Mac raised an eyebrow. “You even have to ask?”
“Are you … are you saying you did this because of what happened between us? You actually took my advice?”
“Of course I did.” He turned in his seat to face me. “Arro, what I did was wrong. Everything between us. Pulling you in, pushing you away. Over and over. My fault. My mistake. And it’s not an excuse, but I have an explanation for it now.”
Blood whooshed in my ears because my heart raced like mad. “Because you think badly of yourself?”
“I’ve always known I didn’t like myself very much, but the therapy is making me realize my past has clouded my self-perception. Has skewed my version of events in my past. With you, what I did, it happened like some self-fulfilling prophecy, not because I am who I thought I was.”
Stunned, I slumped back in my seat.
Mac studied me thoughtfully and asked, “Can I tell you why I am the way I am, Arro? Will you allow me that?”
Tears threatened, but I forced them down. And because, despite our history, I knew he was a good man. “You can tell me anything, Mackennon.”
He squeezed his eyes closed, a look of such torment, a part of me wanted to forgive him anything and everything. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
However, I could listen.
And as the rain pitter-pattered on the car roof, I did just that. I listened as Mac not only told me about his mum abandoning him as a baby and his father’s heroin addiction, but how those events had made him feel. He told me a story he’d never entrusted me with before, about being in a youth gang and witnessing a boy’s murder. How he’d carried that guilt and sense of failure with him his whole life. How there was no one left but the murdered boy’s two brothers to admit his wrongdoing to. “There’s more to that, and I’ll come back to it,” Mac said.
Then he talked about Stacey and Robyn, and while we’d talked about some of this before, it became apparent that a lot of his feelings he’d kept to himself. And when he told me why, that he was trying to protect this image he thought I had of him, I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration. It was exasperating that he thought I only wanted to see him in a certain light.
Yet somehow, I found the will to stay silent. To listen. To process the progress he’d already made with his therapist. How she’d helped him see the person he really was and provided him with mental techniques to help keep him on the path to be the man he’d always wanted to be.
“And it’s work, Arro. I didn’t realize how many times in a week I have these thoughts about myself. But I’m learning how to turn them on their heads.”
I gaped in amazement at him because no one would believe it if they met Mac. He was this big guy, this masculine bodyguard who oozed charisma and flashed wicked, flirtatious smiles at women just to make them feel good. He came across as this confident, easygoing guy who never let a thing bother him. And it was all a lie. A cover for the mess beneath.
At my silence, Mac looked away, the muscle in his jaw working for a second before he said hoarsely, “I realize that all of this means I’m not the man you fell in love with. But that man wasn’t good enough for you, and not because of who he was, but because of who I thought he was. I am trying to be a better version of him.” He looked at me now, expression filled with so much, too much. “So that whatever happens between us, I will never hurt you like that again.”
I forced myself to ask, despite my fears, “What is it you hope happens between us?”
“I … I love you, Arrochar.”
Words I’d longed to hear for so long. I looked away, biting back tears, not wanting him to see them.
“I love you, and I want to be with you.”
The tears leaked free, and I swiped at them in vexation.
“Look at me.”
I looked back to him, so angry I couldn’t bear it. “Why couldn’t you say that to me months ago? That night … it changed things, Mac. Not this”—I gestured between us—“I’m proud of you for speaking to someone, for recognizing this was impacting your life, but I can’t change this seed you planted that night. It changed …”
“How you feel about me,” he finished, staring sternly out at the sea.
My gaze caressed that aquiline profile I knew as well as I knew my own face. I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to forgive the past and throw myself into his arms and kiss every inch of his mouth and taste him on my tongue and drown in all the love that still existed within me for him. The love that swam through my blood like millions of tiny pieces of metal filled with atoms seeking their northern poles and knowing they could only find them within Mac.
Fingers twitching, ready to reach out and abandon the hurt, I suddenly seized upon the awful memory of that night and the paralyzing mistrust that came with it.
I lied to him to protect myself. Even as I cursed myself as a hypocrite, the words, “I’m sorry,” tumbled out of my mouth.
“Don’t you be sorry.” Mac turned to me. “You have nothing to be sorry for. But do you think … do you think you might ever change how you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I offered honestly.
Determination flashed in his gorgeous hazel eyes. “Then know I’m not going anywhere. I’m not ready to give up on the idea of us. I’ve told Lachlan the same thing.”