Cole froze for a second before his fork clattered to his plate. “Excuse me?”
I continued thinking out loud. “Just until I breach the distance with my parents. You know . . . ease myself back into the fold, show them I’m trying, and then when they see that, you and I can pick up speed again and they’ll see for themselves what a good guy you are.”
The air in the room turned arctic. I knew immediately I’d made a huge error in judgment by thinking out loud. Anger, incredulity . . . and hurt blazed in Cole’s eyes as he shoved back from the table to tower over it and me. His voice was almost a whisper, it was so choked with emotion. “After everything, after the way they’ve treated you, neglected you, you want to put us on hold to appease them?”
I slid back from my chair, desperately trying to think of a way to calm the situation, to articulate this correctly, because clearly I was messing it up. “No! I mean, just temporarily.”
Wrong thing to say! My eyes widened as his whole being seemed to expand with anger. “You cannot be serious?” he said.
“Cole, please. Try to see it from my perspective. This is my family. And yes, they’re not a great one, but they’re still my family. They’re hurt and scared and I’ve been running from them, it all, for too long. It’s time to fix things. It’s what Logan wants and what I think I need.” I took a step toward him, placation in my eyes. He flinched back from me. I was royally screwing this explanation up. “Cole . . . you of all people have to understand. Your mum was a crap mum, but you never abandoned her. Not completely.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw as he nodded with teeth gritted. Finally he expelled his breath in a hoarse voice. “But I would never have chosen her over you.”
“I’m not choosing anyone over—”
“I can’t do this right now.” He held up a hand to interrupt me. “I need to walk out of here before I say shit I’ll regret.”
Wondering how the conversation could have taken such a bad turn, I pleaded with him. “Don’t. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just trying to think of—”
“Not trying to hurt me?” He pushed the chair he’d been sitting in hard against the table. It was my turn to flinch back. “You’re asking me to fucking prove myself. If anyone has to prove themselves it’s them!”
I pressed my lips closed, realizing with a heaviness in my gut that that was exactly what I’d just asked him to do. After telling my family that I would never do that to him, I’d done it without thinking. “I didn’t mean that,” I promised. “I really didn’t. I just don’t know what else to do.”
But my apology didn’t even penetrate his anger. He leaned forward, eyes narrowed, and hissed, “Here’s a hint: You should never have said you wanted to take a break. You should never have asked me to prove myself after all the shit you’ve put me through.” He cut me another disgusted look and strode out of the room while I recovered from his furious attack.
Hearing the front door open, I snapped out of my stupor and raced down the hallway. “Cole!”
He spun around. “And to think I was going to ask you to move in with me. What a huge fucking mistake that would have been.”
Oh heck, this was not happening. “Cole, please—”
The door slammed shut on my face.
I stumbled forward, about to chase after him, when his words started ringing in my ears. He was furious. My continued attempts to rectify the situation weren’t going to change how he felt at the moment.
I leaned my forehead against the door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whimpered.
* * *
My suitcase lay open on my bed, my clothes scattered all over my bedroom, and I was staring at my artwork wondering how I was going to pack it up when the front door slammed.
“Shannon fucking MacLeod, you and I need to have a word!” Rae shouted through the flat. “I’ve just been consoling your very pissed-off and hurt man and I’ve got to say . . .” Her voice trailed off as she entered my bedroom. I watched as she took in the suitcase and the clothes that were in the progress of being packed into it. “Okay.” She swallowed hard. “You should know that Cole is really hotheaded. He doesn’t seem it because he’s so laid-back all the time, but when something pisses him off, I mean, he just lets fly without thinking.” She was rambling now. “Did you know that when he found out Marco was the guy that knocked Hannah up when she was seventeen, he didn’t even give her a chance to explain shit? He just flew off the handle and went after Marco. He tried to beat the crap out of him on a construction site. Got a few good punches in too.”
I opened my mouth to explain, but my phone rang before I could. Glancing over at it on the bedside cabinet, I recognized the number. “Oh, I have to take this.” I snatched it up and answered, all the while waving at Rae to get out of my room to give me some privacy.
She stared at me stubbornly for a second but finally edged out of the room.
By the time I got off the phone with my dad to arrange everything, it was late and Rae was lying across her bed fully clothed. Her snores filled the entire flat.
* * *
Rae was already up and gone by the time I woke up. It was puzzling because Rae was never out of bed before me. I’d lain awake for most of the night worrying myself sick about Cole and forcing myself not to call him. There wouldn’t be any point trying to talk to him when he was still riled up.
Exhausted, I walked into INKarnate, heading straight for the coffee machine. I was feeling a little breathless, anticipating seeing Cole after our first huge argument as a couple. Technically I think maybe he’d broken up with me, but I couldn’t even process that right then without wanting to burst into tears, so I concentrated on the coffee.
I chewed on my lower lip, trying to decide if I should take Cole a cup.
“There you are.”
I looked over my shoulder at Rae standing behind my desk. “Morning.”
She scowled at me. “Whatever. Cole called in sick. You need to phone and reschedule his appointments for today.”
My heart took a swan dive out of my chest. “Sick?” Cole never called in sick.
“Like you care,” she snapped.
“Rae.” I stomped my foot in exasperation. “Why did Cole—”
“I can’t hear you!” she yelled childishly, and strode away from me.
I hurried out of the closet onto the main floor. “Rae!”
“Don’t push me.” She stopped and glared at me over her shoulder. “You’re my friend, Shannon. I care about you, but if I have to choose, I choose Cole. So back the fuck off before I slap the fucking stupidity out of you.”
Aghast, I stood there, stunned, as she disappeared into the back.
I was still standing there when Simon ventured out of his room. From the look on his face he had heard everything. Whatever he saw on my face made him hold up his hands in surrender. “I don’t want to know. I’m sorry, babe, but I’ve got my own shit going on with Tony.”
I crushed my rising panic. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged glumly and walked past me to get a coffee. “We’re trying to work through this baby thing.”
“I’m sorry.” I slumped against my desk, wishing relationships didn’t have to be so bloody heartbreaking.
Simon gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry too.”
* * *
Frozen out by Rae for the rest of the day, I’d lost strands of hair from tugging it in frustration so much. I couldn’t believe what she’d said to me. I didn’t even know what I’d done to deserve it.
Finally, after locking everything up for the day, I reached for my phone. I felt so sick I thought I might actually vomit, and the only way to get rid of that sensation was to call Cole.
It went straight to voice mail.
Rae came out of the back wearing her jacket and bag. Simon had already left. I reached for my own jacket. “Don’t even think about walking me out,” she said, sneering, as she strode by my desk.
“Where the heck is Cole?” I called after her.
> “With Hannah.” She shook her head at me, all childishness gone and replaced with disappointment. “Don’t bother them. He’s visiting the baby.”
I slumped. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, Rae.”
“You gave up on him. How was that not hurtful?”
“I never gave up on him. I’m just trying to keep a promise to someone.”
“The wrong someone, apparently.” She shook her head. “Cole’s really been there for you, and you’ve gotten in deep with him, which means somewhere along the line you’ve made promises to him too. Maybe you should work out whose promise is the one you should concentrate on keeping.”
“Why does it have to be an either-or situation?”
“Because someone is making it that way . . . and again, maybe that’s the someone you should be taking time off from. Not Cole.” She slammed out of the studio, leaving me alone to lock up and ponder the many ways I’d somehow managed to let everyone in my life down in less than seventy-two hours.
CHAPTER 25
T here’s nothing quite like the feeling of fear you get in your gut when you know you’ve hurt someone you care about. The fear turns into a flurry of nerves the more time passes with everything unresolved.
I was scared sick.
That night I tried calling and texting Cole, but he didn’t answer. Desperate to talk everything through, to fix it, I took a taxi to his place, hoping he’d cooled down enough so we could talk.
However, Cole wouldn’t answer his door.
I returned home that night with this heavy, thick, swelling sickness in my gut.
That feeling only worsened when I walked into work on Monday to find myself face-to-face with Stu. “Cole needs a break, so he’s off on some photography trip with his friend Nate for the next couple of days. I’ll be covering his appointments.”
I was a little breathless at the news that my boyfriend had up and left town without informing me. “Trip? Where?”
Stu shrugged, not meeting my gaze. “Not sure.”
“Stu—”
“Look, Shannon.” Stu shrugged at me, sympathy mixed with hardness in his eyes. “You’re good at your job, but if your presence here is going to be a problem for my best artist, I will have to let you go.”
“Let me go?” I stumbled forward, shocked to my core. “Cole and I had an argument. We’ll sort it out.”
That darn sympathy melted the hardness completely. “Cole seems awfully upset.”
“I suggested something, he took it the wrong way, but that’s hardly . . .” I touched my forehead as the room started to wobble. “He’s hotheaded and he said things, but I thought . . .” I trailed off as I searched my bag for my phone. Cole and I needed to talk. He couldn’t just run away.
It wasn’t like him.
“This isn’t like him,” I muttered, fumbling for the phone. This time it rang, but I got no answer. I winced at the sound of his voice asking me to leave a message. “Cole, it’s me. Answer your phone. This is ridiculous. We need to talk.”
Stu grimaced. “I hope you’re good at groveling, wee fairy.”
I sighed. “I have a feeling that by the time this week is over, I’ll have made an art form out of it.”
* * *
“I miss it here.” Dad smiled, taking in the view of the castle out the coffee shop window. “Your mum is pure Glasgow through and through, but this place never stopped feeling like home.”
I nodded. “It’s in my blood too.”
“Yeah, you have a lot of my mum in you. Might be for the best considering your sister has a lot of your mum’s side in her and look how neurotic she turned out.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Dad.”
He just chuckled and sipped his coffee.
“Thanks for meeting me.” I’d decided after my argument with Cole that perhaps it would be better to try to have a rational discussion with a member of my family. Dad had been the one who’d seemed most receptive to me, so I’d called him to arrange meeting up. He could only meet me at the weekend, which meant I’d had to ask Rae to cover me—something she’d done begrudgingly. Although she was still pissed at me for upsetting Cole, she could see how much of a toll it was taking on me that he hadn’t returned my phone calls all week. So, despite the fact that my roommate was barely speaking to me, she had agreed to cover my shift.
“It would be nice to have some peace in the family again.” Dad shrugged. “If we can find a way to do that, then great.”
“I don’t want to have to compromise my relationship with Cole in order to maintain one with you. It’s not fair.”
He threw me a disapproving look. Frankly I was weary of seeing that look on the faces of the people I knew. “Amanda told us about him.”
I bit back my frustration. “She barely let him say two words. She walked into the studio and just started insulting him. She had no intention of giving him a chance.”
“She says he looks and acts exactly like all your ex-boyfriends.”
“He’s nothing like them.” I leaned forward, infusing every word with my conviction. “He’s the best person I know.”
“Why can’t you just be single for a while, Shannon? Take time to figure things out. Our family needs a break from the drama.”
“There was no drama between me and Cole.” I could taste bitterness on my tongue. “Until my family came back into the equation.”
Dad frowned.
“That’s not what I meant.” I waved off my last comment, but I wasn’t sure I hadn’t meant it. “I’m just trying to do the right thing by everyone. Logan wants us to be a family again, but to do that you want me to break up with a guy you know nothing about.”
“Look at it from our point of view. The last time you were in a relationship with some tattooed . . . anyway, you let it get so bad your brother got put away for protecting you. That’s beyond normal.” He clasped my hand. “Kid, you need time to sort out your head. There’s no way you could have had time to do that since you left Glasgow, not after jumping into another relationship with another idiot.”
I wrenched my hand out from under his. “Cole’s not an idiot. And I keep trying to tell you he’s the reason my head is sorted out. He’s helped me. He’s done so much to make me feel valued again, and more than that he got me back to Logan. You know, I kept having these nightmares. I’d think they were gone and then they’d come back. I’ve not had a single one since I visited Logan. Not a single one. And Cole did that.”
To my growing annoyance, Dad still looked unconvinced.
“Why did you come here if you weren’t going to hear me out?”
“I came here in the hopes that you’d hear me out.” He stood up and threw money on the table to cover his coffee. “We’ll be there for you, sweetheart, as long as you leave the baggage behind. Come home and start over again. Not just for us, but for yourself.”
* * *
“I’m guessing from that look on your face the meeting with dear old Dad didn’t go well.” Rae kicked off her shoes, only to pull on her boots. “So much for the packed bags, huh?”
I glowered at her, confused by her comment, but too focused on one thing to question it. “I just tried calling Cole again. Did you tell him I’ve been trying to contact him?”
“We were kind of busy at work today. He was getting back into the swing of things after his week off.”
Chest aching, I couldn’t hold back my tears. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. Why won’t he let me explain?”
Her eyes flared with anger. “Because after everything, you chose your family over him. You chose people who turned their backs on a daughter who’d just been sexually assaulted and hospitalized. What the fuck does it say about how you feel about Cole that you’d choose them?”
Horror shot through me. “Is that what he thinks? That I chose them? I didn’t choose them. I was trying to come up with a way to appease them. I never had any intention of giving Cole up. I just thought we could take some time—”
“A break,” she interrupte
d. “A break from him. The guy can barely to stand to be away from you for a few days and you were willing to go home to Glasgow for God knows how long. And he was what . . . just supposed to sit around and wait for your call for however long it would take for your parents to approve of him? And again, parents who gave a crap about you when Cole would move the heavens to protect you.” She stood up and grabbed her purse. “What was a silly argument to you was a huge deal for him. For reasons I get and reasons I don’t. But I’m guessing you do. I’m guessing he’s told you everything about himself. And I’m guessing you know that even suggesting taking a break from him cut him deeply for a reason, and you know exactly what that reason is.”
She turned to leave.
“Wait.” I shot up from my chair. “I need to see him, Rae. Are you going to meet him?”
“No. I don’t know where he is tonight.”
I narrowed my eyes on her back as she walked out. Rae was lying. She never lied.
Grabbing my own purse and keys, I hurried after her at a discreet distance. I followed her and felt nervous anticipation when I saw her head inside the Walk. Cole was there. I’d bet everything I had on it.
The pub was pretty crowded. It always was on a Saturday evening. I pushed past people standing around the bar near the door and craned my neck as I struggled out of the small crowd to the main floor. Every table was filled.
I caught sight of Rae winding her way through the tables, and my gaze zeroed past her.
That sick feeling in my stomach intensified.
Cole was sitting with the twins and Karen, a pint of lager in hand. He had other company too. A pretty blond woman was sitting with her thigh pressed against his, and Cole had his head bent so she could whisper in his ear.
My cheeks grew hot, my skin prickling.
Letting the burn of jealousy rush through me and flare out, I took a deep breath. Cole would never cheat. I knew that. I knew that the picture in front of me was innocent.
But I’d spent the whole week agonizing over our relationship and feeling guilty, and he’d spent the whole week avoiding me. Now he was allowing some woman to chat him up.