Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) (19 page)

“I guess.”

So, no argument from Dex. He’d said it was the end of their fling, plain as day. Obviously it didn’t matter to him whether it was today or tomorrow.

Didn’t he care that she was standing here bleeding from the effort to push him away? Didn’t he feel even a fraction of the pain? Her heart felt like she was polishing it with broken glass. Obviously he’d fully embraced the idea of a fling. He’d even said he was the kind of guy who didn’t call the next day. This was basically the same thing—it was over.

“Thanks for the memories,” she said inanely.

“Yeah, same goes.”

And that’s when she realized the water did have some kind of magic, after all. Because when she skirted him to splash through the surf toward the shore, the only explanation for how she found the will to leave Dex behind must lie somewhere in the depths of the ocean.

Dex watched Emma walk away. Something sharp tore through his chest, and it stole his breath for a moment.

It was fine, he assured himself. Emma deserved better than he could ever give her, and Ilhota Rosa was a bad idea. He had a feeling if he’d actually taken her there, he might have refused to return her to the resort. Like, ever.

Because he didn’t really want to let her go. His selfishness knew no bounds. She deserved marriage and a white picket fence and all the trappings of a normal, suburban life that a man like him could never give her. He was never going back to the States, would never be happy with a minivan and a role as a Cub Scout den leader.

Years of brutal discipline came in handy as Dex struggled to stay away from the resort the rest of the day. Evan didn’t make one single comment when he returned from the reef to find Dex watching TV in the bungalow, even though he’d been present when Charlie took one look at Dex’s face and ordered him to take the day off.

Jace had so very helpfully filled everyone in on what Dex might spend his day doing—Emma.

“I’m fine, by the way,” Dex snarled at Evan’s retreating back. Which was a ridiculous thing to say. It wasn’t like Evan cared that Dex had a big heavy weight on his chest that wouldn’t go away no matter what he did. “You can go on pretending you didn’t notice that I’m spending my day off alone.”

Dex sounded like a surly ass, even to himself. He should probably get out of the house before he ripped something apart with his bare hands.

Evan froze at the entrance to the hall, where he’d presumably been on his way to take a shower. A reasonable thing to want to do after spending six hours in a wetsuit.

But he didn’t turn around. “I noticed.”

Dex scrubbed at his face. “Sorry. I’m not fit to be around civilized people. That’s not your fault.”

“Good thing I’m not civilized.”

A joke from Evan Silva. Would wonders never cease? “You want to go to Abaco and eat? I could use a… distraction.”

He’d almost said a friend. But it was unnecessary. Evan was his friend no matter what, and there wasn’t a point in questioning that just because Dex was having a minor breakdown that he couldn’t even articulate to himself, let alone to a recluse who’d turned being a loner into an art form.

At that, Evan backed up and came back into the tiny living area, his mouth set in a hard line. His dark hair was still damp, and Dex felt like a jerk for opening his mouth when it was clear all Evan wanted to do was unwind after a long day of working for Jared Anderson.

“What happened with Emma?” Evan asked. His gaze lit on Dex unflinchingly, and it was full of compassion.

That nearly undid him. Evan was supposed to be pissed that his roommate was such a pansy who then turned around and took out his frustration on innocent bystanders. Dex’s throat tightened and it was a crapshoot on whether he’d be able to get the actual words out of his mouth. “She’s leaving.”

Guess that counted as words, though it wouldn’t surprise him if Evan hadn’t heard the hoarse croak. Besides, this was officially the longest conversation they’d had in… forever. It wasn’t like they had a lot of practice at listening to each other.

“Yeah.” Evan nodded and leaned against the end of the couch as if he had every intention of hanging out with Dex, instead of disentangling himself from the conversation as fast as humanly possible. Like normal. “That’s what women do.”

As Evan had experienced firsthand. His ex, Carrie, had taken off with their young daughter while Evan was in Iraq during their last tour. As far as Dex knew, Evan hadn’t found them yet, but he’d just as likely stopped looking since Carrie had made it clear she didn’t want their daughter around her alcoholic father.

Evan had been sober for a year, which Carrie probably didn’t know because she hadn’t bothered to find out.

“It was a fling.” Dex stared at the bare wall above Evan’s head because all that compassion was killing him. It wasn’t fair that either of them had to hurt so much that they fully understood each other’s pain. “She was always going to leave. Why am I so wound up about it?”

“Because you want something different,” Evan suggested quietly.

Yeah, but what? For her to stay?

What did he have to offer Emma? Nothing. A fledgling business that wouldn’t see black for a long time, a fight with a billionaire over Ilhota Rosa in his future, and a busted heart that had no concept of how to treat a woman like Emma. And she deserved someone who had their crap together, someone who could lay the world at her feet so she’d know every moment how special she was. How she’d lifted the darkness inside him for so many precious moments that he’d wanted to reciprocate. For more than a few days.

She didn’t seem all that interested in giving Dex a chance to work on that. Because it would be a work in progress.

“She was so nonchalant about getting on a plane. Like she was done here and happy about it,” Dex said.

Of course she was. The words she’d said to her lunatic ex-fiancé, which she’d repeated to him to make a point, had hit their mark. They were relevant to Dex too. Maybe more so. We’re not really right for each other. We want different things, and I’m not in a good place to be this serious. I’d rather end things now.

Her voice echoed in his head, convicting him. She didn’t want anything more than a vacation fling. Which was better. He shouldn’t either.

“Did you tell her that you weren’t done?” Evan asked and shifted his weight as if he couldn’t find a comfortable stance.

Dex scowled. “Yeah. I asked her to go with me to Ilhota Rosa, just the two of us. I was going to cook for her and just, you know. Be together. Because I—”

He bit off the word before he voiced it, but it pinged around inside him anyway. Love. He’d been about to say that he wanted to be with her because he loved her.

No way. Loved being with her was what he’d meant. He’d wanted to meld memories of a woman with a special place, both of which would be gone soon.

“I like hanging out with her,” Dex corrected casually, but the quirk of Evan’s mouth said he didn’t buy the amendment.

This conversation was going south in a hurry. What had he hoped to accomplish by holding up a mirror to his relationship with Emma? And by talking about it to Evan, the king of all Silent Types?

Dex huffed out a breath. That was a cop-out. Evan had expressed far more sympathy than Dex would have ever expected, had stuck around even though this kind of stuff made him hugely uncomfortable, and then asked all the right questions.

Dex just didn’t like the answers. “I didn’t tell her. I didn’t say anything because what would I say? Hey, Emma, I know we just met each other and you have a life at home, but what do you think about hanging around so we can see if I have what it takes to do something more? That’s crap. I’m not anyone’s long-term guy.”

“You sell yourself short.” Evan didn’t blink as his gaze bored into Dex. “We’re damaged goods, sure. But not all women are like Malika. Or Carrie. What if you gave Emma that speech, and she said okay? How hard would you work to make it worth her while?”

So hard. He’d move heaven and earth to prove she’d put her faith in the right guy. But he hadn’t given her that speech, because at the end of the day, she’d nailed it. He was terrified that she could take it, take him and all his baggage and be every inch the woman he’d been convinced didn’t exist. One who would expect things from him he couldn’t deliver. And he couldn’t protect her from that.

“Hey.” Dex scowled at Evan. “When did you get to be such a blabbermouth?”

“When I have something to say, I say it,” he countered mildly.

“I don’t have time to work that hard. Charlie is depending on us. Aqueous is growing and…” Just like his song and dance to himself when he let her walk away, these were all excuses in the end. He didn’t actually know that Emma wanted a white picket fence, because he’d never asked her. And wasn’t going to.

Bottom line—Emma made him feel like less of a mutant, more like he could actually be that man she saw, and it freaked him out.

Evan bopped him on the arm with a small smile. “You only get one shot, Dex. Make it count.”

Yeah, he was staring through the sight at something huge, and he had no idea how to hit the target. That might be the scariest thing of all.

E
mma dragged her suitcase down the little ramp toward the tarmac. The sun beat down on her shoulders as she stepped out of the terminal and walked toward the staircase attached to the edge of the plane that would take her away from the Bahamas. Her legs grew heavier and heavier until she could barely lift them, and then she stopped.

Rachel stepped on her heel and bounced off with a curse. “Trying to walk here.”

“I can’t do it.”

“What, walk? It’s not like they have a people mover to get you to the plane. This is Freeport, not Logan International.”

Logan. When she got off the plane, she’d be home in Boston. And she’d have to start her life over. There were no more excuses. She had to go, had to prove she was strong enough to leave Dex. She’d been depending on him and his strength, and it was sapping her own. She had to leave.

She’d had this argument already. With herself. With Rachel. A dozen times each. Every time, she’d become convinced getting on that plane was the only possible thing to do. But now that she actually had to do it… nothing seemed very clear anymore.

Emma spun to grip Rachel’s arm. “I’m making the right decision. Right?”

Rachel adjusted her wide-brimmed hat that she’d bought from one of the bustling markets they’d visited yesterday in hopes of distracting Emma from thinking about Dex. Which hadn’t worked.

Rachel glared at the portly middle-aged man in line behind them, who’d grumbled something uncomplimentary about how they were holding up the line. “Back off, buddy. Tarmac’s big enough for you to go around.”

Then she patted Emma’s hand. “Gouging a hole in my arm will not help, honey.”

Instantly Emma released her friend’s arm. “Sorry, I’m a mess.”

Rachel clucked. “Who isn’t? But you’re my mess, and I still love you.”

Tears filled Emma’s eyes, and one dripped down her cheek. So much for the perfect makeup she’d applied to show that she could handle leaving, that her hand was steady and she could face the world with a smile.

Rachel was her only true friend, the one who’d stuck with her through all the insanity. She’d be there for Emma when she got home. Of course she would. It was going to be okay.

“But,” Rachel countered with a glance over Emma’s shoulder in the direction of the terminal. “You do need to consider that the life you think you’re going home to isn’t right for you anymore. That the reason you’re having a hard time moving on from Chris is because you’ve changed too much to settle back into what you had before he messed it all up. Maybe you’ve got an opportunity to find a new normal. One that makes you happy instead of one that checks off a bunch of boxes on Emma’s Get Better list.”

Oh, God. Yes. That was exactly it. How had Rachel picked up on that? Emma didn’t want to go home and reenter her old life like nothing had happened. Because everything had happened, and she’d emerged from the ocean reborn. Exactly as Dex had said.

Dex. He was her light at the surface. What if she went home and found out that yes, she was strong enough to move on but wasn’t actually happy? Because Dex made her happy.