Page 11 of Highlander’s Vengeful Seduction

It was good enough of an explanation for Donal. He supposed that it was also true, at least partly. When he had been back home, he felt as though the walls were closing in on him, trapping him inside them, making it difficult to breathe. Every room, every hallway, every single crevice of the house was saturated with memories of Ronald, and it was often too much to bear.

“Aye,” Donal said, just barely audible. “I canna hide anything from ye. I didnae ken where else tae go, I suppose. The past six months have been verra difficult for everyone back home. I couldnae bear to see my mother hurt like so…everywhere I looked, I saw him.”

Vanora stopped walking, and she placed a hand on Donal’s shoulder, warm and reassuring. She didn’t say anything to him, but she didn’t have to. Her touch was more than enough to comfort Donal. He allowed himself to forget that everything pointed to Vanora being his brother’s killer.

Donal looked at her, the warm glow of the torch above her head bathing her in golden light. Her eyes looked impossibly dark, and Donal had trouble deciphering her thoughts once again.

He kissed her.

He didn’t know what drove him to do it, but he leaned close, pressing her against the wall just as his lips pressed against hers. Vanora was soft and pliant against him, a soft gasp escaping her lips as Donal kissed her.

It only lasted for a moment. Vanora shoved Donal away from her, her hand coming up to slap him across the face. The two of them had identical expressions of shock, their mouths hanging open almost comically wide. Donal rubbed his cheek absent-mindedly, trying to soothe the pain.

Vanora sputtered as she tried to speak, astonished and betrayed. “What de ye think yer doing?” she asked. “How could ye think that I would ever want this? I am not the same wee lass ye left behind six years ago, ye ken. I’m no’ a fool anymore, and I willnae fall in yer arms at the slightest hint of affection. Ye ken nothing about me, Donal…did ye really think ye could force yerself on me like so?”

Donal didn’t know what to tell her. He had thought that Vanora would want him to kiss her—not only because of her past confession of love, but also because he had assumed that she liked such things. He had thought of her as promiscuous, certain that the kind of woman who could betray his brother as she had would welcome that kind of attention.

He’d thought that she had had many men before.

“I…I dinnae ken.” Donal couldn’t tell her the truth, after all, not without ensuring that she would never speak to him again. “Forgive me, Vanora, I—”

Vanora stayed silent, shaking her head. That simple gesture told Donal more than words ever could, and her disappointment in him cut through him like a knife.

She pushed herself off the wall where Donal had cornered her, and then she left, hurrying as far away from him as she could.

Donal watched her, and once she disappeared in the darkness, he kept watching until the sound of her shoes against the stone floor faded.

What had come over him? What had possessed him to do such a thing as kiss her? Donal wanted to blame the alcohol for his poor choices, but he knew that there was more than that behind his decision.

He kissed Vanora because he wanted to. Despite everything, his suspicion of her and the hatred that had begun to grow the moment he found out that she was the likely culprit for his brother’s suicide, Donal had still allowed himself to be charmed by her. He had only spent two days in Castle Sween, and yet those two days were enough for him to begin to fall for her, his two conflicting desires—that of avenging his brother’s death and that of being with Vanora—tearing him apart from the inside.

He couldn’t fall in love with her. He’d started a dangerous game when he tried to get close to her, seduce her, even if that would get him the revenge that he wanted, and now he was paying for it.

Then, there was another thought that bothered him; why would Vanora reject him if she was the kind of person that Donal thought she was? Surely, a woman as sensual and provocative as she would accept Donal’s advances, especially since she was once in love with him.

Unless she wasn’t as promiscuous as Donal thought in the first place.

Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps Vanora’s unwillingness to turn any man down or push them away was due to her own kindness, a reluctance to break their hearts. Perhaps she wasn’t the woman that Donal had thought she was. That thought made his heart pound in his chest, threatening to jump out.

What if he was, indeed, wrong? What if he had ruined his relationship with Vanora forever without her even being responsible for Ronald’s death? What if Donal had been too quick to judge her character, even though he knew little about her, and Vanora was, in reality, a kind, gentle woman, just like the girl she used to be six years prior?

The questions swirled around Donal’s mind, forcing his breath to come out in short pants, labored and heavy. There was another question that dominated all of them, though, and it was one that terrified him.

If Vanora was not the woman who had broken Ronald’s heart, then who was it?

Chapter Six

It had been two days since Vanora had seen Donal, though it was no coincidence. She had been actively avoiding him every day, leaving her room only after ensuring that he was not nearby and trying to stay away from common areas and places where he could be.

In the entirety of those two days, she had thought about nothing else but that kiss.

During the past six years, Vanora told herself over and over that her feelings for Donal disappeared the moment he rejected her so cruelly. Hearing him laugh at her confession of love had left a wound so deep that she still thought about it from time to time. That laugh often showed up in her dreams; or, rather, her nightmares. Since that moment, Vanora vowed to never let a man get close to her heart as Donal had, and she had kept that vow. Many men had tried to win her affections, and none had succeeded, though she was always polite and kind to them.

There were times when Vanora hated Donal for what he had done to her. It was not simply a rejection. No, his words had made Vanora unwilling to open up to any other man in her life after him, and now that she was older, she was convinced that she would never find love thanks to Donal. She would never allow herself to be vulnerable in front of another man, and she would never trust another enough to love him.

Most of the time, though, she simply shrugged it off as something unimportant. Donal couldn’t have possibly known how his actions would affect her. Besides, she had been little more than a bairn, while Donal had had the brain of one back then.

So what if she never found love? Many women hadn’t, and they were doing just fine.