“Not that I don’t want to.”
“No?” She directs a level gaze at me, and I realize she’s silently calling me on my bullshit.
“Fuck.” I poke the fire. “Yeah, you’re right. Some of me—a lot of me—doesn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“It’s…ugly.”
She turns to watch the fire jump and dance. “Perhaps. But it is you, and nothing about you is ugly.”
“I got six men killed. Cole is a vegetable, and will be for the rest of his life. That’s ugly, babe.”
“It does not meanyouare ugly.” She glances at me sidelong. “You do not say this, but I feel it is true anyway—you think the ugly things which have happened and which you have done makeyouugly.”
My throat goes thick and hot. “Goddammit, Anj.”
She sees me. Seesintome. I want to be able to be the man she deserves, but if she knew the truth…
My grip on the story of that fucking nightmare is unbreakable.
“Last night,” she says, not looking at me, “you said something which has puzzled me all day.”
Shit, shit, shit, fuck, shit. She fuckin’ heard me. “What’s that, babe?”
“‘I don’t deserve you, Anj.’” She does her dead-level best to make her voice growly and rough—she doesn’t even come close to succeeding. “‘Not a bit of you.’”
I grip my poking stick so hard I feel it splinter. I can’t say a word, can’t.
“What did you mean, Kane?”
I shake my head. “Sorry, Anjalee,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. But I fuckin’can’t.”
I toss the stick on the ground and walk away, into the shadows, into the trees.
She follows me right into the darkness. “How could you think you do not deserve me, Kane? Please, help me to understand.”
I shake my head. “You don’t want that shit, Anjalee. Promise you, you donotwant my shit on your soul.”
“You do not know this.”
“I fuckin’ do.”
She has the balls to sound angry. “You do not determine what I want, Kane Sutherland.Ido. That is my new life. That is the new Anjalee Sharma, and it isyouwho has given her to me. So do not think to take it away from me now.”
“It’s not that, I swear.”
“Then at least explain to me why you will not share this part of yourself with me. I have not hidden anything from you or kept anything back.” She moves to stand in front of me in the shadows.
“Anj, please.Don’t.” I can’t look at her. Can’t bear the weight of softness, the depth of tenderness in her eyes. Fucking cannot.
“We are connected, Kane. You have said it. I have said it.” She closes in, small delicate hands on my chest. “This is not just an adventure for me. I am not going to just go back home to my parents when this is over. I do notwantit to be over. Not ever. Itrustyou, Kane.”
She’s digging hard, pushing deep. But she’s doing it soft and sweet.
My walls tremble, a little.
“I will go anywhere with you, do you know?”
