She shifted, putting space between them. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her close and keep her warm, but he had no right.

“I can’t tell you why I did it. I wish I could. I don’t know if you’d understand, but at least it might make sense. What I did was unforgivable, and for that reason, I’ll never ask for your forgiveness, but I hope someday you’ll understand that it was never about you. Never about us. Never about that night.”

“But you made it about that night.”

“I had to. But I want you to know the night we shared was nothing short of incredible. You are incredible. If my job hadn’t been paramount, I never would have tainted the memory of our night by lying.”

“So you admit you lied?”

“Yes. I said as much before, and when we get out of here, I will tell your boss, ACHP, and everyone who matters to you that I lied. I will own what I did, even though I can’t say why.”

“And I’m just supposed to believe that you’ll do that. You. The one with the history of lying.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me, but it’s what I’m going to do.”

“And if you did, what will that mean for you?”

“Not sure. I’ll be out of the military. On the extreme end, potentially a dishonorable discharge. Although higher-ups supported the tactic and probably guessed I was lying, so I don’t think it would go that far—unless you pushed for it.”

She raised a brow. “That’s some power you’re putting in my hands. Dishonorable discharge would destroy your whole world.”

“I deserve to be dishonored. I acted dishonorably. I’m horrified by what I did to you. And it shouldn’t have taken this extreme situation for me to get to this point, to see the wrong of it. Even worse, I did it for this”—he waved to indicate the thin sheet of fabric that protected them from a relentless rainstorm—“complete nightmare of a training that has endangered you, my training team, and a platoon of SEALs.”

“I don’t know about the rest of it, but I don’t think you can take the blame for what’s happening here. There was no way to predict any of this. For all we know, Jeb was in cahoots with the Russians.”

He started at her words. “Wait, I know why I suspect they’re Russian, but what makes you think so?” He suddenly realized they hadn’t debriefed about what happened when she was alone in the cabin so many hours ago. All he knew was there were two men, one blocking each door.

She cleared her throat. “The men who came after me in the cabin spoke Russian. At least, I’m pretty sure it was Russian.”