of the day.’
It was like some kind of unending torture. With no notion that Ash was actually there to talk to Fliss, the General was likely to keep the conversation pleasant for a while. It was something of a relief when the older man was pulled away by his aide-de-camp in order to greet a VIP.
