Breaking All the Rules (26 page)

It had felt like
more than passion.

It felt like
good-bye.

Chapter Twelve

She didn’t want
to wake up.

Even as Nina
started to drift awake, she resisted it. It wasn’t a conscious thought. It was
pure instinct. On some deep level she knew she felt safe and warm and content.
She never wanted to leave this state, this moment. She wanted to stay here
forever.

Finally,
inevitably, she recognized that she was no longer asleep. She made herself open
her eyes.

And looked
straight into Bobby’s sleeping face.

And she
remembered.

She closed her
eyes again as pain suddenly sliced through her, wrenching her gut.

She wanted
nothing more than to go back to where she’d been a few moments ago—asleep. Content.
Unaware.

But she
couldn’t. There was no way to deny it, any more than she could so many other
things.

It was still
dark, with no signs of light coming through the window. Her inner clock was set
to the time she had to be up to get to the shop. She instinctively knew she
needed to get moving.

Opening her
eyes, Nina looked at him for another moment before gently turning and sliding
from the bed. She would have to wake him, would have to talk to him before she
left. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it just yet. He looked so peaceful,
as much as she’d been a few minutes ago.

She quickly
gathered her clothes. She needed a shower before she left. Then she could deal
with everything else.

But when she
finally emerged from the bathroom, she braced herself before reentering the
bedroom.

The effort was
wasted. The bed was empty.

She found him in
the kitchen. Bobby was standing at the counter, his back to her. Though she
couldn’t see it, she guessed from the sounds he was making that he was working
the coffee maker.

She stopped just
inside the entryway and watched him. She let her gaze roam over the wide
expanse of his back and shoulders. His T-shirt seemed huge to be able to cover
such a large area, but still looked like it was straining at the seams. Her
eyes drifted lower, taking in the slim hips, that magnificent ass, the long
legs, the bare feet. She knew every inch of that body and it still seemed as
new and exciting as the first time she’d seen him. Most of all, she savored the
easy way he moved, the loose, masculine grace of a man completely in charge of
his body, utterly at ease.

A man who had no
idea what was coming.

He suddenly
turned. His eyes lit up when he spotted her, his lips automatically softening
into a smile that nearly broke her heart right then and there.

“Hey, I figured
you might need to get to the shop soon, so I’m making coffee…”

He slowly trailed
off. Nina watched the happiness drain from his face as he took in her
expression, clearly reading every bit of the tension and misery that had to be
there.

“Everything
okay?” he asked gently, his tone saying he knew it wasn’t.

This is it
.
She braced herself, somehow managing to find the strength to force out the
words.

“I can’t do
this.”

Nina watched the
words sink in, his face gradually falling more and more until he looked as grim
and sober as she had to. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about breakfast.”

“No.” She
swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come over last night.”

“I’m glad you
did.”

In spite of
everything, heat flooded her face at the reminder of the night they’d shared.
“So am I,” she admitted softly. “But I still shouldn’t have. It wasn’t fair to
you.”

“You don’t hear
me complaining.”

“You have every
right to, because it has to be the last time.” She held up a hand to cut off
his response. “I know I’ve said that before, and I’ve been too weak to follow
through. This time, for both our sakes, I mean it. I’m asking you to let me
go.”

He swallowed
hard. “I don’t know if I can,” he said roughly.

“And I can’t do
this. I thought it would be hard to be with someone in the military because of
the moving and lack of stability and the sacrifice, but this is worse. With
everything that’s happening in the world today, it’s so much scarier than what
my mother had to face. There’s real danger out there, and it was easy to ignore
that when you were just a guy I was having fun with and wasn’t supposed to care
about. But now…” She took a deep breath. “Now I think I’m falling in love with
you, if I’m not already there. And if something happened to you, I’m pretty
sure it would kill me too.”

As she spoke, a
range of emotions, each responding to different parts of what she was saying,
from denial to joy to pain, flashed across his face. She wished she could look
away, not wanting to see the effect her words were having on him. Her body
responded predictably, her heart leaping, then dropping into the pit of her
stomach, seemingly at the same time. Joy and despair churned in her gut,
roaring through her. The effect was pure agony, more painful than anything
she’d ever felt before. She had no idea how she remained on her feet.

Bobby opened his
mouth to respond. She continued before he could try to argue with her.

“I can’t do it,
Bobby. I told you I’m not strong enough, and I had no idea just how true that
is. I can’t be the woman left behind, wondering if you’re okay, waiting to see
if you’re going to come back or if someone’s going to turn up on my doorstep
and tell me otherwise. It’s not a matter of wanting to do it or being willing
to. I just...can’t. And yet, I know that if you keep coming around, you’ll wear
me down. You make me weaker than I thought any man could. You have ever since
the first night I met you. And if you keep at it, you probably will change my
mind, no matter how much I know that I shouldn’t, no matter the havoc it will
cause me. So I’m asking you.” She swallowed hard, over the painfully hard lump
in her throat, over the tears she could feel building.

“Please let me
go.”

He looked at her
for a long moment, his gaze steady and clear, his expression reflecting so many
emotions she couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking. She braced herself
against whatever he said next.

“Okay.”

It was what she
needed to hear. Nina knew it. That didn’t stop that jolt of pain that shafted
through her, overwhelming the expected relief. It felt as though she’d been
ripped, violently, irrevocably, in two. She wobbled slightly on her feet, not
sure how it was possible she was still standing.

“Really?”

His expression
was composed, calm, but she could see the pain simmering beneath the surface
that he was barely managing to control. And it made her heart squeeze so
tightly she nearly gasped at the agony.

He nodded and
lowered his eyes. “You’ve made yourself clear. I can’t argue with that.”

“Okay then.” She
began to back away slowly. “Goodbye, Bobby.” The words stuck in her throat and
were barely audible. She couldn’t bring herself to repeat them.

Quickly turning,
she started out of the room.

“Nina.”

She knew she
should keep going. He must have changed his mind. She knew she shouldn’t let
him try to change hers.

She couldn’t
bring herself to walk away from him like that, not with him calling after her.
She owed him the chance to speak, owed them both that much.

She stopped, but
didn’t turn around, unable to risk him shattering her resolve.

“I love you,
too.”

The tears she’d
somehow managed to hold back finally spilled over, burning her skin as they
fell. Wetness pouring down her cheeks, she began moving again, keeping her
mouth firmly shut. She quickly made her way through the living room, through
the door, down the stairs and back to her car.

Only when she
was driving away did she let out the sobs that came one after another, so hard
and so fast it didn’t seem like they’d ever stop again.

Chapter Thirteen

“I’m sorry I’m
late,” Ashley said as she hurried into the kitchen. “I would have called, but I
didn’t realize just how late it was.”

Looking up from
the counter, Nina glanced at the clock on the wall, surprised to see what time
it was. She hadn’t even noticed Ash was late. Ever since she’d gotten to the
shop, she’d been so focused on her work that she hadn’t thought about anything
else. Hadn’t let herself think about anything else, giving in to the
comfortingly repetitive nature of her task. “It’s fine.”

“Have you heard
anything from Jackie?”

Oh God
.
Guilt hit Nina hard low in her belly. She’d forgotten about Jackie. She quickly
dug into her apron for her phone and checked for any messages. “No,” she told
Ash. “I take it you haven’t either?”

“No,” Ash
murmured. “But it’s still early. She might not know anything new yet. I’m sure
she’ll let us know when she hears something.”

“You’re probably
right,” Nina said, trying to believe it. Because if something had gone wrong,
if things had gotten worse, Jackie might not have gotten in touch because she
was busy dealing with other things.

Ash came up to the
counter, tying her apron as she moved. Suddenly she stopped. Nina sensed Ash’s
eyes on her.

“What is it?”
Ashley finally asked. “What’s wrong?”

Nina didn’t want
to tell her, didn’t want to talk about it. But she doubted Ashley would believe
her if she lied and said nothing was wrong. Obviously she wasn’t doing a good
job hiding her feelings, no surprise considering how raw she was feeling. Might
as well get it over with.

She sucked in a
breath. “I ended things with Bobby.”

Ash merely
sighed, her eyes rolling skyward. “I’ve heard that before.”

“I mean it,”
Nina said quietly, every word feeling like cut glass as she forced them from
her raw throat. “It’s over.”

The tone in her
voice must have sunk in, because Ash went very still and looked at Nina, her
expression slowly softening with sympathy. “Are you okay?”

No. “I will be,”
she said. Even as she said it, it felt like the biggest lie she’d told in her
entire life.

“Are you sure
that’s what you wanted to do?”

No. The word
screamed inside her. Loud. Instinctive. Insistent.

She didn’t let
it out. “It had to be done.”

Nina had seen
the look on Ashley’s face before. She was treading carefully. “Did it?”

“I said it did,
didn’t I?” Nina shot back, barely holding on to her temper. God, she wished Ash
would just stop talking.

“Yeah,” Ashley
said quietly. “That’s what you said. I just don’t think I believe you. Because
you’re not okay. I’d have to be blind not to see that. Hell, even if I was
blind I’d probably see it. You look like you’re barely holding it together.
Which tells me maybe you didn’t do the right thing.”

“I did,” Nina
choked out. “Would you just drop it?”

“No!” Ashley
snapped. Nina automatically looked up in surprise. Ashley looked angrier than
Nina had ever seen her before, her face flush with fury. “Damn it, Nina, I love
you, and you know I would take on anybody who messed with you. So that’s what
I’m doing, because the person who’s hurting you is you.”

“I didn’t have a
choice,” Nina gritted out through clenched teeth. “Yes, it hurts now, but it
could hurt more if I didn’t end it now.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not
cut out for this. I can’t live my life waiting for him to come back, waiting to
see if he will come back.”

Ashley frowned
in confusion. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing the past several years?”

Nina gave her
head a furious shake. “That was different.”

“How?” Ashley
shot back.

“Because he
wasn’t mine!”

Ashley just
looked at her for a long moment, a hint of pity in her eyes. “Bullshit.”

There was no
anger or bite in the word, just a simple declaration of fact. Nina still felt
it like a slap, even as she recognized the truth in it deep inside her.

“You’re kidding
yourself,” Ash said, firmly, but not unkindly. “You’re telling me you never
wondered how he was doing? If he was safe? If you found out two weeks ago that
something had happened to him, that he wasn’t coming back, would it have hurt
any less? You can tell yourself that what you had was impersonal, that he
messed it up by asking if you wanted something more, but that happened long
ago. You already love him. He’s yours.”

Never had two
words hurt her more. Nina felt the same surge of exhilaration and despair that
was now so familiar. He’s mine. That didn’t make it better. It only made it so
much worse.

Raising her
chin, she met Ashley’s eyes head-on. “Maybe he is,” she said softly. “But I
don’t know what to do with that. I thought it would be hard to be involved with
someone who was gone so much, having my life controlled by outside forces and
decided by other people. But this? I don’t know how to do this. At least before
I could tell myself that he wasn’t mine. At least that made it bearable, made
it so that I could try not to think about him when he was gone. But if he is
mine, then I can’t do that. Then I have to have to wonder if he’s okay, if he’s
coming back. And I
can’t
. Spending day after day, month after month, not
knowing where he is or if he’s safe or if he’s alive? Being completely helpless
and not being able to do anything about it? Just the thought of something
happening— God, if saying goodbye now hurts this much, then I’ll never survive
it if something happens to him. I can’t spend my life being afraid. I can’t
worry and wonder and not know. I can’t live like this.
I can’t
.”

The last word
came out on a sob, raw desperation ripping it out of her throat and flinging it
at Ashley like a plea. As soon as it came out, it felt like the last bit of
control that had been holding her together was shattered. Suddenly she couldn’t
hold the sobs in, couldn’t breathe as they came out, one after another, each
more painful than the last. Her knees buckled, like her legs weren’t even there
anymore. She grabbed onto the edge of the counter, gripping it for dear life,
trying to stay on her feet when she couldn’t seem to find an ounce of strength.
Her whole body was shaking, until it seemed like the countertop couldn’t even
hold her steady, like the whole world was rocking around her.