by Anna Durand
Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Connect with Anna Durand
Copyright Page
Prologue
Every love story has a beginning, a middle, and an end—but sometimes the cycle repeats, over and over, until the two idiots finally come to their senses. For Alex Thorne and Catriona MacTaggart, the cycle has a little bit of help with those repeats. That help comes from Cat's three brothers, their American wives, her two sisters, and a large cast of meddling cousins. The entire MacTaggart clan wants to see Cat and Alex's love story unfold to a final conclusion, but what will that conclusion be?
Maybe they'll realize they belong together.
Or maybe they'll kill each other.
Either way, the epic tale of their road to that end starts at their second beginning—the day they saw each other again for the first time in more than eleven years. It happened at the castle owned by Rory MacTaggart, Catriona's brother, on a green lawn with the sun shining and every MacTaggart in attendance for the Highland games. Cat's cousin Logan brought Alex here, knowing full well she would blow her top when she saw the man who broke her heart.
After she punched him in the gut, things should have settled down. But Cat is a MacTaggart, and their clan is the most stubborn bunch of Scots in the world. Logan and his wife, Serena, witnessed the argument between Cat and Alex right after their reunion, but only the two idiots themselves know exactly what was said.
Them and you. As you're about to discover.
Dùndubhan Castle
Scotland
Catriona dragged Alex off the green, through the door in the castle wall—slamming it shut, for dramatic effect and to keep her meddling relatives away—and towed him into the center of the garden. A beautiful arbor stood nearby, overflowing with rose vines. The scent of the flowers made no impression on either of them. Neither did the flowering bushes or the stunning blue sky above their heads. No, they were too busy glaring at each other.
Well, she was glaring. Alex was affecting an air of amused disinterest, his favorite expression.
"How dare you be here," she said. "In my country. I should call the Home Office and report an ersehole is in the country illegally."
"I'm not here illegally. If you'll calm down and try to behave like a rational adult, I'll explain."
"Rational? How was it rational for you to invade my world again?"
"Yes, of course," he said with immense sarcasm, "it's your world. The entirety of Scotland belongs to Catriona MacTaggart. I suppose you've made sure every citizen knows about the dangerous British Bastard. Better lock up all the Scots lasses before I defile and devour them."
He opened his mouth like a ravening beast.
She scowled at him. "I was arrested because of you, Alex. You cannae stop yourself, can ye? Being a lying scunner is your true nature, and I wish I'd realized that before we ever had a poke, much less moved in together." She jabbed a finger into his chest repeatedly, once for every syllable when she said, "You are the worst human being on earth."
"Worse than Hitler? How about Jack the Ripper? Or Charles Manson? Does the Limey Louse outdo all of them?"
Repeating all the nasty names Cat had invented for him over the years, without his knowledge until a few days ago, seemed like the best way to knock sense into her thick Scottish skull. Not that it worked. She was much too stubborn to give in so easily.
Cat bowed her head, pulling in a ragged breath, and looked up at him with tears shimmering in her eyes. "I loved you, Alex. Didn't that matter to you at all? Using me in one of your bloody schemes to— What were you doing, anyway? Why was I arrested for smuggling antiquities?"
"It was a misunderstanding."
"Bollocks. You always know exactly what you're doing."
"The police had the wrong information, that's all. I got you out of jail later that day. The charges were dropped."
"You think that makes everything all right?" She jabbed her finger into his chest again, harder than before. "Stop lying. For once in your life, tell the truth."
"I have told you the truth." He fisted his hands at his sides, fisted them so hard his shoulders bunched. "Why don't you try believing me?"
She threw her head back and growled. "Why in the world should I?"
Deep down, in a part of himself he'd tried very hard to suppress, he wanted to tell her believe me because you love me. But he didn't say that. He couldn't. She had no reason to love him anymore, not after all the years they'd been apart and the things that happened to split them in two.
Cat did not love him. He didn't love her anymore either. Absolutely not.
"Not going to answer?" she demanded, sounding wildly sarcastic even while tears rolled down her cheeks. "You are a bastard, Alex Thorne. You might as well be dead because I will never forgive you."
He flung his arms up, then spread them wide as he bent to level their gazes. "Go on and kill me, then. Grab a rock and beat me to death. But you haven't got the nerve for that, have you? Acting like a spoiled child is the best you can manage. Grow up, Catriona. But no, you won't do that because you've got your sainted brothers to do your dirty work for you."
She squeezed her eyes shut but couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her face faster and hotter, their saltiness seeping between her lips to poison her tongue.
"What the fuck do you want from me?" he shouted loud enough that his voice echoed off the walls of the castle compound.
She raised her head and shouted, "Nothing!"
He shoved both hands into his hair, head bowed, shoulders caving in.
Catriona stared at him, but she couldn't see his face, his expression, to know if their argument had affected him in any way other than anger. Had he ever cared about her at all? Or had it been an act, some sort of horrible con? To what end? She didn't know, and Alex would never tell her.
She swiped at her eyes with the hem of her shirt. "I can't ever have anything to do with you again."
He grunted, like he didn't care a whit about what she'd said, but he couldn't quite reassert his disinterested expression.
"Maybe one day," she said, "you'll sort yourself and stop seeing everyone as a pawn in your never-ending games. But you won't, will yo
u? I feel sorry for you, Alex, because you've cursed yourself to be miserable for the rest of your life."
He lifted his head to scowl at her but said nothing.
Tears burned in her eyes anew, and she hurried out of the garden so he wouldn't see her crying anymore. She had to escape him. But could she ever really do that? He'd stayed buried in her heart, deep in a hidden place, for more than eleven years.
Alex stayed in the garden and endured the well-meaning but bloody annoying attempt by Logan and Serena to make him feel better. They'd sneaked in through the garden without Alex or Cat noticing, but then, they'd been rather absorbed in their shouting match. Logan and Serena were terrible at consoling him, but he appreciated their effort. Cat was right about one thing. He was cursed. Damned, actually. Salvation had been too much to hope for, of course. Not that he wanted or needed Cat to forgive him. Not that he still loved her.
No, not that.
On that fateful day at Dùndubhan, Cat and Alex both resolved to forget each other, but of course they can't. They've burrowed too deep under each other's skin. Nine months later, they still can't stop thinking about each other. How will it all end? Maybe they'll never forgive each other. Maybe they're both doomed. Or maybe, just maybe, you'll have to wait a bit longer to find out.
Their journey begins now.
Chapter One
Alex
The truth and I have a different sort of relationship, not best mates, but more like third cousins once removed. Maybe that explains why Catriona MacTaggart storms into my office and whacks me with a book she grabbed off my desk. I've expected to be murdered at any moment, but not by her hand. And not with my own book.
Well, at least it's a paperback.
It's possible I've given her reason to despise me, and despise me she does. Once, long ago, she loved me and wanted to make a future for us together. Whether I'd wanted that or not is irrelevant. Someone like me doesn't get a fairy-tale ending, not that I believe in true love or any of that bollocks. Fate, on the other hand… Let's just say I don't believe it's on my side.
But I should start at the beginning, right before Cat found me in my office.
For me, Monday mornings mean grading papers. Bloody awful ones. How did these children get into college when they can't write coherent sentences? One student composes his essays entirely in capital letters. Another—a girl, naturally—inserts emojis into her opuses. Staring at another depressingly awful essay, I let my mind travel back in time more than a decade, to the one student who had never disappointed me. She hadn't been my student. I'd first met her on a bench on the grassy lawn of the campus where I'd been teaching, though we spoke for only a few minutes. But I really met her when I gave a guest lecture in a colleague's classroom later that day.
The lecture hall was cavernous and filled to capacity, though I couldn't see the students in the back as more than blurry shapes. Not that I had vision problems. They were simply too far away.
I remember scanning the crowd, not paying attention to the faces, not really, just taking in the sight of so many people gathered to hear me speak. Archaeology isn't the most popular discipline, after all. But on that day, it seemed like half the campus had turned up. Only one face stood out from the crowd.
The most beautiful face I'd ever seen. The face of the Scots lass who'd told me she loved my accent.
She had creamy skin, with a faint natural blush on her cheeks, and the most captivating blue eyes, as pale as glacial ice but with a warmth behind the cool color. Her sensuous lips seemed ripe for a good, hard kiss. Her cinnamon-brown hair tumbled over her shoulders in loose waves, kissing her cheeks and leading my gaze down to her full breasts, concealed beneath her blouse. She watched me while I watched her, our gazes connected by something I couldn't define or explain. My pulse accelerated, and I licked my lips as I imagined what it might feel like to kiss her beautiful mouth.
Her name was Catriona MacTaggart.
If I'd known then that our affaire de coeur would end in disaster, and that she would curse my name for more than a decade, maybe I wouldn't have spoken to her on that bench or after my lecture. Maybe I would've stayed away from the Scots lass with the fire in her eyes and in her soul.
No, I would've seduced her anyway. The fates be damned.
That's what I'm ruminating on when Cat barges through the door, thrusting it open with such force it slams into the wall and bounces off it.
She stops on the other side of my desk, her eyes wild, breathing hard, and stabs a finger in the air at me. "Alex Thorne, you slimy, conniving bastard. What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"
I gesture at the essays on my desk. "Grading papers."
"Donnae be cute with me." She peels her lips back, almost hissing at me when she says, "How dare you interfere in my life. I should've known it was one of your games when I was offered a tenure-track position at a university in America. What are you hoping to gain from this?"
Her naked, in my bed, that's what I hope to gain.
But I tell her something a little further from the truth, something more truth adjacent. "You are the cleverest woman I've ever met, and I knew you'd do smashingly here."
Her eyes narrow. She bends over my desk to plant both hands on its surface directly above the papers I'd been grading. "Stop your scheming. I have half a mind to quit right now and go home to Scotland. But I deserve this job, even if I didn't get it on merit, and I will prove I can do it."
The way she's bent over my desk makes her blouse pull away from her skin, revealing her skimpy bra. The breasts I'd dreamed about obsessively for so long nearly spill out of those cups.
"I know you can do the job," I say. "That's why I recommended you."
Yes, I'm sliding a bit further away from the truth, not as adjacent to it as a moment ago.
"No, it's not," she hisses, then slaps both hands on the desk. "Get this through your head, Alex. I will never have sex with you again. Never. If an asteroid were heading straight for Earth, about to annihilate every living thing on the planet, I still wouldn't have sex with you. I will never crawl into whatever dank hole you live in, you…soulless Sassenach."
"I may be British, but I do have a soul." Do I? No idea. That isn't a topic I spend much time examining. Hearing her call me a Sassenach, the Scottish word for an Englishman, I experience a strange sensation of unease. I've been called plenty of insulting names, but Cat's insult… What? Bothers me? No, it must be heartburn.
"Maybe I should have you deported," she announces, lifting her perky little nose.
"You can't. I'm an American citizen."
Cat squints at me, her lips tight. "You gave up being British?"
"No, I'm both British and American. It's called dual citizenship, love. Everyone's doing it these days."
"Cannae see what game you're playing by becoming a citizen, but I'm sure it's something dead rotten." She straightens, lifting her chin this time. "Stay away from me."
"We'll be working in the same department, so that might be rather difficult."
"I don't want to see or speak to you unless it's work related." She leans in again, and her blouse falls away from her breasts again. "No tricks, no schemes, no cons. The only conversations we will ever have will be about work. Nothing else. Understand?"
"Yes, I grasp your subtle meaning."
Her lips pucker. "Donnae be staring at my breasts. You will never see them again."
All right, I am staring at her breasts. I remember how beautiful they look bouncing above my face when she straddles me and—
"Stop that," she says, slapping her hand on my desk. "I know you're thinking about sex. You clearly weren't listening the first time, so I'll say it again." She points that finger at me one more time, the tip of it grazing my nose. "I will never sleep with you. Never. I despise you, Alex Thorne."
"Isn't that what Serena told Logan a few months ago? Now they're married."
"That was different. My cousin is a good man, but y
ou… You're a limey louse."
I chuckle. "Yes, Logan already told me about all the charming little nicknames you've made up for me. It's nice to know you still care enough to despise me. If I were out of your system, you wouldn't bother confronting me this way."
Never mind that every time she calls me one of those names—the British Bastard, the Limey Louse, the Soulless Sassenach—my throat goes thick and acid burns in my gut. It's probably the apple fritter I ate for breakfast. Normally, I eat a decent meal at home, but today I rushed to campus and grabbed a fried breakfast in the cafeteria. Had I been in a hurry because I knew Cat would be on campus today?
Of course not. I have no soul. How can I feel anything?
I sit back in my chair, folding my hands on my lap. "Would you like to punch me again?"
She grabs a paperback book off my desk and smacks me on top of the head with it. Three times. Whack, whack, whack.
"For real impact," I say, "try a hardcover."
The lovely lass bares her teeth at me and growls.
"My, but you are beautiful when you're incensed."
She spins around and stomps out of my office.
Well, at least she hit me with my own book, the one I'd written five years ago. I'm awfully proud of that book.
A few months ago, when Logan invited me to a family gathering, I said yes. Why? The entire MacTaggart clan hates me, or so I thought. Now, most of them tolerate me, though Catriona's brothers still glare at me every time I see them. Not as much as her sister Jamie, though. That woman has the most searing glare I've ever seen, not including Logan's. The former spy has intimidation down to an art.
When I'd turned up in Scotland, at the MacTaggart Highland games, Cat's first reaction was to punch me in the gut. That sort of passion doesn't arise without a reason. She must still want me. Maybe she even loves me. Seducing her has become my obsession.
Do I love her? Heaven only knows.
Not that it matters. I'm toxic.
Chapter Two
Catriona
I slam the door to Alex's office and stop. I can't show up at the dean's office for my first day of work like this. My heart pounds, my breathing is unsteady, and I feel like I might vomit any second. Why do I let Alex get to me? I've seen him at several family events since the day Logan brought Alex to the Highland games nine months ago. I'd been furious with Logan for that, but later, I realized he had done it because he cared about me. Maybe I had needed to confront Alex one more time, to get this anger out of my system. If that was the goal, I failed to accomplish it. Just looking at Alex still makes my blood boil.