Page 20 of The Moments You Were Mine

Which meant I wouldn’t be here yet again.

She’d be stuck with fucking JJ looking after her.

That burned as much as it concerned me.

Maybe I should call my dad. As the chief of security for her ranch and her dad’s corporation, my father could send someone to watch over her. Except, Fallon would hate me for it. She didn’t want a bodyguard hovering around her, requiring her to explainto her equestrian teammates, her roommate, or her friends why she needed one.

“Question, Baywatch,” Will said quietly, and it was his tone as much as the nickname that let me know I was in for something I wouldn’t like. “Why the hell are you standing by and watching her with someone else when it’s clear to everyone who knows you that you care about her?”

My fists stopped. I rested my forehead on the bag.

Care was such a mediocre word for what I felt for Fallon. Worse, since she’d come to San Diego, I couldn’t shake the desire I felt whenever I looked at her. But none of that was enough to overcome the truth of us. Of my life and hers.

“You know I don’t do relationships,” I told him. “Fallon spent an entire childhood on the sidelines. No one, not even her parents, put her first. The team is my priority. I can’t ask her for more and then be just another person who puts her second.”

“And you think JJ will put her first? Like he did tonight?” Will asked, and I growled in protest. “Being a SEAL doesn’t mean you can’t have a serious relationship or marriage or kids.” I heard in his tone the love he had for his son. Theo was two and the absolute joy of Will’s life.

But my lingering anger at myself, as well as JJ and the situation tonight, had me snipping at my best friend in a way I knew I shouldn’t. “Because you and Althea worked out so well?”

He shrugged. “Not every woman is a money-grabbing cheater.”

I pushed off the bag, stepping toward him.

“I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

He’d loved Althea—or at least, he’d thought he had until he found out she was cheating on him with pretty much anyone who looked her way, and that she was more interested in the fortune he’d inherited from his dead parents than in him.

She constantly used his money as a weapon, withholding his son until he coughed up thousands of dollars at a time. He’d finally stopped giving her more when he realized it was disappearing into the hands of her drug-dealing family. These days, he paid her rent directly to the management company, paid her utilities himself, and had groceries delivered to her house, but he didn’t give her cash. And when he wasn’t deployed, he keptTheo with him as much as humanly possible.

He’d even started talking about getting full custody, but the fact he was away more than he was home wasn’t in his favor. My parents had offered to keep Theo when Will was out of pocket, but that meant moving to Las Vegas, which only presented a new slew of logistical problems.

“Look,” Will said, “all I’m saying is, life is too fucking short to spend your days watching the girl of your dreams with some douche. But if you’d rather spend your time punching a bag and jerking off alone in the shower, that’s on you. I gotta get some sleep. I’m picking Theo up tomorrow and don’t want to be a zombie.”

He left, and I knew I had hurt him more than he’d admit.

I’d taken my frustration with myself out on him.

I’d failed Fallon yet again. I hadn’t been there when she needed me once more after I’d promised she’d never face danger without me. Except, we both knew it was a promise I shouldn’t have made to begin with. I was already just another person in her life who put their own goals, their own wants and desires, above what was best for her. Just like her parents had.

Did I think Jasper fucking Johnson would put her above himself? My immediate reaction was hell no. But I wasn’t sure if that was a jealousy I had no right to talking or the truth.

The animosity between JJ and me was because of that same jealousy. He hated that I’d been a lifelong friend and that she wouldn’t give me up. I hated that he touched her. That he put those narrow, slimy lips on hers. That he caressed her skin.

Then again, I’d hate anyone who did.

Except, I also had no intention of ever being the man who touched her that way. If that was the case, I needed to step the hell back. I needed to let her live her life, have her relationships, and find the man who would eventually give her the family she craved. The family she needed to finally heal the wounds of a childhood spent feeling like she was more an obligation than a beloved daughter.

The idea of that man being JJ slithered in my gut nastily. But Fallon would find out if he wasn’t the one for her, and she’d move on to some other guy who was. She deserved to have someone who would be at her side every day. If she hadn’t hadmy number in her favorites tonight, she might have called JJ or the police before me. They would certainly have gotten to her sooner.

I could never be the man who put her first because I had already chosen the teams over her.

I’d spent twenty-seven years honing my body and mind in order to be the best of the best. To build on my father’s and grandfather’s legacy by becoming a SEAL. I’d promised my grandfather on his deathbed that I’d earn a Bull Frog trophy just like him. The military would celebrate my career the same way they had his—as a SEAL with the most years of cumulative service after completion of BUD/S. I was barely three years into my SEAL career. I had decades left to go.

I couldn’t give it up now.

SEALs didn’t ring any damn bells.

So, why did it feel like I was doing just that?