Page 25 of Second Chance Wedding
He fought the pull of her body, her scent: light and alluring. She smelled like rain and salt and something heady enough to almost make him want to forget the way she’d destroyed him.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you suggesting these awful things? Putting them in my head?”
Her questions drew him out of the haze that had taken him over. His gaze shifted from the sight of his thumb laying over her pulse to her trembling lips to eyes clouded with pain he’d be blind not to see. “I want you to be prepared and know what to do should something happen. I want you to keep your phone charged and on your body so you can call me orQuinley,” he forced himself to say, “if you need help.”
“Cole…”
“You also need a safe word.”
Her eyes flared wide, her lips parting in surprise.
“They’re not just for sex, sweetheart,” he said in a wry tone. “If you’re in trouble but you can’t say so, you need a safe word to alert us that you need help.”
She shifted on her chair and lifted her arm to break his hold. He lowered his right hand to her chair but didn’t back off as much as she probably wanted him to. He crowded her, pushed her, but it needed to be done.
“This is crazy. I’m not going to??—”
“Ferris wheel,” he said, interrupting her to finish the discussion before she bolted like he knew she wanted to. “If you call me or text me and say Ferris wheel, I’ll know something is up and you need me.”
She scrambled to her feet away from him and glared as he slowly rose to his. “I’m trying to help you, Ana.”
She lifted her chin, shaking her head in the doing and looking like a panicked bobblehead.
“This is not helping me. You’re just scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not my intent.” He ran a hand over his head, noting his skin or jacket—something—carried traces of her perfume.
“Of course it is. You want to hurt me. You hate me for how I ended things, and you want to hurt me. Don’t deny it.”
“I don’t hate you. I don’t like the way things ended, but this has nothing to do with that. This is about me trying to protect you from the train wreck I see barreling your way.” His honesty seemed to throw her off. “Look, just do what I said, okay? And call me or…Quinley,” he said, practically growling the name. “Don’t let pride get in the way of your safety. Promise me you’ll be prepared if you need to be.”
She snapped up the wine glass, nearly spilling the contents, before she drained it in four large swallows.
“Ana,” he growled, watching her.
She finished and set it down with a clunk. “It’s my turn now. I-I want to clear the air about what happened. Between us.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and waited, watching the alcohol or her upcoming words bring a hot flush to her pale cheeks.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Okay? I didn’t.”
“Ana—”
“No, let me say this. I just— I waseighteen, Cole. You decided the military was your future, and I thought I was okay with it. But while you were away doing what you wanted to do, I realized I’d always be following you and not doing what I wanted. I know how immature that makes me sound, but Iwasimmature. I-I loved you, but my mother was right, and Ihatedyou then for making me admit that. But she was. Graduation wasn’t the first event in my life that you’d miss if I married you, and it sank in that I couldn’t give up my dreams just so I couldwaitfor you to come back. That wasyourlife, and I wanted one of my own.”
Her words sucker punched him, the impact almost as bad as getting that email fifteen years ago. She’d ripped his heart out then, and she did it again now. Because unlike then, he finally understood.
During his many years in the Marines, he’d seen far too many marriages end due to the distance and loneliness. Lives lived separately. Military life wasn’t for everyone, and even though he’d thought love was enough at the time, he wasn’t a naive twenty-year-old kid anymore.
“But I handled things all wrong. I know that, and for that…I am deeply, trulysorry,” she whispered before she spun around and rushed toward the entrance.
“Ana.” Cole followed her, gaze inevitably drawn to the sway of her hips, the core-tightening shape of her, as she hurried back to the life she’d built without him.
He stopped in the lobby, but she kept going, every step taking her away from him once again.
He felt someone watching him and shifted his gaze to see Ben leaning against the open doorway to his mom’s boutique.
Even from the distance, Cole was able to make out Ben’s sneer when he realized his mom came from meeting with him.
