On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(51)

His free hand gripped the railing of the balcony, clenching around it. “You had been raped. I was trying to give you time.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think you really wanted me because he’d had me. All the rest was just physical impulses and a measure of guilt from you. Do you want the truth? I didn’t really want the divorce, but you didn’t seem to want me anymore so I gave you an out.”

He turned to her, the glass crashing to the ground. He didn’t seem to care that he’d just broken a glass. “I never wanted an out. I wanted you. I tried to touch you and you flinched every single time. You couldn’t stand to have my hands on you because deep down you blamed me for what happened to you. Don’t you dare deny it.”

She was suddenly so damn tired. She moved to the side, well away from the glass. “I don’t deny it. You refused to listen to me. You thought I was wrong about Evans. Hell, you still think I’m wrong otherwise you wouldn’t be here. This is ancient history. Why are we talking about it now?”

Now both fists were clenched at his sides as he followed her. “Because it’s still here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’m sorry I was an arrogant prick who f*cked up his job so badly that he could never go back. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’re the one who got hurt because of it. Don’t you think I would change places with you if I could?”

Which only proved that he didn’t know her at all. “I wouldn’t want that. Did I blame you? Yes. Was that fair? No, of course not. Do I still blame you? I don’t blame you for what happened, but I blame you for everything that happened afterward. I blame you for trying to be some kind of vigilante when I needed you to be my husband.”

And he would never understand that. She turned, but his hand was on her arm, pulling her back. He loomed over her, his face shadowed by the moonlight. His mouth was turned down, but his eyes roamed every inch of her. “I didn’t know how to reach you. I didn’t even think I had the right to. What he did…”

“Is over, but you won’t let it be over. It will never be over for you, and that’s why it can’t work between us.” Tears made the world a blurry mess because it really came down to that. He wouldn’t be able to let go. Not now. Not even if he found Michael Evans and somehow managed to kill him. For Alex, it would never really be over.

Their marriage had broken as surely as the glass on the ground, and neither of them had swept up the pieces. They kept trying to pick them up and fit them back together, but some pieces had shattered utterly and would never fit again. All they got for the effort was bloody hands and frustration.

“Do you want me to walk away now?” Alex asked, his voice tortured. “If I packed up everything and left with you tonight, would you give us another chance?”

She reached up and touched him, her palm to his cheek. He turned into her hand like he needed the feel of her skin against him more than his next breath. “We can’t leave because, at the end of the day, Kristen is right about one thing. Michael Evans has to be brought to justice so he can’t hurt anyone else. And that’s your job.”

It was why she loved him. It was also why he would never be able to forgive himself.

“I want to go back, Eve. I want us to be whole again. I want it more than anything.” He touched his forehead to hers.

“We can’t, baby. We can’t go back. I wish we could, but I can’t be that girl again. Whether I want it to or not, what happened changed me, and I can’t be that sweet submissive thing you loved so much. I can’t let you pick out my clothes and make all the choices. I think I would have outgrown it anyway. I wonder all the time what would have happened.” It was the very thing that haunted her—the idea that no matter what had happened, she and Alex could have still broken up. “We were very young when we got married. I was already changing before Evans took me. It’s inevitable that people grow and change, and distance tends to follow.”

She felt his head shake. “No. We would have grown together. We would have changed and evolved because I would never have let it fall apart. We were stupid kids when we got married, but it was real and true and it should have been forever.”

But it wasn’t. It had been ten years of the contented happiness that came with a good marriage and then five years of aching loneliness, even when he was in bed beside her. It should have been forever, but there had been no happily ever after for them and there never could be until she let him go. “It broke. We broke and we can’t come back from that. We can’t pretend to be the kids we were before. We can’t have the marriage we had, and until we stop looking back, neither one of us can move forward. I’ve done this to us.”

“No. Eve, don’t,” Alex whispered. She could hear the pain in his voice.

Tears streaked down her cheeks, emotion rolling over her. She still loved him. She would go to her grave loving him, but she was right about this. They were broken and pieces were missing and couldn’t be replaced. “I’m so sorry, baby. I should have let you go a long time ago. We should have separated and allowed each other to heal. I’ve kept us in this corner because I was so scared of a life that didn’t have you in it. I was willing to keep both of us in hell instead of just letting go.”

“I don’t want you to let go. Can’t we just hold on? We can just hold on. We can get through it, angel.”