busied herself picking up a stack of papers from her desk and thumbing through them, reminding herself that she’d likely be thrown in the brig if she didn’t get her emotions under control. How could he say that after…after…?
“Well, I have forgotten,” she lied for pure self-preservation. “We were never friends. You’re just some joker who had a laugh at my sister’s and my expense and walked away from my family without a backward glance.”
“Amelia,” he began, then sighed, glanced over his shoulders down the narrow corridor leading off the sick ward to the office. When his gaze met hers next, steely determination had settled in. “We need to talk.”
She crossed her arms, glared. He wasn’t going to intimidate her if that’s what he was trying to do. “Was the surgical suite not to your satisfaction?”
“I haven’t been satisfied in years, Amelia.”
“Call me Dr Stockton.” She emphasized each word. “And I fail to see what your lack of satisfaction has to do with me.”
“Don’t you?” he asked softly, laughing with more than a hint of irony.
“Go away.” She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. How dared he bring that up, that crazy night, weeks after the non-wedding, when he’d come to see her and she’d eventually sent him packing? Besides, if he was trying to tell her he hadn’t been with anyone for two years, she’d never believe him. Not in a million years. Which meant he was trying to play her for a fool. Again. She touched the desk, running her fingers over the smooth surface, collecting her wits before glancing up. “I never wanted to see you again.”
“You made that obvious.”
“Yet here you stand,” she needlessly pointed out, riffling through papers as if she was bored with their conversation. Truth was, she needed to get away from him, needed to breathe. She couldn’t breathe with Cole standing so close, with him eyeing her with such intensity.
“Unless orders come stating otherwise, I’m here for the full deployment. Dr Lewis has been assigned landside.”
Six months. That was the usual duration of a surgeon on board a ship. Anything longer than that and their surgical skills might become rusty. Their usual days consisted of elective procedures such as vasectomies or ingrown toenail extractions, with the occasional gallbladder and appendix removal thrown in for good measure. Usually nothing as intense as working in a hospital setting like Cole must be used to.
“Good for you.” She kept her tone level but, as she had for much of the day, inside she screamed. Loud and fierce and full of frustration.
Six months she was stuck working with him. Six whole months. Fine. She could do anything for six months. She was a Stockton.
“Which means we need to work through your anger for me.”
She glanced up, met his gaze. “There’s nothing to work through.”
“You don’t hate me?” He didn’t look convinced. “Because I’m picking up pretty strong vibes that you’d like to dump me overboard.”
He was picking up on that, was he? Good, maybe he’d take the hint.
“You don’t rate that much of my thoughts.” Liar, liar, pants on fire, but she couldn’t admit that she’d thought of him often during the past two years.
Way too often.
“You’ve forgiven me?” He looked skeptical.
“For breaking my sister’s heart and making a mockery of her the night before her wedding?” she asked, laughing cynically. For making me look at you with stars in my eyes and breaking my heart right along with Clara’s? Never. “One thing you should know about us Stocktons, we’re a loyal bunch. We look after our own and don’t take kindly to anyone who messes with our family.”
“I remember. You have an exceptional family.” He smiled as if from fond memories. “Your father is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.”
“Yes, he is.” No one was more dependable or loyal than her father and Amelia loved him with her whole heart. He deserved her love because a finer man had never lived. John Stockton ruled with an iron fist and expected everyone to jump to his tune. Everyone did, all the Stockton children included. “He thinks you’re a piece of no-good trash.”
Cole flinched, but she felt no pleasure that her barb had hit home. She should be pleased, should want him to feel as much pain and remorse as humanly possible for the cruel way he’d treated her family.
Yet all she felt was the desire to be far away from him, to actually still be in her bunk, fast asleep, to wake up and find Cole’s presence on board to be a horrible nightmare rather than her current reality.
Tiring of whatever game he played, she took a deep breath. “What is it you want, Dr Stanley?”
You, Cole thought, reeling at how forcefully the thought hit him.
He had always wanted Amelia.
For two years she’d haunted him, showing up in his thoughts, featuring in his dreams. Knowing that at their last meeting she’d professed to hate him until the day he died, well, Cole had tried to forget her.
After all, even if she didn’t hate his guts, it wasn’t as if they could have a relationship. He’d been less than twenty-four hours from getting married to her sister and her family thought he was a heel.
Perhaps he was. Because when he’d watched Maid of Honor Amelia walk down the aisle during his wedding rehearsal, he’d wished he was marrying her, not Clara. For months, he’d tried to tell himself he was only have pre-wedding jitters, that he was being a fool, but when their eyes had met, his heart had gone into a mimicry of atrial fibrillation, fluttering like crazy and making him feel light-headed.
When the rehearsal had ended he’d gone outdoors, had had to have a moment to himself, to breathe, to process his thoughts, to figure out how he was going to tell Clara that he couldn’t marry her, that he loved her, but not in the way he should, not with passion.
Amelia had followed him.
“Cole? Are you okay?”
He’d wanted to touch her. To pull her to him and let her heat warm him. He’d closed his eyes, fisted his fingers and nodded.
When he’d opened his eyes, she’d moved closer.
“Go back inside, Amelia.”
But she hadn’t. She’d lifted her hand, run her fingers across his cheek, slowly, tenderly. He’d trembled. Trembled like a schoolboy being touched by a goddess.
“Tell me what just happened,” she’d prompted, her palm caressing his face.
Cole swallowed, reminding himself that he had to break things off with Clara, that as much as he wanted this moment, he couldn’t grab it. Not until he’d told Clara the truth. That he couldn’t marry her.
“We had the wedding rehearsal.”
She studied him
