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Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d said. “No. I don’t. I can’t. I mean, I thought I did but… Oh, hell. I don’t know. Let’s go share a wine and forget all about him.”
Which was absolutely easier said than done. She tried to join in the laughing and the talking, but her brain was filled with a Marcus fog. On a point of pride though, she made it until last drinks were called at midnight before she caught a lift home with a friend. Ryan had ungallantly seen the writing on the wall and changed the direction of his affections, transferring them easily to a pretty Dutch barmaid who’d just backpacked into town a few weeks earlier.
As she approached the front door to her house, she felt completely mixed up. She wanted him to be inside. She really did. But she couldn’t want that. She should want to never see him again. If she’d been thinking straight, she would have thought to check for his car, but she wasn’t. She hadn’t thought straight since she’d met him.
The lounge room was engulfed in darkness, and she felt her heart drop at the realization that he had left. Obviously it hadn’t mattered that much after all, sorting everything out with her. She clunked her handbag down on the coffee table and moved towards the kitchen, stubbing her toe on something unfamiliar in the middle of the floor. “Damn and blast,” she cursed, reaching across and flicking on a coffee table lamp. Then, her breath died in her throat, as she saw Marcus.
He was fast asleep, dead to the world, one arm flung carelessly above his head, the other wrapped across his chest. His shirt had ridden up a little to expose his tanned midriff and flat abs, and she felt desire ignite inside of her. His suitcase was in the middle of the floor. That’s what she’d tripped on.
She was so mad at him she could have slapped him, but the greater temptation was to kiss him. She knelt down in front of him, hardly daring to breathe, and smiled at how perfectly calm he was in sleep. Without any intention of doing so, she lifted her fingers to his face, and traced a line down his cheek, sighing because finally she was touching him again.
Marcus was back in Iraq, with the hot blade of the knife pressed against his cheek. He acted on instinct and reached out, ensnaring his captor’s wrists in his own and pinning him to the hard, cement floor. He raised his hand to punch down on the bastard’s face.
“STOP!” Her scream was panicked, high pitched, frantic enough to penetrate even his sleep addled brain. His breath was torn from his chest as he came to and looked around the unfamiliar room. Wadeford House. He was back in Cornwall. And he’d been just about to attack Katie.
“Jesus, Katie, I’m so sorry.” He pushed up from the ground, and ran his hands down his jeans before leaning forward and offering her a hand to help her up. A hand she wisely ignored. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his.
“I think it’s time you told me about Iraq. Don’t you?”
He nodded, dragging his hand across his eyes. “I can’t believe I almost…”
“Stop.” She held a finger up to his lips to silence him. “You didn’t. You wouldn’t.”
He closed his eyes, wishing he could believe her. “I was having a nightmare. I was…disorientated.”
She sat down on the sofa and patted the spot
beside her. He took it, and hung his head forward, over his knees. Not looking at her, he began to speak. “After Veronica and I divorced, I started taking on more and more dangerous assignments. It wasn’t that I was torn up over our marriage. That never really had legs. But the baby… I couldn’t believe she’d had an abortion just to keep her figure. I was tormented by thoughts of that baby. Wondering what she or he would have been like. And I didn’t really care if I lived or died. So I pushed aggressively for projects in high-return areas that most companies with any sense steered clear of. Iraq was one of our biggest money earners, because we were great at our job and we didn’t have a lot of competition.”
He sucked in a deep breath and sat back in the sofa now, but continued to stare anywhere but at her. “I travelled back and forth, for about four years. We were nearing the end of our biggest project. Bryan had come out to inspect it. I didn’t know it at the time, but he’d fielded an inquiry and he hadn’t done his vetting properly. I think he’d been lured in by the prospect of building an enormous medical centre. The profit margin was too good to be true- which should have been a tip off. But he never told me any of that.” He groaned, slapping his palm against his knee in frustration. “And I didn’t ask. He kept talking about this meeting, and I just thought it was something to do with the work we already had on our plate.
“We walked into the building and I knew straight away something was wrong. Ten guys barreled us up and stripped us of our phones. They kept us in a basement for almost a week.” He looked at her now, a wry grimace tilting his lips. “They were not the most hospitable of men.”
“Did they hurt you?” She whispered, eyes wide, and her fingers unconsciously came to press against his chest, where she knew his scar was.
“Yes.” He said quietly. “I managed to get the ropes off, but it was too late for Bryan.”
She shuddered. “That must have been… I can’t even … I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry you went through that.”
He nodded. “It messed me up, Katie. Before that, I was cocky. I thought I was infallible. And then, all of a sudden, I realized how wrong I was. I was weak. And powerless to save my best friend.”
“You escaped. That’s not weak.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t save him, Katie. If I’d been able to get those ropes loose earlier… I could have helped him.”
“Don’t.” She pressed her lips to his just to silence him. “Please don’t beat yourself up. If it was humanly possible, you would have done it.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever lose the guilt. I don’t deserve to.”
“Nonsense.” She took his hand in hers, feeling her anger fade away completely. The very suggestion of what could have been made her realize she had to grab on with two hands to what she had now. But… then she thought about Maxie, and it didn’t seem so simple. She did love Marcus. And if it were just her, she could forgive him for his stupid, selfish deception. But what if he did something like that again? What if Maxie got hurt? No, it was too risky.
But Maxie wasn’t there, and at least for one night, she could enjoy what they had, and this time, say the proper goodbye they’d never got around to.
“When I got back from Iraq I did… how did you charmingly put it earlier? Whore around?” She colored, still hating the idea of him with other women. He saw the way her eyes clouded over and shook his head. “I need to be honest with you. I never valued sex as anything special. And nor did the women I was with. I had no compunction sleeping with as many women as I could, to put the mess in Iraq behind me. I was hell bent on remembering how alive I was… but how I felt then, after Iraq, was nothing compared to how I felt when I left you. God, I have never been so lost.”
She bit down on her lower lip, feeling tears sting at her eyes. “Why did you go, then?”
“I was starting to care too much. It scared the hell out of me.”
