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“It’s time to go,” he says gruffly.
Something happened for him to become a Duke. Something he doesn’t want to talk about. Something I want to find out.
CHAPTER37
CALLEN
Idon’t plan on speaking to her when we return to the cottage, but she grabs my shoulder as I try to turn away to go inside. I shouldn’t have stopped to help the deer. She saw too much.
“Callen—”
“What?” I snarl.
“What happened to you?”
“None of your fucking business,” I say, pushing past her and storming into the kitchen.
She follows me, slamming the door closed behind her, not caring that her muddy boots are leaving footprints over the wooden floors. “How did you go from being a surgeon to a killer?”
“We’re protectors, remember?”
She snorts. “I know what you really are.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why don’t you save your questions for when you’re pretending to be a journalist?”
“You saved that deer’s life,” she says. Yep, I should have left the deer to die. It’d be better than answering her questions and seeing her looking at me like that. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I don’t need her pity. “You pretend you’re tough and that you don’t care, but you do. I can see it.”
“You don’t know anything.” I draw myself up to full height, towering over her. “All you need to know is that I could lobotomise you on the kitchen table. That should scare you. I should scare you.”
“What happened to you?” she asks again.
I turn my back on her, unwilling to let her see my face fall, as I head to the sink to wash my hands. I take my time, lathering the soap the way I was trained to do at medical school. When I’m done, she’s standing opposite me with crossed arms. I dry my hands carefully. No one but Freddie knows about my past. A past that haunts me so much I’ll never get over it.
“I’m not going to stop asking until you tell me.”
“Why?” I sneer. “More ammunition to give to your club friends?”
“I—”
“We’re the same, Rose,” I say. “Your sister died, and you wanted revenge. That’s why you kill people, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t reply, but her face says it all.
“You lost someone too,” she says, understanding now.
“I had a daughter.”
I don’t know why I told her, but I couldn’t stop the words from coming. Rose’s face falls.
I picture Tilly now, forever three years old. Her beautiful chubby face, her big trusting eyes, her contagious giggle. I should have saved her. Everyone said it was a mistake for me to operate on her, but I didn’t trust anyone else to do the job properly. My ex-wife, Margot, didn’t want me to do it either. But I was the best. If anyone was going to save her life, it was me. I spent hours on the operating table, using every technique I had, but my little girl couldn’t fight anymore…
Rose steps forward. The fiery look in her eyes fades as she puts her hand on my arm. I don’t shrug her off, not yet.
“I killed her,” I say, making Rose recoil away. She has to know what kind of monster I am. “She died on the operating table because of me.”
After that, my career collapsed. I couldn’t face it. My marriage fell apart, and Margot left. We never loved each other. We were a marriage of convenience. She wanted a husband to provide for her and my being a surgeon gave her status. She happily overlooked my lack of faithfulness. Tilly was the only person who tethered me to reality and who made me believe life could get better. The only person I ever loved… and my love is a fucking curse.
I pull my wallet out of my pocket and thrust a tattered photograph of Tilly under Rose’s nose. Nothing compares to the pain of losing a child. Someone who is so intrinsically part of you. Tilly smiles up at Rose. Her ginger curls and dimpled face. So innocent. My baby. I’d have given my life for hers in an instant.
