Fiji

June 2017

There was nothing quite as beautiful as watching the reflection of the moon ripple on the water off the deck of our overwater bungalow. I glanced over my shoulder, back through the open double doors, and took in the expanse of Nate’s naked back as he lay asleep on what had become his side of the bed in the last five days we’d been here. The top of the sheet rested at the small of his back, just above the delectable curve of his ass, and the dim light from the bedside table caught on every line of muscle, now lying dormant.

Fine, maybe there was one thing in this world more beautiful than the moon.

The breeze fluttered the silk of my spaghetti-strapped, thigh-high nightgown, and I turned away from Nate to face the water again. It was the middle of the night, and our deck was sheltered from any prying eyes—if there was even anyone awake in the bungalows beside us—but though Nate had no problem walking around gorgeously, mouthwateringly naked, I wasn’t quite that confident.

I also couldn’t sleep. He’d worn my body out into a blissful state of euphoric exhaustion, but my mind had spun long after his eyes had drifted shut.

We only had two days left.

Two days, and then we’d head back to the States. Back to reality. Back to a life where we never knew where we stood with each other, or when

we’d see the other again. Back to a life where I pushed away every man who got too close for the simple reason that he wasn’t Nate.

When I’d broken things off with Luke, I hadn’t cried out of heartbreak. I’d cried because I’d spent months with him and only fallen into like, a like I’d been shamefully willing to toss aside.

Love? That word belonged to one man in my life, and I couldn’t have him. Not really.

I was hopelessly, inexorably in love with Nathaniel, and only Nathaniel.

And he wouldn’t let me in. I was forever kept in his orbit, allowed to glimpse the damage I knew lingered beneath his surface, but condemned to watch helplessly from afar as he collected scars.

Maybe it was because he’d saved me all those years ago. Maybe it was the ease I seemed to feel only around him, the way I could be me, just me, and it was more than enough. Maybe it was the way he’d looked at me at his mom’s funeral, like I was the lone boat in an ocean trying its best to drown him. Or maybe it was the way he erased every logical thought with a single touch.

Whatever it was about him that held my heart, it only existed with Nate.

And we only had two more days.

How was I supposed to sleep even an hour of that away?

I wrapped my arms around my middle and stared up at the moon like it might deliver the answers I needed. Was I supposed to move to North Carolina? Give up the kind of work I wanted to do in order to be with him on the few days of the year he’d actually be home, when that clearly wasn’t what he wanted?

A noise made me turn back toward the bed. Nate’s body jerked.

I moved toward him, walking soundlessly so I wouldn’t wake him, watching to see if anything was wrong. After about a minute, I sat carefully on my side of the bed, then slowly pulled my legs up so I wouldn’t jostle the bed too much.

He jolted again, letting out a shout that startled me. He was having a nightmare.

“Nate.” I leaned over to him, gently touching his shoulder. “Nate, wake—”

He moved so fast that my heart stopped.

My back hit the mattress in the same second that Nate appeared above me. His eyes were wide and intense, and his forearm—

It was pressed to my collarbone as his other hand batted for something on the bed.

“Nate!” I cried out as my stomach lurched into my throat.

Horror streaked across his face, and he jumped backward, removing his weight in less than a heartbeat and scrambling for the edge of the bed. “Oh shit.” The blood ran from his face. “Izzy. God. Izzy.”

I moved back against the headboard, my mind trying like hell to catch up to what just happened.

“I’m so sorry.” He lifted his hand like he was going to reach for me, then set it back down. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” The stricken look on his face broke my heart. “I’m okay,” I promised.

He dropped his head into his hands. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine, Nate. Startled, but fine.” My pulse raced, but it was nothing compared to the way my chest tightened at the misery in his voice. “Nate, look at me.”

He slowly lifted his head, his eyes rising to meet mine.

“You didn’t hurt me.” I shook my head, logic cutting through the shock. “You were having a nightmare, and I startled you. I never should have touched you. I know enough about PTSD to know that, and I just . . . forgot. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me.” He drew his knees to his chest.

I scooted closer but stopped midway across the bed, giving him space. “You didn’t choke me. You didn’t cut off my airway. You didn’t throw me to the ground. You. Didn’t. Hurt. Me.”

He slid off the bed and pulled on a pair of dry swim trunks. “And I’m not going to.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” My stomach sank as he walked through the doors and out onto the deck. “Nate!”

“Get some sleep, Izzy.” He turned to face me but continued to walk backward. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

“I think I do,” I started, but Nate pivoted and dove off the deck into the water below. I rushed to the banister, but even the moonlight didn’t

reveal where he’d popped up. “Nate!” I whispered as loudly as I could, trying not to wake up anyone around us.

But he didn’t appear.

I waited on the deck for twenty minutes.

Then I waited in bed for another fifteen. Or maybe it was twenty. Then I closed my eyes just for a second.

 

 

I woke slowly and stretched my arms above my head, then brought my hands down to skim Nate’s body.

But he wasn’t there.

My eyes flew open and I sat up, staring at the empty side of the bed. “I’m here,” Nate said from my left.

I looked left and found Nate sitting on the sofa in the corner, already dressed for the day. Shadows hung under his eyes.

“Were you up all night?” I slid out of bed and took the opposite side of the couch.

“I couldn’t sleep after I . . .” His voice trailed off, and he jerked his gaze from mine, then leaned over the coffee table and handed me a sheet of paper. “Anyway, I made a list. It’s everywhere we’ve talked about over the last few days.”

I took the list from him and read over it. “Palau next year, Peru the year after that, then Borneo, the Canary Islands, and the Maldives.”

“Did I miss anything?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Seychelles,” I said.

“Right.” He handed me a pen. “Write it in.”

I glanced from him to the pen, then took it slowly and wrote Seychelles in the empty space at the bottom, pushing a little too hard and sending the pen through the paper. “Shit.”

“I already booked flights for next year. You wanted Palau, right?” he asked, putting his cell phone on the table.

My pulse leapt. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? “You did?”

He nodded. “I made them for October next year, but we can move the dates, depending on which firm you go with, or if I’m . . . not around.”

In other words, deployed.

I put the paper and pen next to the phone and sat back, curling my legs underneath me. Nate’s eyes heated as he glanced down my body, and I did my best to ignore the answering hum of desire that look ignited. “Where did you buy the tickets from? What cities?”

He took a deep breath. “I bought mine from North Carolina, and yours from New York.”

My lips parted.

“I texted Serena, since the time difference helped me out, and she said that’s where the firm you want is. The one that you’ve been talking about for the last year.”

He didn’t want me to even consider moving to North Carolina to be with him. He wanted to keep us just like this, the once-a-year fling that consumed my life, my heart.

“Is this about last night?”

“I just wanted to make sure that we followed through.” He swallowed. “We spent years talking about doing this, and it took . . . years. Now we know we’ll get to see each other.”

“Even if it’s just for a week?”

“A week is better than nothing,” he said.

“And how long is nothing supposed to be our baseline?” I stood, needing a little distance from him. “How long are we supposed to try and steal a weekend here, a week there?”

“As long as we have to.” He watched me pace, his body calm and still but his eyes assessing every move I made.

“That’s not an answer!”

“It’s the only one I have.” So. Damned. Calm.

How long did he plan to stay in the military? Couldn’t he see what it was doing to him? I could. It was clear as day.

“Are we even going to talk about last night?”

“There’s no point in us talking about a nightmare,” he said, his eyes tracking my movements. “I get them. You probably get them.”

“Yeah, well, I go to therapy too.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “Please tell me you’re seeing someone.” I held up my hand. “And before you ask, no, you didn’t hurt me. I’m not mad about last night. I know you’d cut your hand off before you’d use it against me.”

His jaw locked and he looked away, focusing on the scenery outside the open double doors. “I passed the psych eval for selection, so apparently I’m just fine. I can’t control what I dream about, Izzy. And the second I go talking to some shrink about nightmares, I can forget all about getting through the Q Course for Special Forces. They’ll kick me out.”

“What were you looking for last night?” I asked. “When you had me underneath you, your hand was searching for something.”

He blew out a slow breath and raked his hands through his short hair. “I usually keep a weapon under my pillow when I’m deployed, and I was dreaming—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. And honestly, things like what happened last night just add to the many reasons that you and I work the way we do.”

“But we don’t!” I pushed off the bed, unable to sit still. I felt like I was going to come out of my skin, like my body couldn’t possibly hold the intense emotions coursing through me. “This isn’t a real relationship if we keep doing it this way, Nate.”

“I never said it was.” He stood, but didn’t move closer to me, just watched me prowl back and forth across our room. “We agreed not to blow our shot, remember? We agreed—”

“A lot changes in three years,” I countered. “That’s how long I’ve been waiting, Nate. Three years, constantly comparing whomever I happen to be dating to you. Constantly wondering where you are, how you are. Wondering if you’re ever going to let me in, tell me what happens to you when you deploy.”

“You don’t want to know any of that.” He slid his hands into his pockets, the picture of cool and collected.

“Yes, I do! How am I supposed to know you if you won’t really let

me?”

“You know me better than anyone—”

“No, I know what you let me see better than anyone.” I pivoted on the

hardwood floor, my back to the door as I faced him.

“What do you want me to tell you, Iz?” He cocked his head to the side, and that mask I saw from time to time—the one he’d worn at his mom’s funeral—appeared. “Who I am over there isn’t who I am when I’m with you. I really don’t want you getting to know that guy.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I hated how unruffled he seemed, like he wasn’t struggling with the constant distance between us—the ever-

moving goal line of when we’d be able to have a real relationship.

“It means that I’m . . .” He sighed. “I’m an effective compartmentalizer. I’ve learned how to separate the shit that happens over there from my life stateside. It’s one of those coping mechanisms you talked about years ago, remember?”

I did.

“And if I want to know all of you?”

“You don’t.” He shook his head with certainty. “I do,” I argued.

“No. You. Don’t. The fact that I can keep that shit under a lid isn’t to lock you out, Iz, it’s to protect you. You shouldn’t have to deal with . . . everything.”

“Because you don’t trust me to be there for you?” I took two steps closer to him. “I was there for your mom’s funeral. I showed up when you needed me.”

“You did, and I know I never thanked you enough for that—”

“You don’t have to thank me, Nate. I want to be there! God, don’t you get it? Don’t you understand that there’s no way I can stay away if I know you’re suffering?”

“Which is exactly why I haven’t told you.” His voice rose. “You wouldn’t want to know the things I’ve done, the things I’ll do. You’d never look at me the same way. You think getting startled out of a nightmare is bad? It’s not. Not to mention that you can’t know any more, now that I’m going into Special Forces. It’s mostly classified. Izzy, you’re the one good, untainted thing in my life. You are the only peace I know. Why would I drag you into a shitstorm if I don’t have to?”

“So, I’ll never know what you go through? How to help you?” My chest clenched along with my fists.

“Why would you want to?”

“Because I’m in love with you!” I shouted, then gasped, covering my mouth with both hands. Shit, that was not supposed to come out.

His eyes flared. “Isabeau, no.”

My cheeks stung with heat as I backed my way out of the bungalow and onto the deck. If I dove off the end right now and started swimming, I could reach the next island over by the afternoon. I could avoid the rest of this conversation.

“You can’t love me,” he said, shaking his head as he followed me out.

The look on his face was pure devastation.

“And you can’t tell me how to feel!” Once my back hit the railing, there was nowhere else to go. “Can’t we just ignore that I said it?”

“No.” He stalked forward, only stopping when he had me caged, one hand gripping the railing on either side of me.

“Why not? You’re asking me to ignore everything that happens when we’re not together. You’re asking me to live off an existence of what you deign to tell me through letters and emails.” I lifted my chin and tried to glare at him, but the concern, the apprehension in his eyes chipped at my anger.

“Because everything that happens when we’re not together is the bullshit,” he said. “This is real.” He picked up my hand and put it on his chest. “This is the reality I live for.”

His heart beat erratically under my fingers. “And yet you won’t let me love you.”

He shook his head. “You can’t, Iz. You just can’t. I’m not good enough for you, not yet. Look at what happened last night. One nightmare, and I’ve got my arm at your—” He swallowed hard. “Look, I’m not just scared— I’m terrified of ruining the only shot we’ll get. You want real? That’s how I feel. I can’t lose you.” His eyes searched mine, and I felt a crack in my chest that I tried to ignore, knowing that if I looked too closely, I’d find a fault line in my heart.

“But you won’t really have me either,” I whispered. That’s when it hit me. He’d chosen his path, and he wouldn’t allow me to follow. He would always be at war in some way or another, and my fate, if I chose it, would be to watch him slowly change from the boy I met on that plane six years ago into whatever years and years of combat would turn him into.

That crack in my heart expanded with a painful jolt.

“I’ll have whatever you’ll let me.” He cradled my face between his hands and looked into my soul. “And we will have whatever we can give each other.” Lowering his head slowly, he pressed his against mine. “I can only give you what I have, Izzy. I know it’s not enough, but it’s all I have.”

His lips brushed over mine, and I melted.

I was screwed. That was all it took—one touch of his mouth, and I was his. Because as wrong as it might be, I loved him so much that I was willing to take whatever I could get when it came to Nate.

So, I took everything he’d give me for the next two days, and then I went home to DC, packed for the job I was offered in New York, and counted down the days until I’d see him in Palau.