Page 3 of Stealing a Kilted Heart

The nerve o’ him! The mere impudence!

Callum paused for a moment, and it seemed to Fia that he was weighing his options. He was truly considering it, she realized with horror and disgust. He was truly trying to decide if he should take her by force.

“Get out o’ me house right the now!” she shouted, pointing a finger to the door. “Out!”

Callum laughed, but he did head to the door this time, shaking his head as though he was the one in disbelief. “Ye call this a house? It’s only a box with a door.”

Those were the last words he spoke to her before he left, slamming the door behind him. For what seemed like an eternity, Fia simply stared, frozen in her spot, the echo of his laughter and the ghost of his mocking gaze still lingering.

She didn’t know when she sank to the floor, drawing her knees to her chest as the tears began to stream down her cheeks unbridled and quiet. That was how Bane found her, though, a while later; curled up into herself, unable to do anything but cry.

She didn’t need to explain anything. He went to her, sitting onto the floor next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her close. It was then that, for the first time since Callum had left, Fia managed to make a sound—a broken sob, one that soon turned into a howl of pain.

Callum had taken everything from her. He had taken her pride, her trust, her love, and he had trampled over it all, leaving nothing but dust behind. He had taken the man Fia loved and had killed him right in front of her eyes.

There was nothing left inside her but that gnawing humiliation, its talons digging into her guts and tearing her apart from the inside. A bet; it had all been for a bet, one Callum hadn’t even managed to win.

How embarrassin’! Tae be fooled by a fool!

Fia couldn’t accept it. She had been hurt and humiliated, stripped of her pride within moments, but a man like Callum didn’t deserve her tears. He didn’t deserve the ache that burned inside her, the grief that settled heavy on her shoulders.

What he deserved was to be just as humiliated, just as broken. What he deserved was to watch as Fia proved once and for all that she was neither weak nor small, and that it didn’t matter what anyone—especially Callum—thought about her and what she was worth.

One way or another, she would have her revenge.