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“Can I go next?”

She secretly hugged Aria Cyrre for the injection. The blonde logistics specialist from the Austin office, who looked like Tinker Bell but could cuss like a truck driver, spoke up from the middle of the room.

“You’re up,” Moore conceded to her.

“I might be stating the obvious, but this is a chance to be part of history, you know? Taking down that asshole’s regime was just the start. We helped make that blood-and-piss mess. I think it’s only right that we help clean it up.”

As the room broke into chuckles, Moore stepped out from the podium. “Excellent point, Aria. It helps speak to a larger issue here too. Listen up on this, people. It’s great to feel good about what you’re doing on this project, but the people you’re doing it for will not all embrace you as heroes. You
will
meet many natives who see you as part of the boots who kicked the hornet’s nest. You’re not going to get the Lifetime-TV ending with them, even after those buildings are finished the right way.”

He shifted again, hitching a thigh onto the desk next to her. Though Rose ordered herself against it, she found her gaze looking at that leg through the curtain of her lashes. Toned. Marine-hard.
Well, hell.

He leaned his elbow to his knee. She swore she could feel the heat of his renewed stare. Her heartbeat became a torment again.

“Now we’ll have the honor of hearing from Ms. Fabian.”

For a wild instant, she contemplated fabricating a reply instead of going with the sappy words on the page in front of her. But when she lifted her head and confronted the full strength of the man’s regard, she faced one unflinching realization.

She’d never be able to give Mark Moore anything less than the truth.

“I think that people deserve second chances,” she stated. He hardly reacted to that, except for the tiny creases at the tops of his cheeks, which deepened a little. It seemed a good thing. She hurried on. “I really think they deserve it more when their circumstances weren’t their direct doing, but the world has perceived it to be. These people only want what we all want. They want to walk down the street in peace, to raise healthy children, to have love, to be happy. To help them have that chance…” She shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed now, but finished. “It feels like a second chance for me too.”

She didn’t know whether the following silence was a good or bad thing, especially because it seemed to radiate from Moore himself. He returned to his feet, but his stance wasn’t anything she’d seen in the last two days. His arms, straight at his sides, ended in fists. He looked like invisible tethers held him back—but from doing what? A peek at his face didn’t give her the answer. His gaze now looked like a copper mine on fire. His pulse jumped beneath his trimmed beard.

Everything about him made her think of kissing him.

No. Letting
him
kiss
her
. Hard, heavy, brutally.

She almost thanked Ryan for breaking into her thoughts with his newest chortle. Almost.

“Oh hey, Rose. Sorry, I’m not laughing because— Well, I mean no disrespect.” She heard his clothes rustling as he swung his gaze around the room. “I think it’s…umm…brave of you to share your issues with everyone like this.”

The dig couldn’t have been more obvious. There was substance behind the comment, since Ryan had been sitting in the church the day of Owen’s famous no-show, but she decided to call the man on his own bluff. Ryan was a conceited coattail grabber, but not a cruel prick. “My ‘issues,’ Ryan?” She pivoted in her seat, making sure their gazes met. “You’re deciding to bump your project bonus more by applying for group shrink too?”

The guy’s surfing-god looks played to his advantage. He shrugged with a disarming smile. “I’m just saying it’s not a sin to use work as therapy. It’s how half the great corporations of the world got started.”

She rolled her eyes. Ryan didn’t flinch. The moment begged her to let his taunt lie and walk away. But if she couldn’t hold her own even with Ryan, what would the senator think about her ability to handle the rigors of what they’d face in Iraq?

“I’d suggest you heed Senator Moore’s advice, Mr. Johnson. Don’t tread in areas where you don’t have expertise, which in this case, includes my head.”

She swung forward again. Then made the mistake of taking a breath and thinking she could relax again.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Rose. You’re not the first person to get stood up on your wedding day.”

Correction. Ryan really could be that big a prick.

His truth dug in like a murder knife, cold and unhesitating—and accurate. He got her heart right down the middle. She’d come here to put the past away, to start on the clean slate of hope, but that was too damn impossible. Maybe fate didn’t use erasable chalk for someone like her. Maybe there would just always be shits like Ryan to throw the board back in her face, making her confront the humiliation all over again. Maybe she should have never made this lame attempt at hope or believed fresh starts could really happen.

She stayed upright as Kai and Pete added their chuckles to Ryan’s. But that made everyone else think she was in on the jab, and it was okay to join themselves. She deepened her stare at the carpet. The tropical print seemed a better escape route by the second. But damn it, a pair of Cavalli-clad feet got in her way. Not just any feet either. Mark Moore’s feet. That single factor made this embarrassment worse than the others. She wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye again. No more secret, selfish drags of his warm strength. Not after he knew about her grand failure.

The conclusion, so horrible and final, was what drove her to her feet. And right up the stairs. And right out of the room. Her inadequacy had screwed things up. Again.

Chapter Three

She’d disappeared out the door before Mark trusted himself to push past his fury and speak. Even then the words left him with savage force, cutting through the laughter they’d given Rose as a send-off.

“I think we’re done for the day, children. I suggest you use your free time to do something constructive. Like growing the fuck up.”

They went silent. It was paltry relief for the protective fire roaring through his body. He let the heat take over and ignite his muscles, propelling him up the stairs two at a time and out of the room. Out in the hall, he beheld an empty corridor, a glass wall, and the patio beyond that. Bright hibiscus and lush palms swung lazily in the island breeze, mocking him with their peaceful perfection.

He bit back an oath. She’d bolted fast, but she couldn’t have gone that far. He closed his eyes, drawing on instincts honed on the frontlines of Desert Storm, shutting down his reliance on a visual. He listened instead. And breathed. And hoped she’d give herself away with the patter of fleeing footsteps, maybe the lingering wisp of her fragrance on the air. In the last forty-eight hours, he’d tried like hell not to notice how she smelled. Now he was glad he’d failed. He remembered it precisely. A hint of magnolia, a kiss of vanilla, and a lot of clean, creamy skin.

There it was, off to the right. Her footfall, frantic and hard, confirmed his conclusion.

Without a second thought, he followed.

The corridor hooked a little to the left, then turned into a flagstone pathway that led through gardens, grottos, and water features. Mark followed it past a koi pond and a gazebo, finally finding her stopped against a river rock wall, in an alcove that was nearly a cave, thanks to its other wall being formed by a waterfall. She glared at the thundering water as if she longed to drown herself in it. Her high, classic cheeks were already wet. But he knew, certain as he breathed, the drops weren’t from the waterfall.

That look. Her tears. They almost caused him to turn and leave her be. They cracked him open. Decimated his logic. Shattered his professional composure. If he stayed for a second longer, he knew what he’d be tempted to do. To say.

She looked up and saw him.

He took a tentative step.

She jerked as if he’d thrown an electric charge across the grotto. Her lips, moist with her tears and berry bright from her bites, parted on a gasp. She drew breath for words. Mark cut her off.

“He’s an ass.”

He closed on her by two more steps. She stumbled back and slammed into the wall. “Oh, God!” Mortification stabbed the words. She palmed her cheeks.

As her hands came down, Mark grabbed them. And wondered what the hell he was doing. He didn’t care about the answer. He only knew he longed to wipe out that pain in her eyes. No, it was more than pain. It was loneliness. He recognized it too damn well. Easy enough, when it was the same desperate glint he confronted in the mirror every morning.

“He’s an
ass
.” He let her see his locked teeth now. “Don’t you see that?”

“Of course I see it! He pulls crap like this all the time at home. Earth-shattering surprise, huh?”

He let her look everywhere but at him. He softened his grip, elated when she didn’t pull away. “But that’s the first time he’s ever pulled that particular wad of crap.”

Her grimace confirmed that. He nodded, barely battling the urge to find Johnson, tell him to forget the maturity lesson, and just go the fuck home. Baghdad wasn’t a place for sixteen-year-olds, even if they walked around in bodies twice that age.

While he got distracted with that fantasy, Rose finally took notice of how they stood. He nearly had her locked against the wall. Their hands, still joined, were the only thing that blocked their chests from touching. “Shit!” she cried. “Look…Senator…I apologize—”

“What the hell for?”

She shook her head. “It’s clear I can’t handle this. Apparently I can’t handle much of anything. I’m a mess. I’ll save the company some money and go home now.”

“The fuck you will.”

She actually glared at him for three seconds. She seemed stunned he’d use that word or that tone or both. That made her response, calm as morning mist, even more a shock.

“The fuck I won’t.”

She dropped her head and tried to pull free from him. She had a snowball’s chance of succeeding. “Rose,” he reprimanded. “
Rosalind
. Listen to me. Nobody deserves to be on this project more than you. Nobody’s got their head in a better space than you. Do you hear me on this? Rose?”

The top of her head, while a captivating crown of shiny russet, was unreadable.

The trembles of her shoulders, turning to the shudders brought on by sobbing, were crystal clear.

“Rose.” He let out a weighted sigh. Then pulled her against him. “Oh, little pet, what is it?”

It was all he could not to give in to a tremor himself. Holy Christ, what was he doing? This protectiveness, this aching need to grip her and hold her…he hadn’t felt like this for a living person since he and Heather had whispered their final good-byes. After that day, he thought he’d never feel this way again. No, goddamn it; he’d vowed it. Best to just swear off the pain forever than risk ever going through that hell again. But here, it felt so perfect. It seemed so right. It was the only choice that made sense, even if it did make all this feel like jumping from a plane at 30K feet without an oxygen mask.

With a deep inhale, he spread his arms. Since their hands were still locked, Rose’s followed along beneath. The action succeeded at making her his prisoner against the wall. She gasped. The sound hit him like a rocket, compelling him to lower his cheek, to scrape up Rose’s tears with his beard, to shift his mouth so all he had to do was whisper for her to hear.

“Let it go, pet. You’ve been holding it in for so long, haven’t you?”

She trembled, still resisting. He understood. He waited. The significance of what he asked… It delved far beyond just the words he’d just spoken. He wanted her trust. To help shoulder a burden she’d carried so long that it likely felt like part of her. He could practically feel her torment. Surrender her burden to him and face the emptiness it left behind inside, or turn and run again, back to the safety of her life?

The safety. And the loneliness.

He didn’t want to make her choice easy. Or, if he was being honest, his. He’d been safe for so long now, always opting for the easiest way to think and the most comfortable thing to do, which was usually too damn much. His relationship with Dasha had nearly been the sacrifice for it. He’d only redeemed himself with her by tossing “safe” way the hell overboard.

Maybe that would work here too. Maybe that was why fate had brought him here, to show that to Rose, to make her see that running wasn’t always the answer, that safety wasn’t always the key. And maybe in showing her, he’d push away the loneliness for himself too. Christ, if only for a few minutes…

He shifted his hold so his hands circled her wrists. He squeezed a fraction tighter. “Let it go.” As he ordered it in a whisper, he lowered his mouth to her nape, unable to resist the elegant curve of skin. “I’m here, honey. Let it go.”

Rose whimpered, her wrists twisting in his hold. But when he eased his grip, concerned he’d hurt her from the rush of fresh Dom in his system, she still made the sound. He beheld the taut lips and shimmering gaze that told him one thing clear as the sunshine of which she smelled. He hadn’t pushed her physically at all. He’d rammed home a thousand emotional buttons—and now they all went off at once, overwhelming her.

Triumph surged. Yes. This was what she needed. Mental gears locked into place as he sensed it, knew it, savored it. He’d only met her, but he
knew
her. He also knew he was meant to be here, to give her what she craved but wouldn’t give to herself. Her worth to the world. Her beauty, within and without. Her desirability, an organic thing from her mind and her spirit, just as much as her incredible curves and her porcelain skin.

“That’s it.” He spread his legs, bracketing her body with his, rejoicing as she softened beneath him. “Don’t fight it anymore. You don’t have to. I’ll be here to catch you, I promise.”

“I…I can’t…” It dissolved into a sobbing hiccup. “This…this isn’t—”

“Anything or anyone but you and me.” He murmured his next words against the furrows in her forehead. “I’ll stop any time you want. Just say the word. But I don’t think you want to stop, Rose.”