Officer, Surgeon...Gentleman!

“Don’t tell me what I want,” she spat at him in her coldest voice. “You have no idea.”

Although maybe he did.

A part of her didn’t want him to go. A part of her wanted him to expound on what he’d been telling her, wanted him to explain what had motivated him to show up at her dorm, to maneuver himself into working with her. Had sexual lust driven him to go against his better judgment and search out a woman he’d known would reject him? Did he really believe they were star-crossed lovers or had that only been a smooth line to throw her off balance?

“I know you want me as much as I want you,” he countered, not moving from where he stood but looking like he had to force his muscles to remain still. “But you refuse to admit you want me because of loyalty to your sister.”

No. She didn’t want him.

Much.

“You don’t know anything.” At least she sounded brave, certain, as if she meant what she said. Inside she quaked. This man held the power to rip her world apart, the same way he had ripped it apart two years ago.

“Tell me I’m wrong, that you don’t want me.”

She wanted to, but couldn’t lie to him. Couldn’t lie to herself. Not a moment longer. She did want Cole. More than she’d ever wanted any man.

And it was wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

She swallowed the knot tightening her throat. “What I want doesn’t matter.”

He laughed wryly, without humor. “What you want matters more than anything. You matter. Tell me what you want.”

She closed her eyes, praying for strength. “If what I want matters, you’ll leave me alone, Cole, because I want you to go.”

She heard his sigh, felt his frustration zinging from across the room. His tension wrapped around her like a cloak, willing her toward him, willing her to give in to her desires.

Just when she felt her strength waning, the sensation was gone. Cole was gone.

Wondering at her sense of loss when he’d done as she wanted, she opened her eyes to the empty room.

If she weren’t a Stockton, tears would have prickled her eyes. But she was a Stockton and those weren’t unshed tears blurring her vision because Cole had done exactly as she’d asked.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HEY, Sis. How are things? Still stationed in the Middle East? Life is busy. The ship was plagued with a virus, but things have calmed down. Only a few new cases this past week.

Amelia dropped her head into her hands.

Oh, God, she sounded like a polite stranger. Just as she’d been sounding in all correspondence with Clara since Cole had arrived on board. She’d told Josie a few weeks ago. She’d even told Robert. They’d both taken the news better than she’d expected but, then, she’d never told them she and Cole had kissed prior to Cole dumping their sister, had never told them about Cole coming to her dorm weeks later.

Just as she hadn’t told Clara that her ex was aboard the USS Benjamin Franklin.

She had to tell her sister. Now. Today. In this very e-mail.

Pressing her finger on the backspace key, she deleted the entire note and started over.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you, but Cole is on the USS Benjamin Franklin. He is a great surgeon and an asset to the ship, but working with him is difficult for me given the circumstances. I feel my loyalties are torn between you and what’s best for my crew. I don’t want to forgive him, Clara. I really don’t want to, but he does have a way of getting under one’s skin, doesn’t he? I always cared about Cole, thought he was a wonderful man and doctor. It’s so easy to forget how things ended when I’m spending so much time with him, when being with him reminds me of all the things I loved about him.

No, not loved. She deleted the word and typed adored instead.

How can I forget how he just abandoned you? Abandoned our family when we loved him as one of our own?

There was that word again. Love. They hadn’t loved Cole. She hadn’t loved him.

“About done?”

Reflexively hitting Send before he could read what she’d written, Amelia glanced up at the man standing in the doorway.