She’d lost too many years of her life to this man. She couldn’t afford to go back. To care if he’d ever loved her.

She couldn’t afford to lose her heart to him ever again. He was who he was. A product of his childhood, just as he said. She was listening to him now. Believing him. Oh, not that he’d ever lift a hand to her, or would have to their child, but believing that he’d been irrevocably scarred by his father. Emotionally scarred. She might have continued trying to work on him the first time, if he’d given her a chance, but not now. Because she was older, wiser and knew that there were some battles she couldn’t win.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HE WASN’T GOING to sleep. And didn’t much want to spend the night sitting on the porch.

“Let’s take her out,” he said, standing.

“Take who out?”

Brett was already at the front of the boat, reaching for the key they’d left in the ignition.

“The boat?” Ella asked, joining him up front. “Are you kidding? It’s almost midnight. We’d wake up the neighborhood.”

He heard one thing. She hadn’t said no.

“It’s not the speed boat, El. It’s not going to be any louder than a car starting. We’re far enough away from the cabin that the noise won’t carry, and who else is in the neighborhood besides us? In case you hadn’t noticed this afternoon, most of the places around here are closed up.”

“It’s dark. We can’t go out on the ocean this late. Who knows what’s out there? And no one would know where to look for us if something went wrong.”

When had she become so cautious? The Ella he’d known had had a wild streak that he’d found captivating.

He suspected he was in large part to blame for its loss.

Which made it vitally important all of a sudden that he get her to agree to do something slightly crazy.

That and the fact that it seemed clear to him that neither of them was going to sleep, and the cabin was way too small for them to pretend the other wasn’t close by. Taking the boat out seemed the safest option.

“We’ll stay in the lagoon.”

She stood next to him by the driver’s seat, looking up at him. If they didn’t get going, he was going to kiss her.

“Move over, I’ll drive.” Ella touched him, but not in the way his mind had been imagining. She pushed him aside and sat down.

Standing behind her as she reached for the key, Brett waited until he heard the engine start before jumping onto the dock to free the pontoon of her restraints.

* * *

THE WIND CHILLED Ella’s face and fingers and blew softly through her hair, tossing it lightly around her arms and back. She’d had it tied back earlier in the day when they’d been out on the water, but had taken out the ponytail for bed. Brett stood wordlessly beside her, watching the front of the boat.

Her lookout, she assumed.

He gave no direction. No suggestion. Just rode where she took him.

The ocean beckoned. They’d taken the speed boat out earlier in the day, only for a few minutes and within sight of their alcove, but not the pontoon.

“It’s suicide, taking a pontoon on the ocean,” Brett said from above her. Before she’d even headed in that direction.

In some ways he knew her so well. There was comfort in that.

The lagoon was over a mile long. She had plenty of space to travel.

And knew that she would never have enough room on earth to get away from him. Brett Ackerman was her one and only.

She’d known so. Had spent years convincing herself she’d been wrong. But now, after seeing him again, she could no longer doubt herself. Or the truth her heart had made clear that day on her college’s campus when Brett met up with her and Jeff as they arrived with a carload of stuff, and helped unload Ella’s in her dorm room before heading off to the apartment they’d agreed to rent with two other guys.

She understood something else, too. Just because she’d found her one and only didn’t mean that she had a happily-ever-after in her future.

Brett was damaged goods. He’d never convince Ella he was as damaged as he believed he was, but that wasn’t the point. He believed it. And so, in any way that it counted, that made it true.

It didn’t change the fact that just being near him made her want to be connected to him in every way possible. She drove. He watched. So close if she leaned her head back, it would rest against his thigh...

Eventually he took the seat next to her, his unfinished beer left behind in the back of the boat as he looked out into the night.

Tears sprang to Ella’s eyes, seeing him there. Farther away from her.

He was such a good man. Deserving of love. Needing love.

And alone.

No. She swiped an arm across her face, getting hair out of her way—and tears—at the same time. She couldn’t help loving him, but she could control where she let her thoughts take her.

She could control the choices she made.

For his sake, as well as hers, she had to let him go. To block any empathy she might feel. Any desire to help.

All hope.

Hurting her hurt him. She understood that now.

And somewhere in that knowledge, she’d have to find some peace.

* * *

BRETT TOLD HIMSELF the boat ride was doing the trick. He was relaxing. Having a seat, he wanted to think he could just fall asleep out there.

Anything was better than going up to the cabin.

Where his best friend was having sex with his wife. And then sleeping cuddled up naked beside her.

Where his own wife—ex-wife—was lying in bed just feet away from him. They had never, not once, spent the night in the same place without spending it in the same bed together.

He’d barely slept the night before, and he’d been shut in a room with Jeff. But tonight? With Ella sleeping all alone? He was supposed to just curl up on the couch and relax? He couldn’t do it.

The boat had stopped.

He sat up. Glanced around. They were in the middle of the lagoon.

“I’m sorry.” Ella was standing by the crank that would lower the anchor. “I thought you were asleep and was just going to let you rest.”

She stood there, her hands raised as though she didn’t know what to do with them. Lower the crank. Drive.

Touch him?

God help him, he’d been reliving the touch of her fingers on his skin since they’d arrived at the cabin last night.

Hell, who was he kidding? He’d never stopped having fantasies about the woman.

He’d known he couldn’t be married to her. Had no doubts on that one. Even now his resolve didn’t waver.

But making love had never even come close to bringing out violence in him...

“I’ll just get us going again and head to shore,” she said, leaving the anchor. She turned, and the light of the moon gave him a bounteous gift.

A clear view of two things. Ella’s lips. And her nipples showing against her sweater where her wrap had dropped open.

She was chewing on her lower lip. All the sign he really needed.

But the hard points of her nipples were added fuel for his raging fire.

“Don’t do that with your lips. It makes me want to kiss you.” She’d wanted openness.

“Brett.” She chewed again, staring at him. Ella never had played coy with him. She knew he knew she wanted him.

Just as he knew she now knew about him, too.

“Would it be so awful, El?” He heard the craziness come out of his mouth. She was still standing closer to the crank than the steering wheel. She hadn’t made up her mind to go back, or she’d have walked away from that crank.

“It would just make it that much harder to get over you a second time.”

“Unless you don’t have to.” He was known for his instant solutions. But why in the hell hadn’t he thought of this one before?

With a stumble, Ella fell into one of the back seats. “What do you mean by that?”

He heard the hope in her voice. And rushed to quell it before this got out of hand, and everything was ruined.