Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) by Kat Cantrell

right,” he said softly with an undertone that warned her it wasn’t agreement in any way. “You do have the choice to sleep with whoever you want to. Just like I have the choice to be pissed that you deliberately picked a man you knew was my friend.”
    He let that settle with a brief pause, but before she could fire back, he interrupted her.
    “Just imagine how much fun it was to hear from him how you’d moved on. Especially since he got a little graphic with his description of how close the two of you were. That’s why I didn’t come running to you with an explanation of why I sent that text message. I could not take it, knowing that he’d had his hands on you. That you’d been with him the same way you’d been with me.”
    No . Not the same. At all. Jared had never penetrated her head, her soul. Just her body.
    She snorted, but it came out as shaky as her insides. “So this is just a competition thing. You hate the idea of him pawing at your woman, right? You staked your claim first, and how dare Jared betray you like that.”
    “I don’t blame him,” Charlie bit out. “Your choices are one hundred percent on you.”
    Speechless, she stared at him as a glint of pain surfaced in his pale blue eyes, then vanished as they turned back into ice chips. He wasn’t just pissed off about Jared encroaching on his “territory”—it was far more personal and deep than that. She’d hurt him.
    Where was all of this coming from? She’d have sworn she didn’t mean anything to Charlie. Until this moment.
    “If it’s so upsetting to you, maybe you might ask a couple of questions about the genesis of my relationship with Jared then,” she said, bewildered at the turn the conversation had taken.
    Her stomach turned as she internalized that while she’d been drowning in grief, yearning for Charlie, wishing he was there to keep her from going under, she’d instead reached out to Jared. Only to wind up here in this alleyway in Freeport with the niggling, unsettling feeling that it had been a huge mistake.
    If she hadn’t been with Jared, would Charlie have sought her out for that conversation she’d desperately wanted but never gotten? He’d come back to the Caribbean after unceremoniously dumping her, a move that had totally shocked her. What if he’d intended to seek her out, maybe to explain, maybe to try again, and hadn’t because she’d removed that possibility?
    “I don’t care.” His derision cut through her chest like a machete. “That’s why I haven’t asked.”
    “I can’t go back and undo it, Charlie,” she whispered. Numb all at once, she stared at him. Had she somehow lost what she could have had with Charlie before even realizing it was in her grasp?
    “I’m not asking you to. The only thing I want is another shot at the goods you gave up to Anderson.”
    The cruel twist of his mouth almost hurt worse than his derision, and that stopped the anguish and uncertainty cold. He’d come sniffing back around for a reason, all right, but not because he wanted to start over or soothe soul-deep injuries. It was yet another round of obnoxious, arrogant male pandering. Like she’d always assumed. How dare he cheapen what she’d had with him and what she’d had with Jared in the same vulgar sentiment?
    She nodded, smoothing out her expression to hide the complete and utter devastation going on inside. “Yeah. Seems like that is all you want. You can hold your breath until I make that booty call.”
    If he wanted something other than to rub his scent all over her and stamp out the stink of another man, that would be an entirely different story. But the Charlie and Audra ship had sailed, and he could go to hell before she’d regret missing that boat ever again.

I t took Charlie four days, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and a call from Jace’s mom to pull him out of the black hole his alleyway confessional with Audra had put him in. Walking away had been the right thing to do, and he’d hated every