Chapter 4 #2
I didn’t reply in the affirmative, but I was indeed referring to Mac.
Guy had been Lachlan’s chef at the estate.
The night he attacked me, I felt ashamed for so many reasons.
Mostly for being blind to who he really was.
Mac didn’t know about it. He didn’t know he was the reason Guy assaulted me in a jealous rage.
He didn’t know he was the reason I even said yes to a date with Guy in the first place, even though my feelings for him were lukewarm at best …
Fifteen months ago
As I pulled up to the sports center in Inverness, my phone beeped in my purse on the passenger seat. Switching off the engine, I rummaged through my bag and saw it was a text from Guy.
I frowned.
Maybe I shouldn’t have given him my number that night we met at the Gloaming, Gordon’s pub and hotel in the village. Our local.
Just one date.
That was all the text said. Guy had been pestering me to go on a date with him for weeks. He’d been the chef at Ardnoch for six months, and he’d flirted with me since his arrival. He was good-looking and had this sexy Australian accent. But he wasn’t who I wanted to be with.
Yet the man was nothing if not persistent.
I sighed, not sure how to respond. I decided to think about it later.
Instead, I looked up at the entrance of the sports center and smiled to myself.
Mac taught a jujitsu class in Inverness every Thursday evening.
When he lived in the States, he’d won the US Jujitsu Championships three years in a row.
I was considering learning just so I could be close to him.
Not that we weren’t close. A secret smile prodded my lips.
One reason I didn’t want to say yes to a date with Guy was because Mac and I were growing closer.
Despite my vow to him all those years ago that we would be nothing but friends, something had changed in the past year.
We found excuses to spend time together more often.
We talked about things that worried us. He confided more about his daughter, Robyn, who was a police officer in Boston.
They hadn’t been in contact for years, but I continued to prod him to do something about it.
Gently, though. Mac was not an easily offended man, but Robyn was a button I knew not to push.
Out of the blue, two days ago, Mac dropped by my work site with a packed lunch for us. He’d taken time out of his busy schedule as head of security on the estate to sit in his SUV with me, laughing and eating sandwiches he’d bought from Morag’s deli counter in the village.
His gaze kept dropping to my mouth, something he couldn’t seem to stop doing lately. There was always an underlying tension between us. Had been ever since that New Year’s Eve all those years ago. But lately, it had intensified.
It gave me hope.
After all, I was thirty now, thirty-one next month. Maybe Mac realized our thirteen-year age gap didn’t feel so big now that I was older. Maybe he realized he was the reason none of my relationships lasted. That those guys would never be right for me because they weren’t him.
I was wearing Mac down. I grinned giddily, thinking about a future of waking up in his bed, of being free to love and touch him, to reach for him whenever I needed him. I could almost taste that future on my tongue.
So I decided to ramp things up a little, to make sure we spent as much time as possible together.
Feeling emboldened by his surprise lunch at my work, as my own surprise, I’d driven to Inverness to meet him after his class.
I’d talk him into grabbing dinner in the city, and I’d flirt my arse off until he couldn’t resist me.
The payoff might not be tonight, but I had patience.
I could keep this up until Mac admitted he loved me too.
Just as my fingers touched the handle on the car’s door, the entrance to the sports center burst open and Mac strolled out, laughing over his shoulder, the sight of his gloriously tall, broad-shouldered body exciting me as much as the sound of his joy. I was obsessed. Seriously obsessed.
Snorting to myself, I had just opened the car door when the person responsible for Mac’s laughter walked out behind him and reached for his hand.
A woman.
A brunette who looked younger than me in her yoga pants and racer-back tank top. She was everything I wasn’t. Petite, curvy, tits for days.
My heart plummeted as Mac pulled her into his side, and she wrapped an arm around his waist as they strolled across the car park.
I sank down in my seat, cursing the bloody Defender I drove and loved for being so conspicuous. My pulse throbbed, sweat dampening my palms.
Mac was too engrossed in his younger woman to notice me. They stopped at an unfamiliar car, and the brunette pulled his head down to hers to kiss him. He pressed her up against the passenger door and kissed her hungrily.
Like he’d kissed me all those years ago.
Tears I despised filled my eyes as I watched the couple get into her car and drive away.
I noted Mac’s SUV left behind in the lot.
I let myself cry in the car park.
He didn’t love me.
He’d been telling the truth all those years ago.
My age wasn’t the reason Mac didn’t want me. Clearly not if he was fucking his younger students. I glowered at his SUV. What did he want with me, then?
To be his friend? His confidant?
She was his sexual release. Just as I was now sure many women before her had been.
I was his emotional release.
This way, we saw to all his needs without him ever having to commit to one woman.
“Well, fuck that,” I spat angrily, swiping at my tears.
Fuck that!
I fumbled for my phone and swiped the screen to bring up Guy’s text. I texted back.
Okay, I’ll go on a date with you.
“Arro?”
Regan’s voice brought me out of the past.
I blinked to find her staring at me in concern.
“I’m sorry for bringing it up.”
I shook my head and gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s fine, really. And I’m fine.”
Regan didn’t look convinced. “You know you can tell me anything. I won’t tell anyone. Not even Thane.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you—make you keep secrets from him. And anyway, there’s nothing to tell.”
She seemed frustrated. “Arro … I am the greatest bullshitter in the world. I even bullshitted myself when it came to Austin. I convinced myself that what he’d done wasn’t as bad as it really was because it was easier than facing reality.”
“Regan,” I whispered her name in sorrow, hating what that son of a bitch had put her through.
“So I know a fellow bullshitter when I see one. I know when someone is in pain and bottling it up. If you won’t talk to me … please, please talk to someone.”
Eyes wide, my emotions bubbled to the surface, and I could only nod.
She started to say something else, but the front door opened and shut and Regan’s lips pressed together. Thane sauntered into the kitchen carrying two shopping bags.
“Arro.” He smiled.
“Hi.”
“Just in time.” Regan grinned at him. “Lunch is almost ready.”
“Smells great.” He leaned in to press a quick kiss to her lips, and I watched her relax and reach for another.
Thane smiled happily at her eagerness, kissed her, and moved around her to put the groceries away.
“Oh, by the way, the reason Keelie texted is that her sister has bought a plot of land and is looking for an architect. She wondered if she could send her my way.”
Regan grinned at me where Thane couldn’t see, and I loved my brother for giving her that, despite his earlier irritation. “Ah, okay. That makes sense.”
Thane shot a smirk at her back. “Aye, imagine that.”
Regan made a face at me, and I struggled not to laugh.
“Are you going to take the job?” I asked him.
“Too busy.” He shook his head. “I’ll refer her to a colleague.”
I wondered if that was true, or if Thane just wanted to distance himself from Keelie for Regan’s sake.
He would never cheat, but Keelie was a reminder of a time when he’d hurt Regan.
I knew my brother well enough to know that no matter what, he’d protect Regan from anything, big or small, that hurt her.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and their eyes met. Something passed between them. Something intimate.
They were good.
Minor argument forgiven and forgotten.
But I couldn’t forget Regan’s words of wisdom before Thane had walked in.
Because I knew she was right.
I’d kept so many feelings locked up for so long to protect Mac, and while I knew myself well enough to know I wouldn’t betray him, I had to find an outlet.
I had to let go of the hurt, or I’d be swallowed by a pit of depression.
It was so much easier to avoid it altogether rather than try to pull myself out of that darkness once I was in it.