Chapter 4 4

The truck sat idling in front of a row of identical beige buildings, each marked with a number and nothing else. Ethan hadn't spoken since they'd left his office, hadn't looked at her, hadn't touched her. The silence had weight, texture, a physical presence in the cab that pressed against Kiera's skin.

She watched his profile in the fading light, the way his hands gripped the wheel at ten and two, the muscle ticking in his jaw. He was angry. More than angry-he was wrestling with something larger than anger, some internal battle she couldn't see the shape of.

"Ethan-"

"Don't." The word was flat, final. He killed the engine, the sudden silence shocking after the diesel's constant rumble. "Not yet."

He got out, leaving her in the passenger seat, and walked to the door of Building 7 without looking back. Kiera counted to thirty, watching him fumble with his keys, his shoulders hunched against more than the autumn chill. Then she followed.

The apartment was worse than she'd expected.

Not dirty-never that. But empty. A couch in military gray, positioned to face a television that looked like it had never been turned on. A kitchen with no food smells, no clutter, no evidence that anyone actually cooked there. The walls were bare, painted in some shade of institutional cream that managed to be both inoffensive and deeply depressing.

Kiera stood in the doorway, her heels loud against the linoleum. "Cozy."

Ethan was at the refrigerator, pulling out two bottles of water. He set them on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area, the glass surface cold and unmarked. "Sit," he said. "Please. We need to talk."

She sat. The couch was firm, unyielding, designed for posture rather than comfort. Ethan remained standing, his hands braced on the counter, his eyes fixed on some point above her head.

"What you did today," he began. "What you allowed Gus to believe. It can't continue."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a lie." His gaze dropped to hers, sharp and cutting. "Because in three months, I'll be deployed. Because in six months, I might be dead, and you'll be here, wearing black at a funeral for a man you never really knew. Because-" He stopped, his throat working. "Because you don't understand what you're signing up for. What being with me would actually mean."

Kiera picked up her water, the plastic slick against her palm. "Enlighten me."

So he did. He spoke of deployments that lasted nine months, twelve, fifteen. Of phone calls in the middle of the night that began with "We regret to inform you." Of the women he'd known, strong women, good women, who'd tried to love men in uniform and found themselves broken by the waiting, the worrying, the constant, grinding uncertainty.

"You'll move every two years," he said. "Maybe more. You'll give up your career, your friends, your family. You'll raise children alone, celebrate anniversaries alone, spend Christmas staring at a phone screen hoping for five minutes of connection. And that's if you're lucky. If you're not-" He pushed away from the counter, moving closer, his shadow falling across her. "If you're not, you'll get a flag. A medal. A body in a box that they won't let you open because there's not enough left to recognize."

His voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper, rough with emotion she'd never expected from him. "You think you want this," he said. "You think you want me. But you're looking at the uniform, the rank, the idea of being a colonel's wife. You're not looking at the reality. And the reality would destroy you."

Kiera set down her water. Her hand was steady, she was proud to note, despite the way her heart was hammering against her ribs. "You think you know me," she said. "You think because I wear expensive clothes and go to parties, I'm soft. I'm weak. I need champagne and attention and a man who comes home for dinner every night at six."

"I think-" He stopped. Shook his head. "I think you're used to a certain kind of life. A life I can't give you."

"And I think," she said, rising from the couch, "that you're a coward."

The word hit him like a physical blow. She saw it-the flinch, the narrowing of his eyes, the way his hands curled into fists at his sides.

"You're not protecting me," she continued, moving closer, close enough to smell the soap on his skin, the faint remnants of the morning's coffee. "You're protecting yourself. You're pushing me away before I can push you away, because it's easier to be alone than to risk-"

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you're terrified." She was in his space now, invading it the way she'd invaded his hotel room, his base, his carefully ordered existence. "I know you want me so badly you can't think straight, and it scares you because you've spent your whole life being in control, being the responsible one, being the man who never makes mistakes. And I'm a mistake you can't stop wanting to make."

His chest rose and fell, rapid and shallow. She watched the war in his eyes-the discipline against the desire, the fear against the need.

"I've been betrayed before," she said, and the words surprised her, slipping out before she could catch them, loaded with a truth she hadn't meant to share. "I know what it costs to trust someone. I know what it costs to open yourself up and have them-" She stopped, her voice cracking slightly, hating herself for the weakness. "I know what loneliness feels like, Ethan. Real loneliness. The kind that has nothing to do with whether someone's physically present."

She was shaking now, she realized. Trembling with the force of memories she kept locked away, of Kayden's face when he'd told her she wasn't enough, of the empty apartment and the unanswered calls and the slow, grinding realization that she'd built her life around a man who saw her as disposable.

"So don't tell me I can't handle your world," she finished, her voice barely audible. "Don't tell me I'm too soft, too weak, too spoiled. I've survived worse than you can imagine. And I'm still here. Still standing. Still-" She looked up at him, at the man who'd somehow become her last, desperate gamble. "Still wanting you."

Silence.

Then Ethan's hand moved, slowly, like he was fighting against weights, and closed around her wrist. His fingers were warm, rough with calluses, and they tightened until she could feel her own pulse against his palm.

"You're sure," he said. It wasn't a question. It was a prayer, or a warning, or both.

"I'm sure."

He pulled. She stumbled forward, caught against his chest, and his other arm came around her waist, lifting her off her feet, crushing her to him with a force that drove the breath from her lungs. His face was buried in her hair, his heart hammering against her breast, and she felt the moment he surrendered-the subtle loosening of his spine, the exhale that seemed to empty him of everything he'd been holding back.

"Goddamn you," he whispered, the same words he'd spoken in the hotel, but different now, weighted with acceptance rather than denial. "Goddamn us both."