“I don’t,” she insisted. “It’s your bike, but I wish you’d told me—it would have been one less thing to worry about.”

Shit. Relationship—sharing—right. “Sorry, baby. I guess I’m just used to doing stuff on my own.”

She frowned and glanced away. “Yes. Me, too. I suppose we’ll just have to practice the whole sharing and communicating thing.” Then her eyes flicked to mine. “I’ll write to you every day, tesoro.”

“Really? That would be cool. I never get mail. Well, Shirley always sends me a birthday card, but that’s about it. Ches is shit at staying in touch. So am I.”

“Well, I will expect an effort from you, Sebastian. Will you be able to email me?”

I pulled a face. “Maybe, I’m not sure. For a few days, but then … I’ll be out of range. Caro, don’t worry if you don’t hear from me regularly.” I paused, watching her expression tighten. “The places they send me, I can be away from the main Base for days, sometimes weeks, in shithole villages, trying to persuade the locals to work with us. Nonmilitary comms is limited. Your letters will catch up with me eventually, but emails … probably not that often.”

“I understand,” she said, her voice calm, overlaying a strong current of emotion. “But in an emergency, what’s the procedure for contacting you?”

Giving her my CO’s number breached about fifty protocols, but if it would reassure her…

“I’ll give you a number you can call but only in a real, fucking emergency, Caro: I’m not supposed to give it out.”

“Okay,” she said softly, then paused. “If … if anything happens that I need to know about, how will anyone know to contact me?”

Shit, I hated talking about this.

“Same as you, Caro. We have to do a call-list—the Emergency Contact Form—who to notify. I’ve been wondering how, I mean, I can’t put you down as ‘Lee Venzi’ or even ‘Caro Venzi’ because they’ll recognize the name; they’ll start in asking questions, and you could be in deep shit.”

Not that it would bother me if people knew about us. Hell, I’d shout it from the fucking rooftops if she’d let me, but she wanted to keep our relationship on the down-low for her career’s sake. I was okay with that, but it sure made things less straightforward.

“What about Carolina Hunter?” she suggested, glancing across as she put the emergency number in her cell. “They’ll just assume I’m a cousin or something; in fact, why don’t you do that? Put me down as a relative.”

I really, really liked that idea.

“Yeah, that would work.” And the sooner she had that name, the better.

She took a shuddering breath and her eyes began to fill with tears. She swiped at them angrily. My girl hated showing weakness, if that’s what it was.

“Hey, baby, nothing’s going to happen to me: I can take care of myself. I’m more worried about you. Reporters get … hurt all the time.”

“I know, Sebastian,” she said harshly, “but I’ll be embedded with a Marine unit from Leatherneck; safest place to be.” Then she gave me a watery smile. “I heard US Marines are tough, and I know for a fact they’re hot. In fact the word ‘embedded’ has me thinking all sorts of interesting things.”

“You stay away from those bootnecks, Caro. They’re a bunch of horny bastards.”

“I’ve noticed! But really, don’t worry about that. I’ve learned to say ‘no’ in even more languages than you.”

We were both trying so hard not to give into the darkness that hovered around us. I took her hand, idly playing with her engagement ring.

“Well, at least they’ll know you’re taken when they see this.” She didn’t reply. “How long do you think you’ll be in Afghanistan?”

“Assuming my papers arrive,” she said, throwing me a knowing look, “maybe a month, six weeks. Certainly no more. I’ll have a couple of days in Kabul, maybe in Kandahar, too—meeting some of your top brass. Then I’m hoping I’ll be able to hitch a ride out to Leatherneck. I’ll just have to see how it goes. Maybe I’ll see you out there?”

I frowned. “I want you home safe, Caro.”

“Likewise, Sebastian.”

We stared at each other, neither one of us prepared to give in. I shook my head and changed the subject.

“Do you want to take a swim?” I suggested. “I’ll be God knows how many miles from the nearest pool out there, and hundreds of fucking miles from the ocean.”

“Sure,” she smiled. “And I get to see you in those ridiculously loud boardshorts again.”

“And you’ll wear the bikini?”

“Only if you promise not to punch anyone who looks at me.”

“Can’t promise that, baby,” I answered honestly.

Time passed too quickly, and it felt like moments later that we were sitting in the back of a cab taking us to Naples airport.

We were both quiet, lost in thought, when Caro suddenly spoke.

“Sebastian, when do you think you’ll tell Ches about us?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Why?”

She hesitated. “Well, I just thought I could get all your belongings sent over from the west coast, but it’s going to make it tricky to organize if Ches doesn’t know about me.” She stammered out the words, then hurried on. “And there are some beautiful places in upstate New York that we could ride out to on your other bike … if you want.”

God, she was amazing. How the fuck did I get to be so lucky?

“You’d do that?”

She seemed puzzled by my question. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I? You’ll need your things when you come home.”

Home. Fuck, I was going to have a home! She didn’t understand how much her words meant to me—she couldn’t.

“Okay,” I agreed quickly. “I’ll email him tonight. He’ll be pretty fucking surprised.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a very happy sound. “Yes, that probably about sums it up—to say the least.”

I pulled her into my arms, kissing her with a raw hunger, not caring that our driver had a grandstand view in the mirror. I wanted the whole world to know this woman was mine. She had to know that I didn’t give a shit. If Ches or his bitch of a wife had a problem with us being together again, fuck ‘em—I didn’t need them in my life. Not that I thought Ches would be like that. He was my friend—we were solid.

“What was that for?” she asked breathlessly.

“Caro, all that matters … all that matters is you and me. Nothing else is important. We lost ten fucking years because of other people. I’m not going there again. I won’t let us. Understand? Nothing and no one will ever come between us again.”

She sighed, curling her body against mine, holding on too tight, because she didn’t believe me either.

The cab driver dropped us at departures, but we got separated by security. I was taken to one side, questioned and patted down. They definitely weren’t happy with the €6,000 in large denomination notes I was carrying. Once I showed them the receipt and forced my US Marine ID in front of them, they reluctantly let me through.

Caro’s anxious expression immediately eased as I strolled over to join her.

“Guess I’ve got a criminal face or something.”

“I could have told you that,” she laughed. “I’m just glad they didn’t get one of the female security guards or you’d never have gotten away.”

There was only one way to answer that, so I rolled my eyes as she snickered quietly.

The flight was short, less than two hours and we were back in Geneva, carless, bikeless and sunless. It was cooler, too, but I didn’t mind that, not when I knew Kabul would be in the high nineties and more.

We took a taxi back to the apartment and I threw open the shutters, letting in what was left of the daylight. I saw Caro studying my room, a frown on her face. I guess it did look pretty basic next to the luxury of Il Saraceno.

“We can check into a hotel, Caro.”

“No, this is fine. It’s not the room…”

Oh.

“Don’t say it, Caro,” I begged. “Please, baby. I can’t bear it when you look at me like that.”