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Her brows shot up. “You’re sorry.”
“Yeah. Just because our relationship ended how it did doesn’t give me the right to be an asshole to you indefinitely,” he went on. “I’m going to stop doing that.”
She blinked, obviously caught off guard. “Oh.”
He hurried on, afraid he’d lose the nerve. “I realize now that while I was dealing with my injuries and the trauma, you were dealing with your own loss and trauma. You signed up to marry a healthy, active firefighter, and suddenly, you were having to be a caretaker of an angry guy with a disability. You went to someone else for comfort. I wasn’t there to give you that.”
Christina looked down at her hands. “Hill…”
“I just want you to know that I wish you the best. Truly,” he said, realizing he meant it. “I hope you and Josh and the baby have a happy life.”
Christina’s gaze jumped to his, her eyes shiny—a rarity since Chris wasn’t a crier. “Thank you.” Tears slipped out and she swiped at them hurriedly. “Ugh. Fucking hormones. I’m crying over everything lately.”
He laughed softly.
“And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too,” she said, frowning. “For all of it. I know it’s hard to believe, but I didn’t do any of it to hurt you. I went about things in the most horrible way. I was lonely and upset and scared. But I’d known for a while—even before the accident—that I was drawn to Josh in a way that wasn’t just friendly, that was different from anything else I’d ever experienced.”
Hill stiffened. “What?”
She turned the engagement ring on her finger round and round, her face pensive as she stared at it. “I never acted on anything until after the accident, but I had already been thinking about canceling the wedding to pursue something with Josh. I’d talked about it with him.” She looked up. “But then after the fire…”
The news that she’d already wanted to leave him before the accident had his brain spinning, pieces he’d thought he had in place repositioning themselves into a different picture. “You would’ve looked like a real dick bailing on me.”
She bit her lips together and nodded. “I ended up being worse. I should’ve been upfront with you from the start. I’m sorry I wasn’t.”
Hill didn’t know what to think. She hadn’t left him because of his injury or the burden it had brought into the relationship. She’d left him because…she’d been drawn more to someone else. “Wow. I guess I was more blind than I thought.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “Not blind. Hopeful,” she said. “I think you were so determined to have an idyllic relationship like your aunt and uncle and prove you weren’t going to be like your dad that you shoehorned us into something more storybook than it was. We enjoyed each other, but looking back, I realize now that we were never in love, not the kind of love that would survive a lifetime. It was just new love. The first time we were with someone who wasn’t a casual date, so it felt more important. But when push came to shove, neither of us were willing to fight to be together. We both gave up on each other when adversity hit.”
Hill stared at her, absorbing her words, and then ran a hand over the back of his head. He hated the picture she was painting, him forcing their relationship into something it wasn’t, but the truth of it rang through him. Hadn’t he always done that? Tried to create the storybook? Even his chosen profession had been the classic hero role. No one would question the heart of a firefighter. He’d done everything he could to wash off the dirty shadow of his father.
“Fucking hell,” he murmured.
Chris gave him a little smile. “I won’t take credit fully for that insight. It’s taken months of therapy to understand why I did what I did.”
Hill made a wry sound in the back of his throat. “When each relationship ends, a therapist gets their wings.”
“Right? But I’m glad you came here today and we talked this out,” she said, expression more relaxed than he’d seen her in years. “I hate how things have been between us. I honestly wish the best for you, too.”
“Thanks.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Which means you’re going to be happy to help me with why I came here today, right?”
She gave him a no-promises look. “Depends on the request. What’ve you got?”
“Are you still studying cybercrime stuff?” he asked, hoping Christina hadn’t given up on her interest in eventually applying to the FBI to investigate cybercrime.
Her expression shifted into business mode immediately. “Yeah. Why?”
“I’m not sure if there’s anything to do about it, but I wanted to give it a shot.” Hill pulled a few folded sheets of paper out of his pocket and placed them on her desk. “My neighbor, Andi, the one you met.”
“The girl who thought someone broke in?” she asked, reaching for the papers.
Hill grimaced. “Can you please stop calling her a girl? She’s a grown woman. Only a few years younger than us.”
Christina glanced up, amused. “Oh, so you’re sleeping with her.”
“Chris…” he warned.
She lifted a palm, still smiling. “No judgment. I’m glad to see you putting yourself back out there. So what’s going on?”
