Page 69 of Keeping Eveline
“Until I told you who I worked for.”
Even after all the time they’d spent together recently, they’d never talked about that night. Why he’d done what he’d done.
“Yeah, until then.” His hand didn’t move from her where it rested on her waist. “I can’t go into specifics, because it’s classified, but we had a contact who was feeding us information about the insurgents we were there to bring down. I got to know her…well.”
Eveline’s stomach churned with jealousy at the unknown woman, as irrational as it was. What’d happened was before she’d met Kyle. She’d had a couple of relationships where she’d thought she was in love, but now, everything she felt when she was with Kyle was so much more. She hadn’t loved anyone but him.
“What happened?” she asked when he got quiet.
“She was working both sides; us, and the men we were after. We planned out our attack on the intel she provided and, in turn, she told them what we had planned. Let’s just say everything went to hell in a handbasket, and we were lucky to make it out alive.”
The more he spoke, the tenser he got.
Eveline wanted to lay a finger at his lips and tell him to stop. He didn’t need to go on, but she remained quiet, dealing with the fact that she was keeping that she knew who he was when he walked up to her that night from him. It was important to Kyle to tell her this story, so she could understand why he’d done what he’d done.
It was unnecessary, and because she understood, in some respects, she didn’t blame him. It’d hurt at the time, but it looked like he’d suffered along with her.
“And this woman? What happened to her?”
Kyle closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, pain darkened their blue depths. “A casualty of the crossfire. We got our man, but it was a high cost. One of my guys almost bled out. Another suffered burns when one of the terrorists threw a Molotov Cocktail, and it exploded at his feet. It was brutal.”
Eveline wrapped Kyle up in a tight hug. Nothing good came of remembering a time like that. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m sorry about your teammate’s injuries.”
They sat there for minutes that felt like hours, holding each other and not speaking. There was no need.
“I understand,” she eventually whispered. “I understand why you did what you did. You didn’t know me. We’d only just met and went from zero to a hundred. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, because it did. But I get it now.”
Kyle tightened his hold on her. “Still doesn’t make it right. I condemned you before I got to know you. I’m not going to lie, the idea that it was happening again plagued me when you turned up at my office with that information about Gerald. I wasn’t sure if you were setting me up with the aim to bring Alliez down by announcing Triple Z’s business practices were shoddy, then Gerald proved that what we said was false, painting Alliez as the bad guys.”
That declaration should’ve had Eveline pulling out of his embrace and putting space between them. However, after what he’d told her, it made sense he’d acted the way he had. She didn’t have a traitorous bone in her body. Kyle hadn’t known that then. But she needed to tell him her little secret. Then everything was out in the open, and they could fully move forward together.
“I need to confess something about the night we spent together.”
Kyle tensed, and she held her breath waiting to see if he would push her away. He didn’t. He stayed where he was. “What?”
“I recognized your name when you introduced yourself to me. I knew you worked for Alliez. But that had nothing to do with me going back to your place. I wanted you then, and I want you now.”
Would he forgive her? Or had she just condemned their relationship? Her heart cracked a little at the thought.
He sighed, but he didn’t push her away. "I should be upset that you didn’t tell me this earlier, but at the same time, I guess a part of me had always known you must have known who I was. I guess that’s why it cut me that night when you told me who you worked for. Why I immediately went to the default that you were out to get me and my business.”
The pain and hurt was evident in his voice. The wounds from the woman who used him cut deep.
“There are things in our past that shape our future. The way we think. We may believe that they don’t affect us, but they do. And while I can’t say that I’m thrilled with the idea that you’d think I’d want to harm your business, I repeat, I get it. I understand why your thoughts went where they did,” she said.
“I don’t deserve your understanding, but I’ll take it. Thank you.” He brushed his lips across hers, and she sighed into it.
This kiss was different from the ones they’d shared previously. This one was all about them. The commitment they were making to each other.
Kyle broke the kiss, and framed her face so she was looking directly into his desire-laden gaze. Looking straight into his soul. “I’m in love with you, Eveline Durville. I’m not sure when I fell, but I suspect it was that first night we met. Only, I allowed my past to control my future.”
Eveline’s heart thumped, and warmth from Kyle’s unexpected declaration filled her. This was the last thing she expected, but she was grasping it with both hands and rushing forward. How could she not when she felt the same way? “No more talk of the past. We’ve only got the future now because I’m in love with you, too, Kyle Matthews.”
A smile like she’d never seen burst to life on his handsome face. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and his cheeks had to hurt with how wide his lips stretched. “Can’t tell you what hearing you say that does to me. But I can show you.”
Kyle stood, and Eveline gave a little yelp of surprise before hooking her legs around his waist, hanging on tightly as he strode to the bedroom, where he showed her how he felt about her.
A whisper of a sound drew Ox’s attention to the front door, and his hand immediately went to his hip to grab his weapon from its holster—only it wasn’t. “What the fuck?”