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I grabbed her arm. “I’m only half drunk. Come home with me. I think we need to fuck this out.”

Hurt flashed across her face, instantly cooling my blood.

“Cam—”

She leaned in, voice brittle. “I will not be your emotional punching bag anymore, Forde. It is not my fault that you can’t and never have been able to reconcile being attracted to me. For years you expected me to just pretend and keep my mouth shut while you literally fucked everything that moved, all the while you’re getting older and those girls stay the same age. But as soon as I started something fun with a younger man, you turned into a giant prick about it. Do you even recognize your own misogyny?” Her gaze flicked over me in disgust. “Because I didn’t know you had that in you … and I have to tell you, I don’t like you very much anymore.”

Watching her march away from me in more ways than one … well, it sobered me up pretty damn quick.

A horn blasting brought me back to the present and I realized the cars ahead of me were moving. Stepping on the accelerator, I rolled forward with the traffic, still feeling that aching panic I’d felt the night Cameron told me she no longer liked who I was.

It had taken me a while after that to get up the courage to face her, to apologize. I didn’t want her thinking I was a misogynistic arsehole, so I’d explained my behavior away as just not liking Greig. The truth was I did get bad energy off the bloke. Everyone else thought he was funny and charming, but I thought there was a severe lack of real emotion behind his eyes, and I couldn’t believe Cameron couldn’t see it.

What I couldn’t tell her was that I resented him for his time with her because even I didn’t quite understand that until I went to therapy. Because if I hadn’t had such low fucking self-esteem, Cameron and I would have been together from the moment we had sex on my twenty-first birthday. Deep down, I knew that’s what she wanted then. But I’d thought I didn’t deserve her. Seeing her with Greig, it had reminded me of everything I’d lost with her. All those years together we should have had if I’d been a better man, a braver man. We would have a family by now instead of this bitter, resentful frenemy bullshit situation we found ourselves in.

Because even though she’d accepted my apology, things had never been quite the same between us after that night outside the Lantern, and it hadn’t taken long for our temporary truce to fall apart again.

The lights turned red just as I approached, and I thought at first all this thinking about Cameron had conjured her.

I was sure that was Cameron’s Defender straight across the intersection.

Then I saw a woman’s face peer out from the windscreen at the traffic lights and my heart jolted. No way. A quick glance down at the license plate confirmed it. It was Cameron!

What the hell was she doing in Aberdeen?

Had she followed me here?

What …

Her indicator ticked to turn left while I was turning the opposite left. I switched my indicator to the right and as the lights changed, I followed her Defender.

9. Cameron

I’d stayed calm for most of the trip to Aberdeen. After I saw Tierney, I decided I wanted to get it over with, so I took a ferry over to the mainland and drove north. Arriving late, I checked into a budget hotel and spent the whole night tossing and turning.

However, it wasn’t until I checked out the next day and got into the Defender to drive to his flat that I started to shake with nerves. I’d parked up in the city center and procrastinated by window shopping for a few hours, followed by lunch alone at a café. Finally, I forced myself to get the damn thing over with. Still, multiple times, I questioned my sanity, and I almost turned the four-by-four south to head home. Because what kind of nutcracker broke into their ex-fuck-buddy’s flat looking for evidence that he was a serial killer? Even saying those words in my head made me feel like I might be losing my mind.

Yet I kept following my sat nav to his place. When it became clear I was only a street away, I parked because I didn’t want him to recognize me or the vehicle. Pulling my hood over my head, I tucked the rest of my hair under my rain jacket to obscure it. Unfortunately, there was not a lot I could do about my recognizable height or build.

With a quick, circumspect glance around, I hurriedly marched down the pavement toward his street. Aberdeen was nicknamed “the Granite City” because of the buildings. I was in the older part, near the shops, where there were terraced flats housed within a mix of architectural-designed buildings all made of the same silver-gray bricks.

Minutes later, I was inside his flat building, having found the key under a plant pot outside. I crouched in front of his flat door, fingers shaking as I tried to pick the lock after last night’s research on how to do it. I was having no such luck when a male voice growled in disbelief at my back, “What the fuck are you doing?”

I practically jumped out of my skin as the tools slipped from my grasp. Swallowing a squeal of terror, my head whipped over my shoulder and my lips parted in shock.

10. Cameron

Other than the owner of the flat I was attempting to break into, Forde Dallas was the last person I wanted to see in that moment and, frankly, the last person I’d thought I’d ever see here.

I gaped up at him as he stood over me, tattooed hands braced on his hips, brow pinched with a confused and concerned glower.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed, keeping my voice low. “Are you following me?”

“It might come as a shock, Cameron, but not everything is about you. I’m in Aberdeen to collect a car and I saw you across the junction.”

“So you followed me here? And keep your voice down.”

“Why? Because you’re in the middle of breaking and entering?” He gestured furiously at the door. “Have you lost your mind?”