Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
There was none.
How did he find me here?
“Not possible,” I whispered frantically, dropping my mail to rip open the card.
It was an illustrated image of a loving couple sitting before a fireplace decorated for Christmas with a tree in the corner. No. No, no, no. I opened the card and my stomach dropped.
* * *
There’s nowhere you can go where I can’t find you. Merry Christmas, Monroe.
Yours always, Steven
* * *
“Monroe?”
Finding me in Ardnoch was easy enough … but how did he know I’d moved to the cottage? I’d only been living here a few weeks. Surely, he should have sent the card to Mum’s. How did he know I was here?
“Roe?”
Had he come here? Had he been watching me?
Was he going to step out of the shadows one day? Maybe when I least expected it.
This is what he wants! Every birthday and every Christmas … he did this to mess with my head. Because he was a fucking coward!
“What is going on? Give me that.”
Brodan snatched the card out of my hand, bringing me crashing back into the room. “Brodan—”
His face darkened with fury, those pale-blue eyes like ice chips as he raised them from the card to me. “What the fuck is this? Who is Steven, and why is he threatening you?”
Part of me wanted to tell Brodan to bugger off and leave me to my shitty existence. But an even bigger part was so tired. So alone. I needed someone to talk to … and he was there.
“Steven is my ex.” I dropped my handbag on the side table and stared wearily at Brodan. “You’re not the only reason I don’t trust you.”
The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Tell me. Please.”
I nodded. “I think I’d quite like a spiked coffee first, though. You?”
His impatience was obvious, but he controlled it, nodding. Like he was afraid I would disappear in a puff of smoke, Brodan trailed me like a puppy dog into the kitchen and watched me make coffee spiked with the whisky I’d found in the back of a cupboard. He then followed me back into the sitting room and we sat together, the mug warm between my cold palms.
“Sunset?” he prompted quietly.
I couldn’t quite look at him as I spoke. “It took me a long time to get over you. There were disastrous attempts at uni, casual sex that left me empty.”
Glancing at him, I noted he was white-knuckling his mug, his own gaze on the drink as if he was afraid to look at me too. It bothered him? The thought of me with others? For some reason, that hurt. There was no satisfaction.
“When I moved to Edinburgh for teacher training, I met a firefighter called Nick. He reminded me a little of you.”
Brodan looked at me now, his anguish clear. “What a fucking pair we are, Sunset.”
Pain warmed my chest in a bright flare, and tears burned my eyes. I fought them back with a grim smile as I nodded. It took me a minute to be able to speak around the sudden lump in my throat. “Nick and I were together for four years until I discovered he was sleeping with a colleague behind my back. They decided to be together, and I left. Most of our friends were his, so they chose him and the new woman.”
“Fuckers,” Brodan bit out. “The lot of them.”
I harrumphed in agreement.
“Roe … you should know I have never cheated on anyone, and I never would.”
“I know. You were always very honest when you grew tired of a girl and moved on to the next.”
He flinched.
Remorse hit me unexpectedly. It wasn’t Brodan’s fault that Steven liked to torment me, and I didn’t want to do to Brodan what he’d done to me. I didn’t want to keep taking hits at him. “Sorry.”
He waved off my apology. “Just tell me about this other guy. This Steven person.”
“Steven Shaw. I met him when I moved to Glasgow to teach. He was ten years older than me, charismatic, intelligent, and he worked in the financial industry. I still don’t know exactly what his job entailed, but I knew he was successful because he showered me with expensive gifts, and I allowed myself to be swept off my feet by him. Fancy dinners, fancy holidays, fancy flat in the West End of Glasgow.” I smirked bitterly. “But it wasn’t the lifestyle that pulled me in. It was him. It was me. He was looking for someone like me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone vulnerable. Someone desperate to be loved. After you, after Nick…” I glared into my whisky. “Steven must have smelled it on me like a shark smells blood.”
“Roe.” My name seemed to be dragged out of Brodan, rough and ragged.
I looked at him and saw his self-recrimination.
I shook my head. “No one is responsible for anyone else’s life or their choices.”