Page 9 of Married to the SEAL
He chided himself.
Just stay the course.
That’s what he had to do. Do his job to help preserve democracy, and get back to the good old U.S. of A.
The beautiful woman he just promised to love and honor till the day he died had very little to do with his objective, and he’d do well to remember that, no matter how striking her eyes were.
6
Grace sat in the glider, her baby at her breast. The calming hormones that surged through her bloodstream as her milk let down were a balm to her battered soul.
She was a married woman. It was ridiculous and unbelievable, and the numbness that had kept her feelings at bay throughout the ceremony slunk to the floor like a shadow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the otherwise empty room. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. Hell, she wasn’t even sure who she was apologizing to.
Her child?
Her lover?
Herself?
Her hold tightened on the baby in her arms. “I’m not sorry for you. I could never be sorry for you.” In that moment, she ached for her lover with a physical pain.
She wished he were here, but hadn’t she wished that very thing every moment of every day since he disappeared? There must’ve been some mistake, some misunderstanding, some horribly important reason he’d needed to go. They loved each other.
Of this, she was certain.
But her confidence had been battered by the months that followed, in the moments he had missed, the birth of their baby, and the embarrassment of coming home without him.
Her father’s words rang out in her head.A bastard. That’s what everyone else is going to call him.
And what of her lover? What if he was alive and planned to come to her, only to discover she’d married another man just weeks after his child was born? She looked at her sweet son at her breast and touched his soft hair lightly with her finger. “He would have loved you.”
Without Mason in her life, everything else ceased to be important. It didn’t matter that she was married to a stranger. The only thing that mattered now was that she had her son and she had done her duty to keep her country safe.
Now she could hunker down and hide inside these walls that had once felt like a prison. Lick her wounds and pray for the healing she feared would never come.
A knock at the door made her sigh, and she reached for a small blanket to cover herself. Her intense desire to be alone would not be so easily satisfied. “Come in.”
Matteo stood in the doorway and she took her first good look at him. He was tall, far taller than she, with wide shoulders tapering to slim hips and a white smile that glowed against his caramel-colored skin. She wondered about his heritage. Maybe Latino, maybe something else.
“I’m sorry, do you want some privacy?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “It’s okay. Come on in.” She gestured toward a chair comically far to her right and held her breath, relieved when he crossed to it and sat down. “What’s up?”
“Your father wanted me to let you know there’s going to be a reception for us this evening.”
“What?” The last thing on earth she felt like doing was showing off her new husband. She couldn’t even remember his last name, but her father expected her to introduce him around? To put a smile on her face and pretend for a formal audience?
She was suddenly so tired she couldn’t even imagine doing what was being asked of her.
“I’m sorry, Grace. Personally, I would have put it off a few days, but no one asked me for my opinion.”
The numbness was back, spreading over her body and brain. She narrowed her eyes. “This charade is so surreal. You could ask me to pretend to be a talking dinosaur and I might find it easier than this.”
“Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be. We just need to be friends. Couldn’t you use a friend?”
She blew out air. “I don’t need a friend; I need a savior.”
