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“I should have called you over.”
He didn’t answer her in words, but she saw a muscle in his jaw tick and heaven help her, she wanted to kiss it. To kiss him.
“Leo, I’m-”
“I’ve worked with a team before.” He said the words and they came out like bullets.
She didn’t blame him. Being a SEAL wasn’t something someone just did. Becoming a part of one of the best Special Forces teams in the world took grit. It took dedication. And constant, grueling training.
And she’d taken that from him.
“I know you’re mad at me and I don’t blame you, Leo. I don’t know what I can do to ever make it up to you, but I want you to know that I’m sorry for everything that happened to you.” She drew in a breath, feeling the familiar burn of anguish in her chest before she let it out. “That happened to you because of me.”
“You took my whole life and ripped it apart.”
She couldn’t help it. She flinched away from him. “I know.”
“You… know?” He smiled and she felt the coldness in his gaze as a physical touch. “Well that’s helpful.”
“I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I deserve it.”
* * *
Leo shookhis head trying to shake loose the ache he felt.
He’d imagined what it would be like to confront… her.
Her name had changed but she still had the most beautiful face he’d ever seen. That alone was enough to make him want to put his hand through a wall.
He just couldn’t make himself stop caring about her.
His anger was evidence enough.
And it didn’t help that she was just only too happy to let him rage at her.
This wasn’t the woman he’d fallen for.
She’d gotten in his face and challenged him from the get-go.
It was what he’d been attracted to in the first place. Most women just blushed and preened in front of him, she hadn’t. She’d given him as good as she got.
“What happened to you?”
“I’m… I’m sorry?” She looked as confused as he felt.
“You. This,” he gestured toward her, “isn’t you. The woman I know had more fight in her.”
She opened her mouth to speak and then changed her mind, turning her head to look off down the lonely road they’d been driving on. “Well, that was me then,” she let out her breath in a soft exhale, “this is what’s left.”
“I had this image in my head after you left.” He bit down viciously into his lip. He didn’t like admitting how much she’d affected him. Or how much time he’d spent obsessing over her while the rest of his life was imploding. Still, he wasn’t sure he’d have an opportunity like this again.
And yes, he did want to know what went down.
He might not be able to forgive her, but he still needed to know.
“I couldn’t help but wonder if you had a really good laugh at my expense.”
She looked stricken at his words, but he steeled himself against his instinctual need to pull her close and sooth her feelings.
“Did you sit back, pop open a beer, and recount how easily you got under my skin? Did you get extra points for bringing me to my knees?”
He could tell that his words were hitting her, hitting her hard.
Or at least he thought so.
He was really in trouble.
Facing off against a skilled covert operative who’d already held his heart in her hands, and she’d crushed him without a backward glance.
No, that was wrong, he decided.
She had looked back.
If he took her at her word, she’d cleared him of the crimes he’d been accused of.
A little too late to save his heart.
Or his career.
His name had been cleared, but he still couldn’t go back to his team.
“Aren’t you going to say anything? Don’t you have some bogus apology planned? Some sob story about how you were just doing your job while you put a knife through my heart?” His hands lifted, moving through the air in a shrug that felt like he held the weight of the world in his hands. “Well? What are you going to say?”
“It wasn’t you.”
Her words drew him up short.
“Of course it wasn’t me. I would never do something like that.”
She nodded and then shook her head. “Of course, but that’s… that’s not what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Okay,” he conceded, “then tell me.”
