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Just how she saw Lachlan.
How she wanted him to see himself.
“The Battle of Culloden. The Highlanders were doomed from the beginning. Fitting, isn’t it?” Lachlan’s tone was flat.
She spun at the sound of his voice, and when she met his eyes, they were equally devoid of emotion. Dread roiled her stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“How long have you been funneling information to Admiral Dane?”
Her breath left her with a whoosh at his verbal punch to the stomach. She swallowed hard, past a throat suddenly thick with an unnamed fear. She’d been right. He believed she betrayed him.
“The evidence against you is too strong. Admiral Dane is the only one who can save you. Please—“
“How long?”
His stillness unnerved her.
“Right before I started at LAI, he told me the government suspected a US contractor was selling weapons to an Afghan warlord—weapons that might end up in the hands of the Taliban or ISIS. He asked me to keep my eyes and ears open. He asked me to,” she stumbled over her next words, knowing how they sounded, “he asked me to start with you.”
There was a flash of pain in his eyes as his hands fisted at his sides. “So, from the instant we met, you were helping the admiral build a case against me,” he snarled. “You knew my division was being used as a front for arms trafficking before we met.”
His emotionless façade dropped away, the look he sent her so full of bitterness, she nearly fell to her knees.
“It wasn’t like that.” She stretched her hand into the vast gulf between them. “Once I got to know you, I never believed you were guilty. I’ve been trying to help prove your innocence. You have to believe me.”
“Believe you?” He took a step toward her, and it took everything in her not to retreat from the fury emanating from him in waves. “Why should I believe you? You’ve been lying to me from the very beginning. And to think I bared my soul to you.”
His lip curled. “You’re a bloody good actress, Sophia. I thought you cared. I actually believed we might have a future together.”
“I love you.” The words burst from her on a sob. “Admiral Dane will help.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “Don’t give up.” Her lips trembled. “Don’t give up on us.”
Lachlan’s finger brushed her cheek. He contemplated the moisture he’d gathered on the pad of his finger, almost clinically, as if to discern its chemical properties. “Unless new evidence emerges to exonerate me, I’m probably going to prison for a very long time.” He stepped back, putting both physical and emotional distance between them. “There is no future. There is no us.”
She bit her lip hard to keep from crying out in protest.
“Goodbye, Sophia.” He strode to his apartment door, holding it open.
Every painful moment in her life that had tried to chip away at her self-worth paled compared to how her heart shattered now, into a million little pieces.
She reached the door and forced herself to meet his gaze.
He’d sequestered every hint of emotion behind an iron wall of control. She envied his ability to hide his feelings even as she resented it.
“I love you,” she repeated, “even if you don’t believe me right now. Maybe you will one day.”
She wouldn’t say goodbye.
It felt too final.
His door clicked shut at her back. She almost wished he’d slammed it. At least it would have shown he felt something. When the brass elevator doors slid open, she sagged in relief at the sight of the empty car. The doors had barely closed before the first sob tore from her chest.
Sophia drove blindly, not caring if people noticed her sobbing her heart out at the stoplights. Lachlan had accused her of being a good actress. She needed to prove him right and convince Emily nothing was wrong. Once Emily left for Paris tomorrow, she could crawl into her bed, curl up in a ball, and spend the weekend waiting for the next shoe to drop.
The police were hunting for Lachlan.
Soon, LAI would be embroiled in a federal investigation.
Jared would find out she’d kept the weapons shipments a secret, then stole company files and gave them to an outsider. He’d fire her for sure.