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He practically spat the last word out in disgust, and still Elle looked at him with empathy, and care, as though she understood. As though he wasn’t the self-serving young man he’d actually been. But he knew the truth. He knew he could have been there for them. He should have been there for them.
Just like with Janine. He should have been there for her and then she would never have lost her baby.
Their baby.
He’d tried to make himself love her. He’d told himself that if he could love her, maybe he wasn’t as broken as he’d feared. But he couldn’t. Janine was sweet and kind, and she’d loved him. But he’d been unable to feel the same about her. He hadn’t been capable of it. He’d ended up using her. She’d been right, she’d have been better off never meeting him.
Just as Elle would be.
He opened his mouth to tell her, then stopped. What if she told him it wouldn’t have made a difference? For any of them? He might actually allow himself to believe her. She was so understanding, so empathetic, so damned convincing. She looked at him as though he was a good man and he wanted so much to be the human being she saw.
He was a good leader, a good soldier. But he wasn’t a good man.
Another plink and he could swear he felt the tiniest fissure race through the block of ice that surrounded his heart.
It suddenly occurred to him that if she melted it then he would have to feel again.
All that pain he’d stuffed down for so long.
Fear finally galvanised him and he found his voice, as raw and biting as it sounded.
‘You don’t see it, do you, Elle? It was sex. That’s all it was.’
He told himself he didn’t regret the flash of hurt his harshness caused in Elle’s eyes. That, in the long run, this was the only way to protect her from him. But he knew he was hurting her. He knew the rejection burned her more than anything after the way her ex had already rejected her, betrayed her.
So what kind of a man was he, to play on an insecurity he knew ate away at her? And still he couldn’t stop.
‘I’m not the man you want me to be.’ He rammed the point home before he could change his mind. ‘That person is a figment of your imagination.’
‘You’re lying,’ she whispered.
Hopeful.
Pleading.
More than anything he wanted to tell her she was right. She knew him better than she realised. Better than anyone else ever had.
Instead he told himself it was for the best. That whatever hurt she was feeling now was nothing compared to the misery he would inevitably cause her if they let anything happen between them. If he let her down, too.
So he steeled his resolve and kept heading for the door. She’d been right in the first place when she’d wanted to avoid this discussion, but he was the one who had insisted on it.
Why? Because he really had wanted to create a clear division between that night and now? Or because deep down there was a part of him that didn’t want to let her slip through his fingers a second time?
As if she’d ever been his to lose.
‘I don’t have time for nonsense like this. I have a briefing to get to,’ he threw over his shoulder, refusing to look back.
Because to do so would mean looking at Elle and if he saw her he wouldn’t be able to walk out that door; he’d go straight back to her, take her in his arms and surrender to her instead.
But capitulation wasn’t an option. If he didn’t end it now, he feared he might end up telling her things he’d never told anyone else. Ever. He might let her into that dark corner of his soul in the hope that her brilliant light might finally make it feel less black. It would open too many old wounds.
And that would only end up laying waste to both of them.
Chapter Nine
‘YOU SEE THE ulcer lies on the antrum of the patient’s stomach?’ Elle glanced at her student. ‘So what would you suggest?’
‘Wedge excision,’ Amir said confidently. ‘Closure of the consequential defect should be achieved fairly easily without significant deformation of the stomach.’
