Page 103 of Fallen Hearts

“Why would you have to protect it unless…?” She sat up. Glared at me. “Mason?”

“I didn’t expect this,” I started. “Please don’t get the wrong idea. I had no idea this was where things would go.”

“Mason,” she repeated in the same tone. “Why would you need to protect your precious…” She couldn’t say the word.

“Dick,” I provided.

“Dick,” she said, as if she hadn’t stumbled on the word a second ago. “Unless you were going to tell me something I don’t want to hear.”

There was no good way to answer her question. “I can’t think of one.”

Her eyes flashed. And this was why I wanted to get dressed first.

Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. The talk should have come first. If my squad mates knew what a chicken shit I was tonight… but there was no other way to look at it. I’d been straight-up scared.

“I’m going back,” I said finally.

She didn’t need to ask what that meant. Instead, Pia calmly stood up, grabbed her clothes and walked away, into her bedroom.

I closed my eyes. Saw my dad on that dock.

But this time, the vision didn’t make my decision any easier to swallow.

36

PIA

Dressed, I plopped on my bed, wondering how it was possible in just a few short weeks for me to have gone so far down this rabbit hole. Emilio was right about one thing. The heart could not be commanded, because if it could be I would make myself fall out of love with Mason this instant. He was probably also right about the whole talking thing, but I was too angry at the moment.

Mason knocked softly at the door. I did not tell him to come in.

The door opened anyway.

“Can we talk?”

Thankfully I was angrier than I was sad, at least for the moment. That fact was the only reason I’d been able to hold back tears.

“Sure,” I said as dispassionately as possible. While I wanted to throw my pillows at him, acting like a toddler wasn’t going to get us anywhere. On the other hand, I simply couldn’t let the obvious question go. “Why did you have sex with me knowing you were leaving?”

Mason sat on the opposite side of the bed from me. His jaw set, I could actually imagine him at that very moment in uniform, a military man who had been trained as a soldier. Who was more accustomed to giving orders than taking them.

I’d known he was a hard man from the day we met, and yet I fell for him anyway.

“I didn’t have sex with you, Pia. We made love.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Those were the very last words I ever expected to hear. As I stared at him in stunned silence, words escaped me.

“Even so,” he continued, “I had no intentions of doing that when I came. I wanted you to be the first to know and was about to text you when you asked me to come over.”

“You had all night to tell me,” I managed, still in shock over his words. It made no sense. He loved me. But was leaving?

“I know. And I should have done it sooner. But I don’t want to hurt you, Pia. And I know full well that’s what I’m doing by going back to the city.”

“I don’t get it. You just said you’ve fallen in love with me. But are you leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But that makes no sense.”

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