“I do not want to marry you, Niall. Nor do I want or need your ‘protection.’ You seem to have taken it upon yourself to act as my executioner, but I want it to stop. You do not speak for me, nor do you have any right to seek justice for me. You had no right to kill Colin Campbell.”
His face darkened with a malevolence that she would never have imagined him capable of. “I had every right. He hurt the woman I love. My only regret is that I could not prolong his agony before my sword took his foul life.”
Annie ignored the tiny blip in the beating of her heart at the easy mention of the word “love.” He was obviously confusing it with pity.
Still, she was curious about his choice of words. “Could not?”
His gaze bore into hers with a ferocity that almost made her gasp. “I gave my word to his brother that I would end it quickly.”
Annie knew that Niall’s sister had married Colin’s younger brother. “The Enforcer?” she asked, referring to Jamie Campbell.
Niall shook his head. “Duncan Campbell. The older brother that Colin had attempted to kill to prevent Duncan inheriting the lordship that Colin had wrongfully claimed.”
Annie nodded. Patrick had mentioned something about it, but she hadn’t been listening very closely. She’d been too angry at Niall for claiming the justice that should have belonged to her.
“You overstepped your bounds, Niall. You and I are nothing to one another. We haven’t been for over two years.”
“God, I’m sorry, Annie. You have no idea how much I regret what I said at Dunvegan. If I could take it all back, I would. It didn’t take me long to realize I’d made a mistake. I was going to find you and apologize, but then war broke out. Ascog was attacked, my father and brother killed, your kinsmen betrayed by Argyll, and you were—”
She held up her hand and cut him off. She knew; she didn’t need to hear it from him. “It doesn’t matter. An apology wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“Of course it would have. How can you say that? You loved me.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “I did. With all my heart. But after what happened, I realized I had given my heart away too easily to someone who didn’t deserve it.”
He looked as if she’d shot him with a hagbut in the gut. His face drained of most of its color. “I was one and twenty, Annie. I was inexperienced and didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know that what I felt for you was special.”
She couldn’t quite bite back all the sarcasm when she said, “You weren’t that inexperienced from what I heard.”
He actually flushed. If Annie didn’t know better, she’d think he was ashamed. “I was a fool. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have found the woman I loved when I was fourteen. I convinced myself that what I felt for you didn’t matter. I thought I was doing my duty. I thought I was being a man.”
He sounded sincere, but Annie didn’t want to hear any of this. It was too late. Too many things had changed. Including her.Especiallyher.
She hadn’t realized how much until that moment. Standing this close to Niall two years ago, she would have been buzzing all over. She would have been flush with anticipation, the hairs on her arms would have been standing on edge, and she would have been warm and achy. She would have been planning ways to get him to kiss her.
She would have felt desire.
But now she felt… nothing. Not one little stirring of anything. Not even Niall—the man she’d practically thrown herself at for two years—could make her feel again. The passion of the one kiss they’d shared had haunted her. She’d hoped at some point that that part of her would return.
The realization of all that she’d lost—of all that had been taken from her—made her want to cry. For the first time since those awful initial weeks, tears sprang to her eyes.
He obviously misunderstood. “Jesus, Annie, I didn’t mean to make you upset. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was and how much I love you and want to make it up to you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. “Make it up to me? God, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Not everything can be ‘made up,’ Niall. Not everything can be fixed. When some things are broken, they stay that way forever.”
He was clearly taken aback by her vehemence. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak lightly—”
“No. You just think you can stride in here, tell me you love me, and magically make it all be better. Well, it’snevergoing to be better, Niall. It’s too late. And the best thing you can do for me—theonlything you can do—is leave me be.”
She turned and fled before he could see the tears that were now streaming down her cheeks.
CHAPTER THREE
Niall muttered a harsh curse as Annie fled across thebarmkin. How the hell had that gone so wrong?
He debated for a moment whether to go after her but didn’t want to make things worse. And until he figured out where he’d gone wrong, there was every likelihood of that happening.
He was about to sit down on a stack of hay to try to gather his thoughts when he saw a man stalking toward him.
