Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
He was inconveniently breathtaking and infuriating at the same time.
“Not really.” I dropped my hand.
“Okay.” He stared at me in that quiet, patient way he had, which only got my ire up.
“Stop doing that.”
“Stop doing what?” He scratched the scruff of his beard. “Stop doing everything I can to keep you alive? Stop pulling strings to get your sister’s interpreter’s papers pushed? Stop putting my body between you and whatever’s trying to kill you at the moment? Or did you want me to stop putting your needs above common sense? You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“That,” I sputtered, pointing at his face. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m capable of a lot of things, but unfortunately for my own sanity, I seem to be incapable of not looking at you.” He shrugged. “Whether or not you want to tell me why you’re no longer marrying Dickface has nothing to do with my inability to ignore you.”
“He cheated on me, okay?” Ugh. That was not supposed to come out.
Nate’s body tensed, but he didn’t speak.
“Did you hear me?” I shook my head and fought to get a grip. I was supposed to be helping with those files on the coffee table, not spending precious time fighting with Nate.
“Oh, I heard you.” Nate’s voice dropped. “I’m just trying to make that statement compute.”
“What is there to compute?” I tugged my hair back behind my ears. Pulling it up would have been a much more sensible option today. “He thought it was perfectly acceptable to have an open relationship. I wasn’t enough for him.”
“Then he’s a fucking fool.” He said it with so much conviction that I almost believed him.
My heart stuttered. “Don’t say things like that. You don’t know . . .” Heat rushed to my face.
“I know.” The way his gaze heated made my breath catch. “And if you weren’t enough for him, then he’s going to spend his life totally and completely miserable, because there’s no one in this world who measures up to you. If he cheated, then my guess would be that it wasn’t because you weren’t enough—it was because he wasn’t.”
I covered my fluttering stomach with a hand. Why hadn’t I ever felt this way with Jeremy? Why was all my desire, my driving, insatiable need, reserved for Nate? Not that sex with Jeremy hadn’t been good. It had. But he didn’t make the rest of the world disappear with a single touch, or brand my soul with a kiss.
I only felt that way with Nate. Hadn’t that always been the problem?
An irrational laugh bubbled up through my lips. “And yet he was just my type, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Unavailable in every way that mattered.” I shrugged, stroking my thumb over my naked finger and reveling in the lightness there. “I didn’t even realize just how heavy that obnoxious ring was until I gave it back. How much everything about it weighed me down.”
He took a deep breath and pushed off the counter, walking past me toward the door. “We should both get back to work.”
“You know it wasn’t the infidelity that made me break it off with him.”
He jerked to a stop.
“I mean, if we’re going to get it all out in the open, then let’s get it out,” I said to his back.
“You don’t want to go there with me.”
“I do.”
Slowly, he turned to face me, and my pulse leapt. It wasn’t Sergeant Green staring back at me. No, the war raging in his eyes belonged to my Nate. The Nate I’d had at Georgetown, in Illinois, in Tybee.
“It wasn’t the infidelity,” I repeated, my voice softening. “I knew about it for six weeks before I took Newcastle’s place, and I didn’t do a damn thing. I smiled for the cameras at his campaign rallies and I kicked him out of my bed, but I didn’t break it off. Ask me why I broke it off, Nate.”
He shook his head.
“Ask me.”
“Why?” The word came out strangled.
“Because I didn’t love him in the way I know I’m capable of.” I swallowed as my heart thundered in my ears. “I knew it the second I saw you again.”
His jaw flexed and his shoulders rose as he struggled to maintain his temper, but I didn’t retreat. Nate would never hurt me, and we’d put this off for nine days too long.
“Say it.” I moved toward him, and he backed away, keeping the distance between us as he walked into the kitchenette. “Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.” Hadn’t he demanded the same that first night at the embassy?
“If you knew that you didn’t love him enough, then why did you say yes in the first place?” His tone rose, bordering on a shout as his legendary self-control finally slipped. “You know what? No. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know why. God!” His hands slammed down on the counter, and he hung his head. “Three fucking years, and we’re right back here.”