Page 18 of Reclaiming Izabel

A sick joke?

Am I losing my mind?

None of this could be real, and yet he uttered my name in the special way Drake did.

In the only way that had ever touched my soul.

He was a magnet drawing me in and I stumbled forward, body shaking, chest heaving, lifting a trembling hand and wanting to touch his face.

“Drake?” I whispered the name full of hope, yet disbelief, still struggling to make sense of the man before me.

A flash of white teeth. His oh-so-familiar smile.

My legs buckled, but before I hit the wooden planks, strong arms swooped around me.

They held me up as I was crushed against a chest. I sobbed—my body not knowing whether to breathe or cry. My mind not knowing how to process thoughts spiraling in a chaotic trajectory, trying to find logic amidst the soothing words murmured against my ear.

“I missed you, Iza. God, how I missed you.”

I froze.

Hemissedme?

I went to hell when he died.

Fury, rejection, and betrayal coalesced and squashed the yearnings of my heart. I struggled to get out of his embrace.

“Let me go!” I screamed when he refused to comply.

“Let me go!” I repeated, almost hysterical.

His arms unlocked and I staggered back. “You missed me?” I was panting hard, glaring at the stranger who claimed to be my husband. Well, he could be the stand-in for anger, so explosive that words couldn’t even define the agony I went through in the last three years.

If all “ghost Drake” could say was he missed me, then fuck him.

“I stood in that airfield waiting for the plane to bring my husband home. I wept over your flag-draped casket,” I inhaled raggedly. His face blurring as the onslaught of tears streamed down my cheeks. “I buried you. I mourned you, Drake, but that’s what I signed up for when I married a SEAL, knowing that could happen to us. But this…” I waved my arm up and down in front of me. “I didn’t sign up for this. For three years of living hell believing I’d lost the love of my life…”

My words trailed off because logic dictated if this was Drake, then I’d been lied to.

He visibly flinched as he took a step forward. “I can explain, Iza.”

I laughed. A scornful laugh, borne out of pain. Everything inside me rebelled against this version of Drake. Because even if this man was Drake, he was not my husband. Not anymore.

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” I said between bouts of wracking sobs. I backed away from him because my heart was shattering all over again. “But I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

I ran.

Drake

Fuck!

Her anguish hit me like a wave slamming my body against a jagged rock. The devastation of her words sent me reeling, realization dawning on me that I was going to have the fight of my life on my hands. In the past three years, I had imagined our reunion so many times, but damn, was I way off point.

Izabel disappeared into the mist. I had been the envy of my teammates, especially the married ones.

Izabel accepted my sudden deployments as my duty. She never complained.

Missed anniversaries.

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