I Confirmed the Deployment That Broke Him Chapter 07

I Confirmed the Deployment That Broke Him Chapter 07

“Sure, maybe I am petty. I can’t stand watching my career treated like a joke, and I can’t stand you handing another woman something she hadn’t earned on the one night I actually needed you.”

Leo’s jaw tightened. “Stella, you can’t do this – not after everything, not when you know how I’ve felt about

you all these years.”

“Chloe is just my mentee, and we were just celebrating – her report genuinely was excellent. Posting like that

was just…”

His voice dropped, something in it breaking. “I just wanted to make you jealous. I wanted you to look at me the way you used to, to care where I was and who I was with.”

“You were so cruel – three years, and not a word. Why did you have to take it this far?”

“Was one joke really worth risking your life over?”

I looked at him and shook my head. “You’re right. The transfer order wasn’t worth holding a grudge over.”

Leo froze.

“My mother broke her hip. She needed surgery. Do you know where I was the night I called you?”

“You were on the rooftop, waiting for me to call back, weren’t you?”

Something shifted in his face and he spoke faster, latching onto it. “That was my fault – my phone really had died. I should’ve called you back.”

I stayed quiet for a moment and pushed his arm away from the door. “Leo, my mother was in the ICU. I

needed two hundred thousand dollars.”

Leo’s whole body went still.

“I pulled together a hundred and twenty thousand, but I was still eighty short.”

“I called you four times. Every single one went to voicemail. Three hours later, Chloe posted a photo of the

Montblanc pen you gave her – taken in your apartment.”

Leo’s breathing quickened, his fingers opening and closing at his side.

“That night, I stood on the rooftop until three in the morning.”

“I kept thinking about that time in the warzone – when you held up that note to me through the protective

glass. You said if anything happened to me, you’d come in after me.”

“Back then, I really believed we were partners in every sense of the word. That we were everything to each

other.”

I looked into his eyes. “The night my mother fell, it finally hit me. You never loved me the way I loved you.”

Leo closed his eyes. I took a breath. “That’s all behind me now.”

“My mother got her hip replacement. She didn’t suffer any lasting damage from the fall. She’s doing well.”

“I saved 127 people in the warzone, and 43 of them were children.”

“I’m doing well. Better than I’ve ever been.”

“Tell Chloe I said thank you. I’ve made peace with what she did. Those three years turned out to be the most important of my career.”

As I turned to leave, his voice came from behind me, hoarse and quiet. “Can we still be friends? Like we were

before any of this?”

I didn’t look back. “I never trust my back to someone I wouldn’t trust in the field.”

I pushed the door open and stepped into the autumn sunlight, the hem of my trench coat lifting in the wind.

In the distance, the glass wall of the rehabilitation center reflected the color of the sky.

A blue so clear it was almost startling, the kind of blue that only comes after a sandstorm.