Page 133 of The Christmas Trap

Surely, I can’t have fallen for her so quickly?

But my reaction to thinking I could lose her was pure panic. And the realization that my life would be incomplete without her. The thought of losing her makes it difficult for me to breathe. My world only makes sense with her in it. It was a blinding, and unwelcome, revelation. One which is sinking in. Not surprisingly, it took a perceived brush with death to strip away my bullshit refusal to call it what it is.

Love.

I’m in love with my wife.

And I want to tell her how I feel. But I don't know how.

Which means, I’m thoroughly fucked.

Because, for the first time in my adult life, I’m vulnerable.

Cracked open in a way I swore I never would be again. Not since I stood at my parents’ graves, stone-faced and hollow, pretending I didn’t care while my insides burned.

When my father died, I turned to my mother for solace. And, when she too was gone, the world felt stripped bare. Like someone had torn away the shield and left me standing naked in the cold.

And this…this thing I feel for my wife…it hits deeper.

It’s a hunger that chews through bone. A constant ache that eases when she’s near, when her scent is in my lungs, when her voice threads through the chaos in my head. And when she’s gone… Christ, it’s like a void opens inside me, dragging me under.

If this raw, consuming, brutal thing that turns me inside out and threatens to eviscerate me is love, then I want no part of it.

But it’s too late.

Because it’s found me.

I’m in love with her. And no matter how hard I fight, I can’t shake it off.

I carry our bags into the house, then take the stairs. She follows me. I reach my bedroom, leave my suitcase by the door, and carry hers inside the closet. Then, I grab a couple of suits and ties, along with business shoes, and step out with my arms full.

She turns from where she’s standing next to the bed. When she takes in what I’m carrying, her gaze widens. "What are you doing?"

Good question. What the fuck am I doing?

44

Lark

Remember that hot cocoa and Christmas pudding is not a meal replacement. (What a pity!)

—From Lark’s Christmas to-do list

"I’m moving into the guest room."

Ugh. Seriously? How can he do this? My heart sinks. I feel my spirits dip. But I don’t show him how upset I am.

Instead, I huff. “I hope you realize how predictable this is?"

He seems to take affront to that. "How so?"

"First, you insist you have no feelings forme. This, despite the fact that when the helicopter ran into a little turbulence, you all but threw me down and covered me with your body."

"It wasn’t a little turbulence, it dropped nearly fifty feet, which is serious. And I was doing what any soldier would have done in my position. I wanted to protect my wife."

The way he says 'my wife' has chills clutching at my nerve endings. Only his face is set in tight lines. And his eyes—they have a sheen of cold glass encasing the irises, so I can’t really see what he’s feeling. But I know.

He’s retreated behind those walls I thought, nae hoped, had come down permanently. Apparently, he has reserves of aloofness hidden deep inside that he’s able to draw up like bridges across a moat. Once more, he’s that island of detachment with signs saying 'keep off' that I noticed when I first met him. And the more I try to prove the error of his ways to him, the more he’s going to resist. The more he’s going to insist that he has no feelings for me.