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‘Elle...’
‘I want what you want. One more night.’
It wasn’t encouraged or condoned by the army, but they both knew it happened. As long as they were utterly discreet, and, like Elle had pointed out before, they were both commissioned officers and he wasn’t her boss.
He glanced at the desk. It wasn’t his style. It wasn’t her style. But he knew that in that instant they both wanted each other too much to care.
He had to put the brakes on it.
It felt as though it took every last bit of strength in his body to move his hands to her upper arms and push her away.
‘I can’t let this happen.’ His voice actually cracked.
‘I take responsibility for myself, Fitz,’ she told him, her eyes glittering with desire so hot it scorched him.
‘It isn’t that simple.’
Raw need pulsed between them but he couldn’t give in to it.
‘I think it is. Why do you have such rigid rules for yourself?’ she asked, the soft voice piercing through the heart of his fears better than any arrow could. ‘Who are you trying to protect yourself from?’
‘I’m trying to protect you.’ He gritted his teeth so hard he was surprised his jaw didn’t crack.
‘From whom? You?’ She shook her head. ‘Why?’
He didn’t want to answer. He’d never volunteered his story to anyone before. And yet under her coaxing the words spilled from his lips and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
‘That car crash with my mother and sister was my fault.’
‘I didn’t think you were there.’ She squinted up at him.
‘Exactly. I wasn’t there, but I should have been. I was too busy enjoying myself on a night out with friends. We were celebrating a week early. My mum had been a barmaid at the local pub for a few years; they treated her a bit like a manager and every time someone didn’t turn up for a shift they’d call her and she’d rush over there to fill in.’
Even now he could remember just how aggrieved he’d felt, as though she was deliberately ruining their precious family time together when all she’d been doing had been trying to keep her job so the meagre income would keep the roof over their heads and some food on the table. All he’d ever thought was that it was never enough. He shook off the memories, forcing himself to carry on, to show Elle exactly what kind of man he was.
‘I sometimes felt they didn’t employ enough staff just because they knew they could turn to her and she’d cover it all. So from the age of about fifteen I became the babysitter. Nights out with schoolfriends were inevitably cancelled because she’d get called in and I’d end up looking after my baby sister. And I began to resent it.’
‘So that night you went out?’ Elle asked quietly. ‘How could you have known any different?’
‘Because she phoned me. Fifteen messages, each one more frantic than the last. She called me to tell me my father had found us, that he was drunk and that she’d hidden my sister in the cupboard over the stairs.’
‘Fitz...’
He ignored her, determined to carry on. Fighting the overwhelming guilt and regret.
‘I saw the missed calls and I turned my phone off. By the time I listened to the calls it was hours later. I raced home but of course I was far too late.’
‘Fitz,’ she gasped. ‘That must have been... I can’t imagine how that must have been. But you can’t honestly blame yourself. How could you have known? You were seventeen, a kid, you c
ouldn’t have foreseen your father had found you.’
‘I should have cared enough to listen. I should have taken her call, not shut it down as though she didn’t deserve my time.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Elle cried, but he ignored the emotions her words threatened to stir in him.
He didn’t know why she insisted on seeing him in such a bold, fair light, but she had it wrong.
‘You don’t understand. I let them down. I wasn’t there for them when they needed me. I was thoughtless, selfish, I was just like him.’
