“He was so apologetic. He cried. He promised it wouldn’t happen again. I believed him.” The tears fell. “I’m so stupid.”

“I don’t know if I can hear much more without breaking something,” Cole said, his voice shaking.

“I need you to. I need you to try to understand.”

Muscle flexing in his jaw, he nodded.

“I didn’t tell anyone. And although I stayed with him, what he’d done to me festered inside me. I couldn’t bear his touch, in bed or out, and he grew frustrated.” I exhaled heavily, my fingers trembling. Sometimes it felt just like yesterday. “He punched me one night when I shoved him off me.

“The next morning he went to work and I called in sick. I packed all my clothes, only taking what I’d need—the rest could burn in hell along with Ollie for all I cared. However, it was like he had a sixth sense or something, because I was just about to leave when he walked through the door. He’d cut out of work early. I should have called Logan before it even got to that point.”

“Logan?” Cole frowned.

“My big brother.” The ache inside me intensified. “It’s just me, Logan, and my sister, Amanda, and our parents. But I’ve never been close to any of them, just Logan. My mum and Amanda had always resented how close Logan and me were. He was one of my best friends.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what happened next.”

“Ollie took one look at my suitcase and he flipped out. He started yelling that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I was his, only his.” The stinging in my nose began again, the tears welling up fast as I heard his voice replaying in my head. “And then he was shouting . . . just nonsense and he . . . he started beating the living daylights out of me. I tried to fight.” I wanted Cole to know that. “I tried, but he was so much bigger than me—”

“Shannon—”

“He stopped hitting me.” I sucked in a shuddering breath. “And he started touching me, tearing at my clothes, repeating over and over that I was his. And I—I knew. I knew he was going to rape me.”

Cole stood up suddenly, fists clenched at his side.

I shook my head at his pleading eyes. “No. It was the last straw for me. He’d taken so much. I couldn’t let him take that. The adrenaline kicked in, numbing the pain, and I was clawing and scratching and biting at him. Eventually I kneed him between the legs and he lost his grip on me. I got out from under him, the adrenaline kept me going, and I got away.” That was when I started to cry in earnest and apparently Cole couldn’t deal with being across the room anymore.

Suddenly he was on the sofa beside me, his arm around me, holding me close.

“I should have gone to the hospital,” I sobbed. “Or the police. I didn’t think. I didn’t realize what a mess I was in. I went to Logan.” I stared up into Cole’s soulful gaze, brushing angrily at my tears as I pleaded silently with him to understand. “I didn’t think. I didn’t mean to be so selfish.”

“Shh.” His grip on me tightened. “You went to the one person who made you feel safe. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

“You’re wrong. There’s everything. I made the choice to be with a bastard like Ollie. And when things went horribly wrong I turned up at my overprotective big brother’s work covered in my own blood.” My shoulder hanging out of its socket, my right eye swollen shut, my clothes torn . . . “How did I think he would react?”

Cole brushed his thumb over my cheek to catch a tear. “The way any man would react when someone he loves has been violated. He went to teach that f**ker a lesson.”

“Logan put Ollie in a three-day coma.”

“Shit.”

I nodded, lips trembling. “My brother got two years in prison.” And there it was. The worst thing I’d ever done.

“Shannon,” Cole murmured in sympathy, tucking my head under his chin and tightening his arms around me.

Rae knew about the attack, but she didn’t know about my brother. It was the first I’d spoken of it since leaving Glasgow.

“I had to leave. My parents, my sister . . . they hate me for ruining Logan’s life.”

“Your brother’s actions are his own,” Cole said, and I heard the tremor of anger in his words. “Don’t take that on. Your family is wrong.”

“It would never have happened if I hadn’t made the choice to be with Ollie and men like him.” I pulled out of the comfort of Cole’s strong embrace and met his worried gaze. “The whole point of me telling you this is so you understand where my head is at. I came to Edinburgh to start over and to keep my distance from my old life, my old choices. From bad boys.” I laughed hollowly. “And the only interview I got was at a tattoo studio where the good-looking tattooed manager began flirting with me immediately like I was a sure thing.”

Cole winced. “That wasn’t why, but I can see after everything you’ve been through—”

“Why I thought that.” I smiled weakly. “But I presumed to know you because of that and I assumed you were like all the men who’d buggered up my life. All the men who had hurt and disappointed me. In doing so I said some unforgiveable things.”

“Shannon—”

“I need you to know that you are not nothing and when I said that, that was my issue. Not yours. You shouldn’t have to carry that.”

In answer Cole bent his head toward mine, bringing our faces close as he cupped his hand around the back of my neck. He wanted all my focus and I gave it to him, somewhat transfixed, in fact. “It’s now completely forgotten, Shortcake. Think no more on it.”

Relief, an overwhelming amount of relief I had not been expecting to feel, rushed over me, and the tears were back in my eyes but for a totally different reason now. “You forgive me?”

“Sweet girl,” he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion I didn’t get. “How can you even worry about me after everything you’ve been through?”

“Because you’re a good person,” I said.

He gave my neck a squeeze in answer, but his eyes had turned hard. “What happened to Ollie?”

“He recovered. He got a prison sentence—thirty months.”

Cole curled his lip in disgust. “Is that it?”

“The lawyer reckoned he would have gotten more, but Logan’s attack was detrimental to my defense.”

He did not look happy, but he nodded.

It was then I realized how close we were sitting, and how intimate we were as we gazed into each other’s eyes. It was suddenly very important to me that Cole didn’t misunderstand the reason why I’d told him my story. I didn’t want him to think this was some ploy to turn him around and . . .

Feeling na**d and vulnerable all of a sudden, I shifted back and his hand fell away. “I should go home.”

“I don’t want you to leave when you’re upset. Stay,” he suggested like it was no big deal. “You can sleep in my guest room.”

Just the idea of staying with Cole was too much for me to handle. I smiled kindly. “I’d like my own bed tonight.”

He nodded and leaned down to press a kiss to my forehead. I stared at him, my blood hot, as he stood up. “Then let me see you home.”

“You don’t have—”

Cole cut off my protestations with just a look. A very stubborn, concerned, warm look.

A look that knocked on my heart.

A look I kept in my mind’s eye as I closed my eyes to sleep that night.

CHAPTER 12

I didn’t know how Cole would act around me the next day at work. I did know it was Saturday, so there was a possibility he’d use how busy he was to avoid having to interact at all. On the weekend I’d taken to coming into work at the same time as the tattooists—half an hour before opening.

Although nervous, I also felt relieved that he knew the truth, so I was in a fairly good mood as I came in bearing coffee for everyone.

I took Cole his coffee first.

When I knocked on his door and stepped inside, he looked up from a document he was reading and his expression brightened at the sight of me.

It winded me.

He stood up, grinning when I held his coffee out to him. Instead of taking it, he wrapped his hand around mine and we held them there. “How are you feeling?”

Noting the dark circles under his eyes, I had to wonder if my troubles had caused Cole to have a sleepless night. That was sweet; it really was. But now I felt terrible because for the first time in a while I’d slept like a baby.

I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. Honest.”

He let go of me, taking the coffee with him. The look he gave me . . . it was as if he wanted to protect me in Bubble Wrap.

“Cole.” I smiled again, more than a little enchanted by him. “I know I had a meltdown last night, but honestly I’m okay. I have a good life here—a good job, good friends. I’ve found more than I ever hoped to find when I moved here, so please don’t worry about me.”

“That’s a tall order.” He shook his head, his smile wry. “You’re made of stern stuff, Shannon MacLeod.”

“It’s the hair. It’s magic hair.”

Cole laughed. “It is definitely magical.”

“Am I getting my coffee any f**king time soon?” Rae yelled from next door.

I giggled at her irate tone and I swear Cole’s eyes lit up at the sound of my laughter.

I felt all warm and gooey inside. “I’d better . . .” I gave him a little wave and walked out, sure I could sense his eyes on me until I disappeared out of sight.

I stepped into Rae’s room and walked over to where she was lying on her tattoo chair with her eyes closed. She opened them at my approach and glared at me as I handed her a latte. “Thank God,” she growled. “You don’t know how excruciating it is having to listen to you two lovebirds when I haven’t had my caffeine fix.”

She said it so loud I knew Cole had heard.

I wrinkled my nose. “Don’t be mean.”

“Why?” she huffed, and then snorted, “Are you going to kill me with your magical hair?”

I rubbed a strand of hair between my finger and thumb. “It is thick. It would make good rope.”

“Dark. I like it, wee fairy.”

I rolled my eyes at the irritating nickname she’d adopted from Stu and wandered out of her room and down the hall to Simon. He was sleeping in his chair, his arms crossed on the counter and sink space in the back of the room, his head resting on his arms. I quietly walked over to him and nudged him awake, wafting the coffee below his nostrils.

“Argh,” he groaned, blinking sleepily. He saw the coffee first and wiped drool from his mouth as he sat up to take it from me. He sipped at it before throwing me a grateful smile. “Tony kept me up late last night.”

“No f**king sex talk!” Rae yelled.

“Since when?” I whispered at Simon, smirking.

“I heard that!”

My eyes bugged out. “She has radar ears.”

“So what? You have magical f**king hair!”

I laughed and heard Cole’s laughter join mine.

Sighing, I sipped my coffee as Simon chuckled into his. I felt almost content for the first time in as long as I could remember.

I felt part of something here.

I felt part of a family.

*   *   *

There really wasn’t much of an opportunity to talk with Cole at work that weekend, but as we closed up for the early evening on Sunday, Rae announced Cole was having dinner with us. I was surprised because if Cole could cut out early on a Sunday to catch up with his friends and family who got together for lunch at Ellie’s mum’s house, he would. I wasn’t complaining, though. There was something new between us now. Although we didn’t get a chance to talk much, when we did Cole was warm toward me, and there was a glitter in his eyes when he looked at me.

Mike was at the flat when we returned on Sunday, and the four of us had a good laugh together. Cole and I had formed a bond and we were a team against Rae’s sarcasm. She said it pissed her off that we were defending each other, but secretly I think she liked the challenge of finding a way to outwit us both.

From Monday through Wednesday Cole was in my space as much as he could be. He took me out to lunch twice, and when he didn’t have a client he hung out in the waiting area distracting me from my work with silly stories and jokes. When he wasn’t distracting me he was drawing, and what he was drawing were different ideas for my dragon tattoo.

I finally decided on a predatory black-and-petrol-blue dragon in profile.

The truth was I was nervous about the tattoo—not so much about the pain, because as Cole had told me many times since deciding to get the darn thing, everyone had different experiences and pain levels with tattoos. No, I was nervous about the fact that Cole was going to be the one giving me my tattoo. As in . . . touching me. Since Friday evening this new tension had grown between us. As much as I had always been aware of Cole, it seemed as if he was very much aware of me again. Not like he had been in the beginning—he was more careful now, like he didn’t want to scare me away or upset me.

But I caught him looking at me.

There was a huge part of me that loved that he was looking again. Yet there was this other huge part of me that loved the small taste I’d gotten of being Cole’s friend, and I didn’t want to ruin that.

“Ready?” Cole greeted as I walked into his room on Thursday afternoon.

I exhaled nervously and shut his door behind me. “I’m not going to lie. I’ve got butterflies.”