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The gutting sensation left by her words almost knocks me over, and I have to reach for the table, grasping the edge to hold myself up.Terror unlike anything I’ve ever known grips me, wondering if I’ve fucked this up beyond repair. I’ve never felt fear like the one that comes from thinking I might lose her.

“I’m sorry,” I plead, needing her to believe it. “I was going to tell you.”

“But you didn’t. I thought you trusted me.” She shakes her head. “It makes so much sense now.A daughter of MacKay.Did you know Rhona told me that there had been no daughters born to the MacKay clan for centuries? Have you just beenwaitingfor me to show up all this time? Or have you beenafraidthat I would?” She crosses her arms tightly over her chest, looking pained. “I feel so fucking stupid, don’t you get that? Here I was, thinking that we were in this together, but you didn’t even trust me enough to tell me what might be the most crucial bit of information you know. Like I’m some sort ofchild.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” I tell her. “And Iwasgoing to tell you.Today.I swear I was.”

Her eyes narrow. “That’s convenient.”

“Iswear, Key.” I take a cautious step, stilling when I notice her flinch. I hate that after all my yearning to protect her, I still ended up being the cause for more pain. “Please believe me.”

She stares back at me for a long while, her green eyes bright with fury and her body rigid with tension. She expels a harsh breath when she finally averts her eyes, her lips pursing as she stares down at the floor, appearing to mull it over.

“I need some time,” she says finally, and I feel almost sick from the declaration. “I just…I can’t think around you. It’s hard to stay mad at you when I’m looking right at you, and this is a fucking big deal.” She cocks her head, peering up at me. “You get that, right? My entire fucking life has been nothing but secrets. I didn’t need any more. Especially not from you.”

“I know,” I answer with a nod. “I’m so sorry.”

Her chest still rises and falls with heavy breaths, and I watch as she seems to struggle with her own thoughts, finally shaking her head roughly back and forth as if to clear it. “I need time,” she says again. “I just need some space to think.” She holds out her hand. “May I have the journal, please?”

She doesn’t move from where she’s standing, holding my gaze as she offers her outstretched hand. I want to hold it, to gather it up in my palm and pull her against me so that I can beg her not to leave—because even with her telling me that she needs space, there’s nothing I want less with her.

But I did keep secrets from her, and it was my choice to do so. If there’s one thing I know all too well—it’s consequences. So with that in mind, I gently pick up the journal, placing it in her open palm with the same care. My fingers brush against hers, and I don’t miss the way her breath catches slightly with the contact, but after only a moment she snatches the journal back, clutching it to her chest.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she tells me. “When I’ve had a chance to calm down. I don’t want to say something to you that I’ll regret just because I’m mad at you.”

I nod solemnly. “I understand.”

“I wish…” Her expression falls, her eyes sad. “I wish you’d trusted me.”

“I trust you with my life,” I tell her earnestly, meaning every word. “There’s no person alive that I trust more.”

Her mouth parts as if she might say something, but then she quickly closes it, seeming to decide against it. She gives me one last long look with that same hurt expression that guts me, and then she spins on her heel toward the door, not looking back as she opens and shuts it behind her, leaving me alone. I stare at the closed door for anindeterminable amount of time, feeling as if the air has gone colder with her absence, like she took all the warmth with her.

I wish you’d trusted me.

I know she’s right. That regardless of my intentions, I’ve pulled the rug out from beneath her, leaving her in the dark as if she didn’t deserve to know her part in the story. As if she couldn’t handle it somehow. She told me only a few hours ago that my trust in her made me different. That it meant I wasn’t a monster.

I told her then I wasn’t sure if I deserved her.

I hope that this doesn’t make her realize that’s true.

It takes all that I have not to go after her in the hours following Key’s hasty departure from the cottage; I tried earlier to get some work done, but most of my time was spent staring forlornly at her bedroom window. I think even the cows were getting sick of my company after just a short spell with me.

I ended up back in the last place I touched her—face down on my bed and replaying every poor decision I’ve made lately. There are so many moments where I could have told her the truth: when I first kissed her, when we first made love, hell, even back in that bloody graveyard, where I’d first told her about her history. What had held me back then? I couldn’t even claim then that I wanted to protect her.

Or had I felt that need even then, without realizing it?

I suppose it doesn’t matter now, because all I can do is wallow here in the shadows—not bothering to change the bulbs after she’s gone and blown them out again—content to just lie here until the sun sinks, and I have to trudge back to the loch to spend another awful night away from her. Only now, there will be the added bonus of knowing she won’t be waiting for me when I get back.

How in the fuck did I do this before her?

I roll onto my back to stare blankly at the ceiling, mentally checking off ways that I could apologize to her. I have nothing to offer her, not really, but it doesn’t stop me from orchestrating half a dozen grand gestures in my head that might get her to hear me out. A more rational part of my mind says that she will come to me when she calms down, but it’s drowned out by the part of me that’s terrified she won’t.

A bitter laugh escapes me.

When did I lose all my sense for this woman?

I try to pinpoint an exact moment, but there are too many to choose from. Maybe it’s when she first stubbornly asserted that she was going to help me, that she wasmeant to.Maybe it was when I held her in that run-down old barn, her shivering body pressed to mine as she quietly asked me if I trusted her. Maybe it could have even been that moment when she burst into this very cottage—calling me out for being an eejit when it came to making her decisions for her. Not that her outburst seemed to actually teach me a lesson, considering I continued to do just that.