“I do.” A quick comeback.
Fuck. She hated him now. But it was all right. She would have hated him the moment she truly knew him. She would have found out how cursed he was. She didn’t need to be in his life. He would only bring her hurt and sorrow.
It was better this way.
Perhaps Nigel would explain the world to her. She would understand and walk away. Then things would be the way they should.
He nodded her way and he and Ten stood and walked out.
He had no place with her.
* * * *
“He’s broken, you know.”
She looked up at Nigel, a bit surprised at his words. “Are you talking about Damon?”
Stupid question. Who else would he be talking about? Damon, who had casually ripped her heart from her chest. Or had it been so casual?
“Do you know how we came to recruit him?”
She shook her head. She wanted to tell him she didn’t care. It didn’t matter to her, but it did. Because he was Damon. He was her love.
He might never return it. She might move on. But he was her first real love. He mattered. She’d sat at her desk and a few things had occurred to her.
Damon was different. He risked his life every day. He was a hero. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t love her. At the end of all of it, she didn’t matter beyond what she was willing to sacrifice. She had her place. Her stupid heart was insignificant. “It doesn’t matter, sir. What do you need of me?”
Nigel was silent for moment. “I want to talk to you as your boss and as a colleague. Do you know how he came to be here?”
She shook her head. She didn’t care. Couldn’t. He’d shoved her aside like everyone else had. He didn’t matter. Her duty did. “It doesn’t matter, sir.”
“It does because I’m sending you back out there with him. I need to know that you’re going to protect yourself.”
He wanted to make sure she wasn’t just going to spread her legs and offer herself up on a silver platter again. “I believe I have my armor fully pulled around myself this time.”
“He can be charming.”
“I’ve seen the real man. I understand. I can do the job.”
“Did you know he received the Victoria Cross?”
She shook her head. It wasn’t in his records. The Victoria Cross was the highest honor a soldier could receive. “No. I knew about his time in Afghanistan, but I didn’t know he’d been decorated.”
“Because it was kept quiet. I wouldn’t tell you the story now, but I think it’s very important for you to understand who Damon Knight is. He was Special Air Service. His unit was charged with taking a VIP into Kabul. I can’t tell you who it was. That’s the reason the whole affair has been classified.”
So it was likely a royal or someone close to the family. The Windsor men served their country, and when the country went to war, the Windsor men went as well.
“You have to understand that the men in those units form a family. When you serve, when you literally depend on your fellow soldiers for your very survival, whether you like the others or not, you bond with them. My old unit meets up at least twice a year. All of us, without fail.”
She got the feeling she wouldn’t like what came next. “Go on.”
“The unit was pinned down in the desert. They fought for days. He watched them all fall. He lost his entire unit protecting their charge. Only Damon and his charge survived. He took out the enemy, but I rather think he meant to not survive. From the reports, he went a bit crazy. It was bloody. It was suicidal.”
She didn’t want to soften toward him. Not for a second, but there she was. Damon had lost his parents, then his mates.
What if he didn’t want to lose her, too?
“Knight was recruited because he had zero ties. He was cold, perfectly capable of making life and death decisions. Capable of sacrificing pawns when he needs to. I know he seems charming, but it’s a mask.”
Was it? She was finally settling down. The hurt he’d dealt her had seemed overwhelming, but now that he was out of the room, a few things didn’t make sense.
Damon was capable of sacrificing pawns. Perfectly capable of it. For years she’d watched him, worked with him on translations. He was known for being an Ice Man. Baz had been the jokester and Damon had been the brutal one underneath all his suave charm.
So why wasn’t he sacrificing her? It was the most expedient thing to do. She was a girl who had been on the periphery of his life for years and only in his bed for a single night. Yet in the time she’d been close to him, she’d believed he gave a damn about her. Was he really that good an actor?
He was a man who had lost everyone. Even his best mate had turned on him. What would that man do if he cared about a woman and she was suddenly in danger? Would he trust that everything would work out? Would he place his faith in the universe that had kicked him time and time again?
Or would he do what he needed to do to protect the woman he cared about? Even if it meant hurting her.
Perhaps she should treat Damon Knight like a language she was trying to learn. The words he said might make a certain sense to her when run through her own filter, but every good translator knew that words had different meanings in different languages. The Sami language of the Nordic countries had over a hundred words for reindeer, each expressing a slightly different thing.
What if Damon was trying to tell her something and she wasn’t understanding it because she was putting it through her filter and not his?
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Nigel leaned toward her.
She nodded. “Yes. Damon doesn’t have anyone.”
No one had ever fought for him, ever put him first. He’d been an orphan and then a soldier and then an operative. His career was about using his body and mind as a tool, one that was expendable.
It would have been so much easier to keep her close, to use her as some weird form of bait. If there was one thing Damon wanted, it was revenge on Basil Champion. The man Nigel was describing wouldn’t hesitate to use her to those ends.
“He doesn’t have anyone because he’s not capable of truly caring for anyone. I know him better than you do. I’m trying to make sure you protect yourself. I wish I didn’t have to send you back in.”
She sat up straighter, squaring her shoulders. “You don’t need to worry about me, sir. We’ll be fine.”