Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT Caribbean Nights #9) - Kat Cantrell Page 0,9
perspective, when he’d gone from being her rock in the aftermath of the accident to being far too insidious into every aspect of her life. His autocratic personality was only one of many reasons she’d finally gotten the courage to tell him she was done.
Charlie crossed his arms, bunching up his biceps against the sleeves of his Aqueous Adventures T-shirt. “My tactics were strictly designed to stop Anderson in his tracks while I scrambled to undo the damage his resort project would do to my business. Speaking of dragging someone into the middle of things, surely you realized your report was going to affect me. Affect my team. Did it never cross your mind to maybe reach out beforehand?”
He’d always had amazing arms. He’d definitely retained the ability to boost her up against the wall in a clash of bodies and heat as he drove her to shattering climax. Heat flooded her core. God, why had she envisioned that?
Crossing her legs against the rush of need that should not have happened, she blurted out, “That’s rich, Charlie. You’re the one who called it off between us. I…”
Was so sick with grief and confusion, and you never responded to the dozens of times I asked why… But of course he hadn’t cared about that. Then or now.
And she’d just brought up the past, despite being totally on board with ignoring the elephant in the room. She folded her hands into her lap, staring at him as she struggled to breathe.
His expression blanked, and instantly she made the unsettling realization that she’d yet to discover just how frozen those blue eyes of his could get.
“That was over a year ago.” His voice had gone soft and lethal. “Surely we can leave that in the past where it belongs.”
Audra pressed a thumb into the center of her forehead, right where the icepick was trying to stab its way through her brain. “Actually, I can’t, Charlie. It’s my present, because you’re making it relevant by being here. I don’t understand why you didn’t have the balls to at least call me and explain.”
“The reception between Iraq and the Bahamas is iffy. I warned you of that.”
She could not help but laugh. “That’s your excuse? Technology? Sometimes we went for a month without any contact until you got within range again. I don’t recall giving you a second of grief over it either.”
Why would she? He’d been stationed in Iraq, doing covert operations, and she’d been thrilled to get what few scraps of his time and energy he could spare. When they did finally hook up, those had been the best times. Anticipation always made for truly hot long-distance Skype sex. Sometimes just the sound of his voice commanding her to come had been enough to set her off.
And she’d gladly endured the difficult parts because she’d—naïvely—thought that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that he’d come back to her and they’d make up for all the lost time.
Charlie didn’t even blink as his jaw flexed. “It was a war, Audra. One we didn’t win. Things change, and sometimes we have no control over them. Trust me when I tell you that you’re better off.
“Oh? Things change? Thanks for the memo,” she shot back sarcastically to cover the ache in her throat as she registered the pain threaded through his voice. “Guess what. That happened on both sides. We have different lives now that don’t intersect. So no, it never occurred to me to reach out.”
She’d reached out and reached out until he threw her hand back in her face. That was a lesson she’d never forget, especially when he’d followed the same script as her dad after she’d trusted him to be different, to be the one guy in her life who’d stick around. She didn’t do a whole lot of reaching out these days.
With one glaring exception when she’d been so shattered by her brother’s death, there’d been no choice but to crawl toward the one person who’d been there—Jared. But Charlie didn’t need to know about how weak she’d been, how after making a lifetime habit of never needing anyone, the one unthinkable thing that could have broken her happened.
He wasn’t her lover anymore. She couldn’t fall into his arms and weep the way she’d once ached to after Isaac had shuddered through his last breath.
Oh, God. She shut her eyes for a second. Bad, bad subject, one she did a pretty good job of avoiding, but Charlie