Page 319 of Affair
This hurt.
He’d fought to survive, only to be blindsided and lose Poe anyway.
By his choice.
She touched his leg, and he flinched. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt this man.
“His family was just killed, Gamble. He needs some time. He didn’t say he wouldn’t be back.”
Gamble’s heart hurt.
“And he didn’t say goodbye? He just left me?” he asked, feeling overwhelmingly hurt by that. “He just walked away without saying a word?”
Yeah, well, about that.
She pulled a note from her bag.
“He left you this.”
Gamble held it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to read it. He wasn’t sure he could.
“I don’t want to read a goodbye, Elizabeth.”
She put it in his hand.
“He cried writing it, Gamble. He doesn’t want to say goodbye. Just read it. You’re both fighting a war. You’ll understand how he feels.”
Slowly, with shaking fingers, he opened it. He dripped blood from the wound on his scalp where he’d been pistol-whipped in the woods.
When he saw the handwriting, he knew it was Poe’s. He’d seen his notebook where he made notes.
‘My dearest Gamble,
First, I’m okay. Thank you for coming after me. I know you’re probably angry with me right now, but I have a good reason as to why I’m gone.
I love you too much.
If I saw you, and kissed you one more time, I wasn’t going to be able to do what I needed to do. I’m going back home. I don’t know when I’ll be back, or if I’ll ever be back, but know this.
You were the love of my life, and my one and only. I have never loved anyone like I love you. Over the three months we spent together, you got behind that wall, and I was lucky to have those moments.
You are an amazing man, and I am so proud of you. You’re a survivor, and the last day we spent together will be my most cherished memory. I swear to my grave.
I won’t ever marry or take on another person to be my partner because for a full day, I had my soulmate. I looked into your eyes, and I knew… you were the one born for me.
I have no choice but to go back. I have duties there, and while I want to walk away from them, and stay with you, I have to do the right thing. With my parents dead, I am the new Duke of Gordon. People rely on their employment, and I have to bury my mother and father to put them to rest with respect beside Hemmingway.
Don’t hate me.
Please.
I know that walking away without seeing you was horrible to do, but again, I wouldn’t have left. I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Over the last three months, I learned something about myself. That I, too, am worthy. It is a lesson I try to instill in each soldier I help. I didn’t know that I needed to learn it too. The moments we shared were so special to me.
When I woke from that nightmare, I knew I had to leave. I should have not had sex with you again, but I wanted to be selfish and feel you one last time. I wanted to taste you, and hold you, and know that I wasn’t so empty for that moment.
What lies before me…
