Page 71 of The Reluctant Wife

"You already know that Jane was pregnant when her platoon was taken out."

She nods, then sets her glass aside without touching the drink.

I draw in a breath, then steel myself. Best to rip off the Band-Aid and lay it all out there; there’s no easy way to say it.

"The child wasn’t mine. It couldn’t have been because we hadn’t slept together in over a year. We’d been having trouble with our marriage."

"What?" She presses her knuckles into her mouth. "The child was?—"

"Likely, the father was her platoon captain. It emerged later that they’d been having an affair."

She pales. "I’m so sorry. You must have felt so betrayed by her. Add to that, I didn’t tell you about my engagement. That must have made you feel duped all over again.”

I roll my shoulders. She’s right. And yet, hearing the anguish in her voice, that tightness in my chest which I’ve been carrying around since that tosser of her now ex-fiancé turned up, eases.

“It’s true, I was pissed off, but now that I’m thinking about it calmly, I realize you were under no obligation to tell me about your engagement. Not when I’d made it clear I couldn’t have a relationship of any kind with you. It’s not like we’d made any promises to each other before we slept together.”

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to forget what Jane did to me. Time, they say, heals, but my guilt around Jane’s death continues to eat away at me.

As if she’s read my mind, she rises to her feet and walks over to stand next to me. "What happened with Jane wasn’t your fault. You can’t hold yourself responsible for her death, Ryot."

"If only that were true." I move away because being that close to her, smelling her scent, and feeling the heat of her body is doing crazy things to my libido, clouding my mind, and turning my brain to mush. And I need my wits about me to complete this sorry story of my past. "You don’t know what you’re saying." I begin to pace.

"Then, explain it to me," she says in a soft voice.

I sense the empathy in her tone, and that makes me angry. I don’t deserve her understanding. Not when I know I’m to blame for what happened. "When we first met, I thought the chemistry between Jane and me was explosive."

She winces, visibly enough that I notice.

“I know, now, it’s nothing compared to this attraction between you and me,” I murmur.

She shakes her head. "This is not about me. Please continue."

I blow out a breath.It is about her. It’s very much about her.But I don’t say that aloud. "In retrospect, I put it down to the fact that we met on tour. Fighting for a cause, confronting your enemies, and going to sleep not knowing if you’ll live to see another day, can have an unusual effect on people."

She stays quiet, letting me speak.

"When we returned from the first mission we served on together, both of us thought we’d found someone we might want to spend our life with. We thought we had so much in common. Especially our responsibility to the Marines and to our country. We were married within three months of meeting."

"Thatisquick."

Not as quickly as us discussing getting hitched within weeks of meeting, but I hold that comment back too. "We got married at City Hall between deployments, and it was all fine. Until we returned and set up house and found we couldn’t get along." I laugh. "Both of us signed up on the next tour. We ended up meeting again while in service, this time on a peace-keeping tour in Cyprus. The sparks flew again. We thought we were over the worst. But when we returned and tried to function as a couple without the stress of war, it turned out, we weren’t compatible."

Understanding flits across her features. "It only worked when your relationship was under the kind of pressure that life and death situations imposed on it?"

"Seemed like it." I hesitate.

She regards me closely. "There’s more, isn’t there?"

Yep, my woman’s smart. She read between my words and sensed I’m not telling her everything. I walk over to the bar, pour myself another finger of whiskey, and take a healthy swig.

"Did it have to do with…your, uh… Need to be in control?" She approaches me and comes to a stop next to me.

I laugh, the sound bitter. "If by that you mean, my need to be dominant, then yes."

She flushes a little. I glance at her face to find her pupils dilated. And when she squeezes her thighs together, I realize she welcomes the prospect. The fact that she enjoyed being spanked and orgasmed so quickly is also a giveaway. But that we’re able to talk about it openly is an unexpected bonus.

I toss back the whiskey in my tumbler and place it on the counter. "Jane wasn’t into the power exchange part of our relationship. She said she took enough orders at work and didn't want to do that at home, too." I’d known it and disregarded it.

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