Page 18 of Shy Innocent In The Spotlight

How could she tell him it would be her first time without revealing her deception? If she confessed, he might pull the plug on their sensual encounter. How could she sabotage something she wanted so much? She was aching for him from head to foot, need pulsing inside every cell of her body. The need for him. Only him. He had awakened something in her and she couldn’t bear to deny her body the satisfaction it craved. She schooled her features into a mask of confidence while inside her nerves were fluttering like frenzied moths. ‘Nothing. It’s just been a while since I... I got with a guy...’ Her burning cheeks could have started a grass fire.

‘You mean not since my brother?’

‘Erm...can we not talk about that?’

‘Sure.’ Mack stroked a finger down the curve of her hot cheek. ‘You don’t need to be nervous. I’m nothing like my brother.’

And I’m nothing like my sister.

‘I—I’m not nervous...’

He brushed her lips with his in a light as air kiss, his taste delighting her all over again. ‘I’m not going to rush you. We’ll get unpacked and have a drink to relax first. It’s been quite a day.’

Elspeth didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She didn’t need a drink—she needed him. Badly. ‘Yes, it has.’

The crofter’s hut was built on one level and made of local stone. While a little larger than some she had seen in books, it still had a quaint and timeless atmosphere. It was tastefully and respectfully renovated inside with a fireplace in the kitchen-cum-living-area as well as in the bedroom. And to her very great relief, there was even a small bathroom off the bedroom.

‘Do you come up here often?’ Elspeth asked, wondering how many women he had brought here for a private tryst.

Mack placed her bag on the floor near the bed. ‘As often as I can when I’m home. It’s my thinking space. I started to come up here after my father died. Like everything else on the estate, it was pretty run-down back then but over time I was able to fix things up.’

She perched on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap—a combination of nerves and an attempt at fighting the temptation to reach for him. ‘You were named after him, weren’t you? Sabine mentioned it when we were getting our hair and make-up done. But you don’t get called Robert.’

‘No.’ He flicked a bit of imaginary dust off a side table. ‘I was Robbie when I was a young child but everyone started calling me Mack during my early teens. It was assumed I’d go back to my father’s name after his death but it never appealed to me. I stuck with Mack.’

‘You wanted to distance yourself from him?’

He gave her a grim look. ‘You don’t get any more distant than death but that was his choice.’

Elspeth chewed her lower lip, wondering if he had ever dealt with the grief of losing his father in such a sudden and tragic way. He had had to step up and deal with the fallout from his father’s death. He wouldn’t have had time to process his own feelings, especially with his younger brother acting out and his mother needing so much emotional support. ‘Maybe he didn’t feel he had a choice at that point in his life. Things can seem so hopeless for a moment in time but even seconds later, things can look completely different. People talk about looking for the light at the end of the tunnel but life is not always a straight tunnel but more like a winding one. You can’t see around the next bend but you have to hope that something good is waiting there for you. And if the good thing isn’t around that bend, then you hope the next or the next will have it.’

Mack blew out a long sigh, his expression darkly shadowed. ‘He lied to my face so many times. Blatant lies that I’ve gone over in my head ever since, wondering why he couldn’t be honest. He ruined so many lives—my mother’s, his lover’s and their child’s. Not to mention Fraser’s. I can’t help wondering if Fraser would have turned to drink and drugs if our father had just ended his marriage instead of his life. It was so unnecessary. We would have got over his affair, even my mother would have handled that, but it was the years and years of lies that hurt the most. And then his death. The finality of it, the fallout from it.’ He shook his head, his eyes scrunched up as if in acute pain. ‘Mum was never the same. I often wonder if my father thought of that when he...’ He swallowed and continued in a ragged tone. ‘I guess I have to be thankful it wasn’t Fraser who found him, or Daisy, his little daughter.’

Elspeth’s conscience was in agony, griping with agonising pain and guilt at all the lies she had told. How could she ever tell Mack who she really was? Lies had ruined his family, torn it apart in the most brutal way. He was still dealing with the fallout of his father’s death by trying to keep his brother on the right path. He had lost both his parents within the space of a few short years and yet he had carried on stoically, doing all he could to save his ancestral home from being sold. But at what price to himself? Was that why he was a love-them-and-leave-them playboy? He didn’t allow anyone under his guard. He didn’t fall in love, in fact, believed himself incapable of it.

‘Oh, Mack...’ Elspeth rose from where she was perched on the end of the bed and went over to him, touching him on the forearm. ‘I’m so sorry you had to deal with such dreadful heartache. But I admire you so much for staying strong for everyone else. For taking control when things were flung so wildly out of control.’

Mack lifted her chin with a gentle finger, his expression rueful. ‘You’re wasting yourself as a lingerie model, you know. You should be a counsellor.’

Elspeth shifted her gaze to study his firm chin where pinpricks of dark stubble were sprouting. ‘Yes, well, it’s amazing what skills you learn on the catwalk.’ She painted a stiff smile on her face. ‘You said something about a drink?’

‘I’ll bring in the supplies from the car. Make yourself comfortable.’

Elspeth let out a long breath once the door shut behind him. How could she ever be comfortable pretending to be someone else? She wanted to be with Mack as herself, not as her twin.

But how could she tell him she had lied to him from the moment she met him?

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