Page 95 of Winter’s Fire

A strobe-like montage of memories exploded in his mind, each one as powerful as a physical punch, battering him with proof of his failure as a Master and a man. How could he describe that to Lucy and not lose her, and everything she’d become to him?

“Logan.”

Her fingers stroked his cheek, drawing him out of the quagmire of remorse and self-hate. Certain these were the last moments he’d ever have this, a fragmentation grenade of pain detonated inside him. As soon as he told her the whole sordid truth, the love in her gaze would turn to horror and disgust.

“I’m your safe place, Sir. I’ll always be your safe place. Nothing you tell me can change that. Nothing. Whatever it is that’s hurting you so badly, give it to me. Let me take it away.”

Desolation blasted through him. If only time could freeze and he could spend the rest of his life in this moment—he’d never have to tell her, they could stay like this, and she’d be his forever.

But that was impossible, and now he faced the inevitable. He’d lose her, and that was the best thing for her. That frosty exterior he’d first known had guarded a generous, loving heart—something unique and special that should be protected forever from a monster like him.

“She was only twenty-four. I found her in the bath. An overdose of painkillers before taking a scalpel to her veins. The way she’d done it… There was nothing anyone could have done—except for me. If I’d been home a day earlier, I could have been there, I could have stopped her.”

“You can’t know that, Logan.” Lucy’s voice was a cooling balm, flowing over the acid-like guilt that had eaten away his self-worth from the moment he’d looked into Sophia’s lifeless eyes. “If she was determined, she’d have found a way, whether you were around or not. It’s not your fault—you are not to blame.”

Her lips found his mouth, granting him a blessing he didn’t deserve. Bastard that he was, he kissed her back with a starving man’s hunger, desperate to imprint the taste of her, the scent of her on his memory, a memento for the desolation he faced when reality corroded that belief in him and she walked away.

“The inquest concluded it was suicide—there was no note, but she’d bought the scalpel just a few days before, they found evidence of research into methods of suicide on her computer. Then there was the… the direction of the wounds to her arms indicated intent, they said. Her family was there, they’d been there from the beginning, and not one of them blamed me, even though they were in so much pain—her parents… and her sister… Diana.”

With an effort he relaxed his grasp on Lucy’s hand. Anything to make this as easy on her as possible when she rejected him.

“Even though the verdict was what we expected, the grief was just as bad as the day she died. Afterwards, I headed for the nearest bar. It was in a hotel. By the time Diana showed up, I’d seen off most of a bottle of Scotch. She helped me finish it off, and then…”

Shame robbed him of the power of speech. There was no justification on earth for what happened next. “I got a room and we ended up in bed together.”

“And?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “I used her.”

Lucy seemed genuinely mystified, which her next words confirmed. “I don’t get it.”

“Then I’ll spell it out for you. I used her, started a relationship with her, and then dumped her a few months later because I couldn’t bring myself to give her the collar she wanted. Now do you get it?”

“Oh, I get it, but I don’t think it’s the same thing you get,” she said, her tone far calmer than his had been. “I get two people who turned to each other for comfort at a time when they were grieving for a person they both loved. I get one of them realising down the line that the relationship wasn’t working, so he ended it—which, believe it or not, happens to the best of us, and more often than you’d think. What I don’t get is why you feel guilty about it.”

“Because I am guilty!” He tore himself away from her and stood, anything to put some space between him and Lucy. “Weak and guilty.”

“Of what, precisely?” She stood and approached him, brushing traces of dead vegetation from her jeans. “Hurting? Needing comfort in tragic circumstances? Welcome to being human, Logan. If you want to talk about using her, it seems to me she used you in exactly the same way—for comfort. You were both alone, you’d lost someone precious in your lives—you turned to each other.”

“Then forgive me. Can you do that?” Anger and pain fuelled the lash of the demand.

“That’s not the question you need to ask. I have nothing to forgive. The right question is, can you forgive yourself? Or better yet, can you accept you’ve done nothing that needs forgiveness? And for the record—you’re not weak. You’re one of the strongest people I know. You went through hell to protect me and Diana.”

Something shattered inside him, smashed not by the anger he deserved, but by the power of Lucy’s gentleness and love. The pain was unbearable, but it was a good pain… a cleansing pain.

Could he see himself with the same clarity of vision with which she saw him?

“When I told her it was over, she wasn’t happy.”

“No woman wants to be told that, unless she wants out of the relationship too. Diana didn’t, and when she saw you in that cell, she thought you’d changed your mind, and you’d come riding in on a white charger to save her.”

“Something like that. Diana being Diana… Her ego would never have accepted I was there under orders. Knowing her capacity for jealousy, the way her anger can turn to violence, I couldn’t risk letting her know what you meant to me—what you mean to me.”

“You were protecting me, the only way you could with someone like her. When they took you away and left us alone together…”

“What?” Logan hated the way her voice tapered off. “What happened? Tell me.”

She tensed at the command in his voice. “You know what she was like. It’s water under the bridge now—”