Chapter Twenty-Seven

His fingers in my hair stilled. His breaths ceased, though his heartbeat pounded beneath my ear. How could I have been so stupid? I shook my head, hair flapping around my face. "I-I didn't mean to say that. Forget it. I'm still in shock from all the Presley stuff and I —"

"Hush, Erica." His soft words belied his physical tension. Faint lines creased his forehead. "I won't hold you to anything you say tonight."

A frenzy of fear and passion and need whirled inside me. The embarrassment of blurting out my feelings disintegrated as a realization stunned me like a spotlight in the pitch black. I wanted him to hold me to what I'd said. I wanted him to repeat what he'd said while falling asleep the other night. I wanted him with me always. I loved him, and I no longer gave a flying fig about his stupid rules.

Grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, I shook him. "You know what? Forget what I said about forgetting what I said."

"Your bum's oot the windae again."

"No." I raised onto tiptoes to level our gazes. "I love you, Lachlan. I don't want you to go home unless I can go with you. Stay with me, or take me with you."

He stared at me, face blank, for so long I thought he'd died standing upright. His eyes slid closed. His shoulders sagged, seeming to drag his chin down with them. He stumbled backward, arms raised partway as if he needed to steady himself. He'd retreated so abruptly I lost my balance and careened into the island.

Lachlan hoisted his head up, his blue eyes bleak and glassy. He took a tentative step toward me, reaching out, but let his hand fall before he touched me. Both arms hung limp at his sides. "I'm sorry, Erica. I can't stay with you."

I shoved away from the island and rolled my shoulders back, chin lifted. "Yes, you can. If you want to." I rubbed my clammy palms on my jeans. The entire world seemed to stop, awaiting his answer to my next question. "Do you want to stay with me?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again, almost rocking on his feet, and rubbed the back of his neck. His features crimped, but his eyes still had that bleakness in them. The sight of him so distraught made me want to hug him, which ticked me off. After the way he'd pestered me to tell him the truth, now he refused to grant me the same courtesy. I'd bared my heart and soul to him and he seemed on the verge of bolting.

"Well?" I demanded. "Do you want to be with me? Do you love me?"

Though he ceased moving his body, his gaze swiveled toward me. His voice was rough, unsteady. "I cannae stay."

"Yes. You. Can."

"Aye." He dropped his chin to his chest, locking his hands behind his head. "I owe you no explanations, just as you owed me none."

The room tilted around me. Of course. That had been his preparation for avoiding any questions I asked. I will not cry. "Very clever. By telling me I owed you no explanations, you freed yourself from any similar obligations to me. Presley Cichon would approve."

A muscle leaped in his jaw. "I am nothing like him."

"Really." I rested a hand on the island's rim, tapping one finger on the surface. Nausea swelled in my gut and rose into my throat. "Why did you call me your woman? Why tell me I'm more than a fling, I'm your gràidh? What the hell was all that about?"

"You are more."

"I'm beginning to understand why your ex-wife thinks you're a bastard."

He flinched. "Donnae talk about things ye cannae understand."

"Then explain it. I just poured my heart out to you and got skelped with a caber for it."

"Forget the bleeding caber and skelping." His eyes wild, he rushed toward me and pinned me between his body and the island. He rooted his hands on the countertop at either side of me. "Listen, because I'll tell you this only once. Aisley, my wife, was a posh lass from the day I met her. Not wealthy, but elegant. Her hair had to be perfect and if the wind touched it, she had to fix it. She pursued me, a flattering event for any man. But after we were married, she stopped flattering me."

I had to crane my neck to meet his gaze — and then wished I hadn't. Never in my life had I witnessed such despair and anguish.

He bent his head near my ear. "On our first anniversary, she told me I was a bore, and I wasn't delivering the excitement she needed. I'd suspected she was unhappy for some time, but whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she laughed it off as nothing." He braced his forehead on my shoulder for the space of two slow breaths, then raised his head, leveling his gaze on mine. "That's when it started. The little jibes, the constant complaints, the endless demands for more, no matter how much I gave her. A man can only take so much. I…" He turned his head away. "Before Aisley, I was what Americans might call a macho man. I won the caber toss often. I'm not saying this to impress you, but to help you understand. Aisley turned me into a weakling. I began to believe her complaints about me and I tried to be what she wanted, but I never could please her. The last strong act I managed was moving us to Inverness. She hated the Highlands, so things only got worse after that."

Now I understood why he'd told me he despised bullies who bend others to their will just for the sake of control. I yearned to touch him, but it felt wrong somehow. He was confiding in me at last and I would do nothing to break this moment. But I would've given both my kidneys for a chance to skelp the tar out of his wife.

He leaned into the island, head down, his lips achingly close to mine. "One day, Aisley announced she'd had enough and was leaving. I asked why. She told me I was a right bastard because I'd failed to give her the excitement she needed, in bed and in life in general. She wanted to travel to exotic places, make love in public, drink and smoke and experiment with shamans' drugs." He gave a harsh laugh. "I'd no clue she craved such things. For pity's sake, I thought we had a good life together. And now she tells me she wants a hedonistic life of traipsing around the world. We didn't have the money for that, not yet, and besides —" He shut his eyes and shook his head, then tipped his head forward. "I like my simple life in the Highlands."

My heart swelled, aching for him, for what he'd endured. A simple life. Children. Turkey sandwiches with Havarti cheese. Chocolate chip pancakes. He cherished all the same things I did, shared my taste in food, and I fit so nicely on his lap and in his arms.

No. I could not afford to entertain the thought.

"Aisley changed her mind about leaving when she realized my financial consulting business was becoming successful. She seduced me into taking her back for another three years." His nose bumped mine. "It was hell. I will never go down that road again."

"Oh Lachlan." I looped my arms around his neck, caressing his skin with my fingertips. "I'm so sorry for what you went through."

His breaths grew heavier, blowing over my skin. Awareness of him shimmered through me, liquid and delicious. His left hand sneaked onto my back to pull me closer to him. "Erica, don't ye see." His lips grazed mine. "I cannae be with ye in the way ye want. I told ye no relationships."

"I don't —"

He crushed his mouth to mine in a bruising kiss. His tongue lashed against mine, demanding a response that my body gave without reservation. He's going to say it. My head swam. He deepened the kiss with a fervor I'd never known from him before, a desperation so intense he ravaged me with it. When he pulled away, I couldn't breathe. "Ye know the rules, Erica."

Something inside me snapped. The force of it propelled me to shove him away. "The rules? Are you kidding me? Screw your rules, just tell me what you feel."

"I told you."

The sadness and certainty in his eyes triggered a slow, cold understanding in me. "You think I'm like her. Your bitch ex-wife."

"She's not my ex-wife. We're still married."

I went numb, slack-jawed. "You said you were divorced."

"You assumed I was. I never said it."

"But… you let me go on believing it. It's the same as lying."

"No, Erica. It was the rules. Nothing personal, remember? You agreed to it."

I clapped my gaping mouth shut. Who was this man standing before me? I didn't recognize him at all. "I'm surprised you didn't make me sign a contract. A formal tryst agreement. Then again, you would've included all your loopholes in that too. You're a liar."

"I didn't lie." He took a shuffling step toward me. I raised a warning hand, and he halted. "I thought we were divorced but there was a clerical error. Aisley's taking advantage of it to renegotiate our divorce settlement. She wants everything."

To fund her worldwide slut tour, no doubt. "If she's taking you to the cleaners, how did you plan on paying for top-notch investigators to clear my name?"

"I said Aisley wanted everything. She's not getting it."

"Congratulations. You screwed over another woman." I moved toward the doorway, but he latched onto my arm. I did not glance at him. "If you think I'm like her, why are you helping me?"

"You are nothing like her. I know it."

I couldn't keep the pain out of my voice. "You talked me into a fling. You said all those sweet things to me. And the first night at the bed-and-breakfast, you made love to me." I cast him a sidelong look. "It wasn't just hot sex. You made love to me."

His fingers tightened on my arm ever so slightly.

I searched his face for some sign he wanted to work this out between us. All I found was fear. "You led me on, Lachlan. You used my body and broke my heart."

He let go of my arm to brush the backs of his fingers over my cheek. "These weeks with you were the best of my life. But you're better off without me." His hand dropped to his side. "I've nothing left to give, except money."

"You are a bastard."

"Aye."

Lachlan brushed past me, walking out of the kitchen. Seconds later, I heard the front door shut. I didn't cry. What was the point? His wife screwed him up so bad he couldn't shake off her influence. No other woman had a chance in hell with Lachlan.

I retrieved Casey from Mrs. Abernathy's house and curled up in bed with the one male who never let me down.