“What’s your record?” Niall asked.
Annie knew exactly what he meant. “I’ve hit the center three times in a row twice.”
“From how far out?”
“Ten paces.”
“That’s pretty good.”
Her mouth quirked into a small smile. “Is that actually a compliment?”
He returned her smile. “No. Merely an observation.”
That elicited an eye roll. “I should have known better. What do I have to do to get a compliment from you?”
“Make it ten times in a row, and I’ll think about it.”
She gave a sharp sound of disgust. “It will take me years to master that kind of skill.”
“I did it in one year when I started out training.”
She gave him a hard look, her eyes narrowed as if not sure whether to believe him. “Then I will do it in six months.”
He chuckled. That brazen confidence was so typically the Annie he used to know that he couldn’t help responding in kind. “I hope you don’t like sleeping, because you’ll need every hour in the day to even have a shot at fulfilling that boast.”
“We’ll see,” she said, apparently unconcerned. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t—not anymore.”
It took him a moment to realize that she meant sleeping, and he instantly sobered. He bit back a curse. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” He raked his fingers back through his hair. “I seem to be doing that a lot of late. You have nightmares?”
Of course, she did.Hehad nightmares, damn it, and he hadn’t lived it.
She nodded and looked away.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Her head spun back toward him in disbelief. “With you?” She looked as incredulous as she sounded, but at least she was meeting his gaze again. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Niall wasn’t completely sure he wanted to hear the details, but he wanted her to know that she could confide in him.
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes blazed with fury. “Because I don’t want to talk about it, all right? Ineverwant to talk about it! Don’t you understand?”
Her pain was killing him. Niall wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he had to remind himself that what he wanted and what she needed might be different things now. He also recalled the disaster of the day before when he’d kissed her. “No, I don’t,” he said quietly. “But I’m trying to. If you’ll let me.”
His response only seemed to increase her frustration. “Why are you being like this? Did you forget what I told you yesterday? I don’t feel anything. Nothing, all right?”
It wasn’t all right. None of this was all right. “I didn’t forget, and if you never want me to kiss or touch you again, I will accept that. But it doesn’t change how I feel about you or that I want you to be my wife.”
* * *
Annie was stunned into silence. She gaped at him incredulously. “So what are you suggesting? That I will be your wife, and you will take other women to bed?”
The change that came over Niall was instantaneous. His back went as stiff as a pike and his expression turned granite cold. Especially his eyes. They could freeze the loch in summer.
He was clearly affronted—as if she’d just impugned his honor in the worst way. “If that is what you think of me, then maybe I am wasting my time here.”
She felt a tug in her heart that felt suspiciously like a twinge of panic. She didn’t care whether he stayed… did she?
Maybe more than she wanted to admit, because she found herself explaining. “What am I supposed to think? That you will live the life of a monk? I know it’s something I’m supposed to pretend to not know about, but many men have mistresses.”
