“You’ve changed,” I said.
Her laugh was short, sharp, and sliced through me. “And you haven’t. That’s the problem.”
“I have, but you just don’t see it yet.” At least I hoped that was true. I was worlds apart from the boy who hadn’t been strong enough to stand up for Skye and fight for a better contract for the both of us.What would our lives have been like if she’d been out there? Singing by my side the world over?
Skye shifted, her eyes going to the fire. “Is it true? Did he screw you over?”
“Seems that way.” It felt like swallowing razor blades to admit it, but it was only fair that I gave Skye her due. She’d been right about the dodgy manager all along.
“I’m sorry for that.” Skye stood, glancing toward the front room as voices sounded on the stairs. “It doesn’t exactly make me happy to have been right about him.”
This wasn’t the time for a deeper conversation, and I wasn’t sure either of us was ready to have one. Instead, I pulled my hat low over my head and snagged some shortbread to take back to my room, breezing past the guests who had gathered in the foyer.
Later, upstairs in the small room with its slanted ceiling and creaking radiator, I stared at the paper in my hands.
House rules.
Clearly created solely for me.Really, Skye?It was as if she felt she could articulate fifteen years of anger into bullet points. Like she could build a fence high enough to keep me out.I know you hate me, lass.
I’d told myself I was only here because of the circulating scandal…because I needed a safe, quiet place to hide.
Lies. Utter rubbish, Byrne.
But the truth was, I’d missed Skye terribly. Though time separated us, softening the sting of our pain, I’d never stopped thinking about her. There were so many times I’d almost picked up the phone to call her but then remembered she didn’t want me to. She’d moved on. Started her life over. And I’d had no place in it at all. That part hadburned the worst, I supposed. I’d gone from being the most important person in Skye’s life to her most loathed.
Still, I’d come back here, to Kingsbarns, the moment I needed refuge.
Old habits do die hard, I guess.
Because even if she hated me, even if she never forgave me, Kingsbarns was the only place that had ever been my home. And Skye Kerrigan—the girl with a voice like wildfire—was the only person who had ever seen me for who I really was.
And, bloody hell, I still wanted her.
Three
SKYE
Running a bed and breakfast in December was like being slowly choked by tinsel.
On good days, it was cozy, charming, the kind of place tourists wrote glowing reviews about on TripAdvisor. On bad days, like today, it felt like living in a snow globe someone wouldn’t stop shaking. Guests ringing bells, candles burning too sweet, laundry multiplying like rabbits. And, worst of all, Noah bloody Byrne upstairs, turning every breath I took into an act of self-control.
By nine that night, I’d had enough.
Enough of cinnamon and pine-scented candles, enough of folding pillowcases, enough of pretending the sound of floorboards creaking above me wasn’t the man I’d once loved pacing around in boots.
I told myself I needed to do a nightly inspection of thevillage seasonal decor, a game where I gave scores to the neighborhood Christmas decorations, but what I really needed was out. Out of this bed and breakfast, perhaps out of Kingsbarns, but definitely out and away from my past that had come back to haunt me. I pulled on my coat, jammed a beanie over hair that had given up hours ago, and escaped into the bitter cold that makes your teeth hurt.
Kingsbarns at night is all stone and salt. The sea sits just beyond the dark, a permanent, patient friend. Or foe, depending on its mood. A window glowed with a tree strung in warm white lights—tasteful—and two doors down the Jamiesons had a reindeer that blinked like a migraine—less tasteful. I loved them both. The air smelled of smoke from the fires and salt from the ocean. It should have calmed me.Thiswas familiar. My place, my town, my people.
Not Noah’s.
He’d given up on me, on all of us, long ago.
Not that it stopped people from bragging thattheNoah Byrne had once lived here. I was surprised they hadn’t put a plaque up at his old house. This village dearly loved a good commemorative sign.
My feet picked the way for me, following the same path instinctively. A left past the phone box that never works, another left where the pavement buckles, and then the sign swung into view, laughter and voices drifting from the door that was just closing behind a patron.
The Royal Unicorn.
