Read Online Bring Him Home by Karina Bliss - Free Book Online Page B

commission.”
    “You’re welco—”
    Claire slammed her hand on the desk. “You can’t do this!”
    “Actually, I can. Give me the trust document.”
    Reluctantly she passed it over.
    He’d scanned it on the drive to Whangarei and put it aside, blaming his nausea on reading in a moving car. Now Nate flicked through the pages to the text he’d tried to block from his mind. “‘The trustee must act in the best interests of the beneficiaries,’” he read out. “‘Before making decisions, the trustee must acquaint themselves with all the relevant facts and consider expert advice.’” Nate held up a hand as Adam started to interject. “‘Then the trustee must turn their own minds to the question in hand, acting honestly and in good faith.’” Steve could have been looking over his shoulder as he read, his presence was so powerful. “‘The trustee is not permitted to delegate their decision-making power.’”
    He raised his head and looked at Claire’s furious face. She hated him right now but that couldn’t matter. Nate’s need to protect her countered even his own deep desire to run. Who said atonement was easy? Thou shalt not walk away.… Not this time.
    “I’m a selfish, inconsiderate asshole who let you down for months,” he said, “then added insult to injury by dragging my heels all the way home.” He took a deep breath. “But Steve would haunt me even more than he does now, if I don’t do my job, Claire. All we’re talking is another week at most, that—”
    She cut him off. “I wish to God I’d left you in L.A.” By the agent’s expression, Adam wished she had, too.
    “Give us a minute to talk privately, will you, mate?”
    “But don’t go far,” Claire reassured him, glaring at Nate. “I’ll sort this.”
    Once Adam left the room. Claire paced the floor. Nate waited, hands held loosely in his lap, his mind resolved. She swung to face him.
    “For a decade I shared my husband with the SAS. Whenever he wasn’t with his family, he was with his unit. You and the guys probably spent as much quality time with him as Lewie and I did.”
    He had no idea where she was going with this.
    “I never stood in Steve’s way once, Nate, and you know why? Because the SAS was his dream. Because he believed in duty and service and honor and so did I.” Her tortured gaze pinned his. “Did you know he wasn’t even supposed to be on that tour?”
    His stunned shock must have answered her question.
    “So he didn’t tell you about our agreement.” Her mouth twisting, Claire sat down again. “When Steve was selected for the SAS, he made me a promise. ‘Ten years, Claire, and then it’s our time—yours, mine and Lewis’s. We’ll have the other baby you want. We’ll be a normal family. I’ll be around weekends.’” Her voice cracked. “‘I’ll be safe.’”
    Ah, God, he began to understand.
    Claire’s eyes filled with tears; impatiently she knuckled them away. “He promised me, Nate. And I’m so angry at him for not honoring his side of the deal. I’m angry at him for leaving his son to grow up without a father. I’m angry because I want to say all this to my husband and I can’t. I want to forgive him, but all the good feelings are tangled up with the bad feelings and I have no clarity on my life with Steve anymore. In some ways that’s the worst loss of all.”
    Nate found his voice. “You had a great marriage.”
    “Did we?” Claire dropped her head in her hands. “Or did we have a marriage in waiting?”
    “He loved you,” he said passionately. “It tore him up to leave you and Lewis.”
    She raised her head. “You asked why I didn’t accept a stipend from the SAS trust. Because I’d rather hate them than hate Steve.”
    “Claire,” he croaked.
    “You asked me to be honest,” she reminded him. “Deal with it. I don’t want to be Steve’s widow. I don’t want to be a single parent. I don’t want to plan a future without him. But I have to, for Lewis’s