‘How do you know that?’ he asked.
‘Because we talked, and he told me, you idiot.’
She strode towards him—fierce, provocative, magnificent. He dragged in a lungful of her scent and the regret flooded back in.
He stepped back, snapping out of the strange dreamlike state he’d been in.
She was here and all he wanted to do was beg her to come back, to forgive him.
‘Now answer my question, why didn’t you tell him about us, Alex?’ Colour flared up her neck, highlighting the freckles on her face, the hurt in her eyes crucified him, but where there had been tears before, and devastation, now there was only determination... ‘Was it because I meant so little to you? Why didn’t you tell your best friend we’d been living together for a month?’
The words struck like body blows. Maybe he could have lied to her, but he couldn’t hurt her again, not even to protect her, from him.
‘That’s not...’ He swallowed around the raw spot in his throat—which had always been there, even since he was a little kid, but seemed bigger now, more jagged, more destructive. ‘Don’t ask me that.’
‘You knew I loved you and yet you threw it back in my face.Why?’ she asked again.
‘You know why. I told you why,’ he said, trying desperately to deflect and deny, to do anything that would take the guilt away. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Oh, really?’ Her eyes flashed with blue fire, only making her look even more magnificent. ‘Well, it’s a wee bit late for that, because you devastated me. But now I want a proper answer. No some rubbish about the sex,’ she said, the Scottish accent getting more pronounced. ‘This was never just about sex, not for either one of us. If you can’t see that you’re an idiot. Were you ashamed of me, was that it? Why did you have to make me feel like nothing?’
He swore viciously, turning away from her, unable to face her, unable to face himself. He slapped his hands down on the hall table, braced his arms, but he couldn’t stop the shaking. He sank his chin into his chest. His whole body trembled, the waves of regret and sadness, nothing compared to the deep lancing pain arrowing into his ribs. He’d seen the vulnerability, the deep hurt he’d caused, and all he wanted to do now was take it away.
The way he’d wanted to do with his mom, but never could.
He felt broken inside, unworthy, unwanted, all the pieces of himself he’d spent so long rebuilding, replacing, so he would never be vulnerable again, ripped apart by one ferocious Scottish girl, who had somehow snuck under his guard and seen through all his defences to the lost, lonely, frightened boy beneath—in the space of one holiday season.
She’d given him a glimpse of what he could have, of what he could be—with her in his life—and he hadn’t taken it, because he’d been so terrified it would all disappear if she found out the truth.
‘I was never ashamed of you,’ he murmured, the words torn from his chest. ‘I was ashamed of myself. Because I wanted you to love me, but I was terrified of loving you back.’
Ellie stroked away the tears from her cheeks as she stared at the man with his back to her, his head bent, his body trembling, the pain inside him so harsh he was struggling to remain upright. The tall, indomitable, overwhelming man, who had been humbled now, as she had been, by emotions that scared the living daylights out of him.
A tentative smile broke through her tears, spreading sunshine into her belly, across her chest.
And I thought he couldn’t break my heart a second time?
She let out a shaky breath.
But this was a good break, a clean break, a necessary break, so they could get past the darkness—of his stolen childhood, and hers—and finally walk into the light.
She crossed the last of the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek into the rigid muscles of his spine.
She held onto him as he tensed, tight enough for him to feel her heart beating against his back. Close enough so that he could feel how much she loved him. And know that however scary this was, he could love her back and she wouldn’t hurt him.
Slowly, surely, each tight, tense muscle in his body began to relax, the trembling stopped and his staggered breathing evened out.
‘What he did was never your fault, Alex,’ she said softly. ‘He made you keep a secret that was never yours to keep.’
His shuddering sigh passed through his body into hers. ‘I guess I know that now.’
At last, he turned in her arms, and cradled her cheeks in his hands. ‘I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,’ he said, those hazelnut eyes searching her face. ‘But there’s no way in hell I’m going to let you go a second time.’
She grinned, and reached up to circle his neck. ‘That’s good,’ she said, tugging his mouth down to hers. ‘Because you couldn’t get rid of me now if you tried.’
And then his lips captured hers.
The kiss was deep, drugging, possessive, full of relief but also full of the driving hunger that had consumed them both right from the start. But when he boosted her into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, she forced herself to drag her mouth free.