He couldn’t deny it.
‘And if Mikey had done that,’ she continued sadly, ‘you’d have been beating yourself up for not taking him on that mission. Thinking that if you had, he would still be alive.’
In the darkest recesses of his head he’d wondered the same thing, too many times to recall, over the years. He’d woken up in a cold sweat, his mind searching to touch an answer that could never be found. He held his head up, his voice sharper than he intended. But at least it didn’t break or splinter, the way he felt his very soul was doing.
‘We’ll never know.’
And that was the worst part about it.
His words hung between them, like a shimmering, electrically charged barrier.
His guilt was palpable. Perhaps he was most guilty that the surgeries he’d carried out on those villagers had drawn the attention of the enemy, made them collaborators. Maybe it was more about Mikey. Probably it was a combination of the two.
She gazed at him, as though silently willing him to keep going, and not to suddenly regret his frankness, and shut her out instead. He hated the sorrow in her expression, almost as much as he hated that flicker of hopefulness behind it. As if she imagined him opening up to her now meant so much more.
Because he couldn’t guarantee her more. He couldn’t guarantee her anything. He was damaged. Worthless.
‘Is that why you walked out on the army? The surgeries? Because you think this is the punishment you deserve?’ she asked suddenly.
‘You say it like you don’t believe it.’ He couldn’t keep the accusation out of his tone. ‘You think it’s right that those innocent villagers should die, that I let one man get to the point where he took his own life, that one little girl now has no father, and all the while I get to walk away unscathed? To walk around as though nothing ever happened?’
‘But you aren’t unscathed, are you?’ she pointed out. ‘You don’t walk around as though nothing happened. You’ve sacrificed everything: your caree
r as an army officer, your career as a surgeon, even some kind of a decent life. You can’t tell me that taking a job as a bodyguard to the vile Raevenne Rawlstone wasn’t your idea of punishment.’
‘You’re not vile.’ Anger coursed through him without warning. How dared she talk about herself that way? How dared she even think it?
Rae held her ground.
‘But you didn’t know that at the time, did you? You thought I was vacuous, and trampy, and spoilt. The perfect penance for someone as culpable and selfish as you?’
The blackness swirled faster, harder.
‘You’re not that woman.’
‘And you’re not that man,’ she declared triumphantly.
His eyes seared. Scalding and furious. He practically spat the words out at her.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Except that I do,’ she announced, ignoring his attempts to intimidate her. ‘I’ve got to know you now. And even if I didn’t, my brother knows you, yet he gave you this job. He entrusted me to you.’
She lifted her hands to his chest. The way she had only a few nights ago. Reminding him all too easily of how it had been between them. How it maybe could still be.
‘He trusts me. But I don’t deserve that trust.’
‘You absolutely do. And that’s why I trust you, too.’
He couldn’t stop himself. He covered her hand with his, his calloused thumb pad caressing her skin.
Less than a month ago he’d thought she was like some kind of breathtakingly beautiful angel, but that it was only skin deep. But he’d been wrong. She was beautiful inside, as well as outside.
He’d spent the last few weeks humping and dumping. He’d hoped that working out here would soothe his battered sense of self-worth and it made him feel as if he was starting to heal. As if he could be useful again. Worthy.
Worthy of Rae?
He thrust away the taunting voice but he wasn’t quick enough. New questions tumbled around his head.