The General’s Ex-Wife Is A Colonel He Can’t Have Chapter 05
When I woke up, I was in a room at the base hospital.
Beau was sitting beside the bed, holding the document pouch I’d risked my life for.
Inside were my transfer orders and my parents’ service records.
His voice was tight.
“You almost died for this?”
“Celine, your left leg is fractured, and your lungs have smoke inhalation damage. The doctor said if you’d been in there any longer, they wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
I reached out and took the pouch from him.
Without it, I couldn’t leave.
I couldn’t go to Virginia.
Beau looked at me, his brow deeply furrowed.
“We all could have walked away from this. But you had to turn it into a scene, force me to choose between you and Kinsley. Is that it?”
“Arson is a felony.”
“I saved Kinsley first because she’s a civilian. She has no emergency training. You’re different. You’ve had survival training.”
I looked up at the ceiling and gave a soft, empty response.
“Mm.”
My quiet reply seemed to lodge in his throat.
After a moment, his tone softened.
“Celine, I’ve decided to come home. That means I won’t have any other kind of relationship with Kinsley.”
“Her family doesn’t have much. I’m just helping her out, arranging a place for her to stay.”
He said it calmly, as if explaining something perfectly reasonable.
I looked at him.
My gaze was so steady it felt foreign even to me.
“I know.”
“I understand.”
Beau looked at me as if my calmness might drive him insane.
He shot to his feet, then his eyes fell to the fresh burn scars on my arm.
“Celine, wasn’t one scar enough?”
“Are you going to keep hurting yourself just to tie me to you?”
I hugged the document pouch a little tighter.
“I won’t.”
“I won’t do that again.”
He was about to say something else when the encrypted satellite phone at his waist rang.
Beau walked to the window to answer, his voice low.
I couldn’t make out everything. I only heard Kinsley saying his name through tears.
He soothed her for a few moments, then turned to look at me.
“Command has an emergency meeting. I have to go.”
“Focus on getting better.”
Then he left.