Free The Apartment by Debbie Macomber

terrible disarray. This problem was a new one and was due to civilian life, he suspected; and immediately he knew he was kidding himself. If he had a problem sleeping, there was a very good reason. Hilary Wadsworth. If he had assumed time would ease the tension between himself and Hilary, then he’d miscalculated. His roommate had a way of reaching him that left him feeling vulnerable and, worse, defenseless. Even ten long years of disciplined army life didn’t make a difference in turning his thoughts away from her. Hilary hounded him, and what bothered him the most was that she hadn’t a clue as to what she was doing to him. Leave it to him to lose his heart to a pampered debutante who was determined to prove something to herself, the world and her mother.
    Living with Hilary, being this close to her, day in and day out, had redefined the word “torture.” She was delicate and soft, and he couldn’t be near her and not want to touch her. That one slip, those few chaste kisses, had opened a Pandora’s box of need. Now it was there in the open, taunting him each minute they were together.
    His life, by necessity and choice, had been hard. Being this close to someone so gentle, so fragile, had opened a floodgate within him. He’d lived so long without anything soft, until this petite beauty had bulldozed her way into his heart.
    He didn’t like it. He fought her every way he knew how and paid the price. What irritated him most was how badly he was losing. Sean wasn’t a good loser. He didn’t take defeat well because he wasn’t accustomed to dealing with it often. He certainly never expected a woman to have this much control over him and, if the truth be known, that bothered him more than anything else.
    Rolling onto his side, he glared at the illuminated dial of his clock and clenched his teeth when he noted the time.
    He wasn’t going to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, Hilary filled his mind with all the things that could never be. Of making love to her, of holding her afterward and planning the future. Forcefully he pushed the image from his mind, determined to close his eyes and sleep.
    Instead he thought of Hilary at his side through the years, of her marrying him, bearing his children. These weren’t matters of life a man entertained lightly. He assumed he would marry someday, but he’d never met a woman who tempted him along those lines—until Hilary.
    He supposed this all had something to do with their being together day and night for weeks on end. It had filled his mind with romantic fantasies, when he’d always believed he was immune to such foolishness.
    Unfortunately he wasn’t the right type for a debutante. Hilary should marry a bank president, or someone as sensitive and cultured as she was, perhaps another musician. Not a helicopter pilot with a family whose income barely qualified them as middle-class. Nor was her mother likely to accept him; and there was already enough dissension between Hilary and her mother. He didn’t relish the idea of being another source of conflict.
    * * *
    Dawn stroked a brush of pink across the horizon when Sean rolled out of bed. He’d heard Hilary stir a few moments earlier and knew she was probably in the kitchen brewing her morning latte . He would have preferred to avoid her as much as he could, but he needed to pack his lunch.
    She was dressed in her robe, leaning against the counter, her head braced against the cupboard. Her eyes were closed, and she looked as though she’d gotten even less sleep than he had.
    â€œHil?”
    â€œâ€™Morning,” she murmured dreamily. “Why are Mondays always so difficult?
    â€œI wouldn’t know,” he muttered, wondering the same thing himself.
    My word, she was beautiful with her dark hair softly mussed about her shoulders. Looking at her took his breath away, and try as he might, he couldn’t keep from staring at her. She