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loud noises just to prove his own badassery on the weights.
    He probably made that same face in bed when he was coming. She giggled despite herself and saw a couple of heads turn in her direction. She looked down, embarrassed that she’d drawn attention. She wasn’t there to get stared at.
    She clicked to the next song and then added incline. Her lungs protested the extra effort but she needed it. Needed the pain. Needed the pride that came in beating her previous standards. It was never good enough to simply show up. She had to do her best.
    Soldiers were counting on her. Soldiers like Wisniak, who needed an advocate to stand strong for them.
    She’d seen firsthand what happened to soldiers who lacked an advocate. It was why she’d joined the army in the first place. She’d lived a life of spoiled privilege.
    Memories rose unbidden, taunting her with their relentless familiarity. Try though she might, she couldn’t un-hear her father’s biting words when she’d told him she had joined the army.
    “Are you trying to embarrass me?” he’d asked.
    “No, Father. I’m making this decision for me.”
    “For you? What about Bentley? What about Chloe?”
    Bentley might have been her fiancé three hours before, but she was no longer bound by that loveless pledge. And Chloe?
    Emily had walked the halls of the veteran’s hospital and every word out of her best friend’s mouth had shriveled a piece of Emily’s soul. There was false compassion there. A need to be seen as caring or empathetic. But every word her best friend had uttered had dripped with a disdain, a simpering pity, a desire to be somewhere else.
    For Emily, every patient they’d visited had been a different kind of well. A need to find some way to help. Listening to spoiled sons and daughters of privilege whine about their lives had suddenly seemed so…trivial.
    “I’m sure Bentley and Chloe will be just fine without me.” She didn’t mention that she’d caught her best friend with her mouth on her fiancé’s erection in the pool house earlier that afternoon.
    When she’d been looking for a new start, she’d chosen a place where she could make a difference and put all that East Coast Ivy League education to good use.
    She glanced over as the door to the workout floor swung open.
    Sergeant First Class Iaconelli filled it, his gaze sweeping the room.
    It had only been eight hours since the confrontation in the office but she’d forgotten how big he was.
    He no longer wore his uniform. Instead, his body was on full display in a long-sleeved t-shirt that hugged his arms and accented his broad chest. The outline of his dog tags pressed against the black fabric. It was strange that he wore the long-sleeved shirt in the warmth of the gym and in the heat outside.
    She was amazed by the sheer power of the man. He did not simply fill the doorway. He owned the space.
    She looked away, focusing on the rhythm of her legs, hoping he wouldn’t notice her. His being here completely defeated the reason for her workout. She’d needed a run to escape the harsh slap of his words—that she did not belong. She refused to let him get to her.
    But instead, she’d run right to him. How had she never seen him there before? Gym rats were creatures of habit. Same machine. Same time. Same routine. She stared straight ahead but the specter of Iaconelli moved into her field of vision. He stood behind her, his reflection blocking out a large part of the workout floor.
    She could pretend he wasn’t there and continue her run or she could face him and pray there would not be another confrontation. She might be a novice at Conflict Management 101 but she was getting better at it every day. She refused to be bullied by this man or anyone else. She glanced down at her time. She’d only gone about two miles in fifteen minutes. She’d wanted to go another half hour at least.
    Iaconelli simply stood behind her. Waiting. Solid. Stoic.
    She ignored him and kept running.
    She even