She drew a deep breath. This was the hard part. This was the part where her fantasy had been crushed, stomped on, and shattered—she’d thought forever. “We’d gone off a few times together before. Phillip had snuck a few chaste kisses, but never attempted anything more. He had always been so respectful, I never dreamed . . .” Knowing she was beginning to sound defensive, she stopped and tried again. “I wanted to spend time with him. Alone time. Perhaps it was wrong, but when he asked me to meet him for a private meal down by the loch, I agreed.”

As the memories grew sharper, her pulse wanted to race, but she forced it to steady. “He was very sweet at first, and he seemed to have thought of everything. It was a feast—with my favorite sugared buns and tarts, and wernage. Aye, plenty of the sweetened wine. I must have been more nervous than I realized, because I drank more than I should have.”

Alex broke his silence with a curse. “He wanted you to, damn it. That was no doubt part of the plan.”

Joan smiled wryly. “I know that. But I should have—” She stopped. She couldn’t go back and change anything—her actions or his—no matter how much she wanted. She just didn’t want Alex to think badly of her—or think she was a complete fool. She should have pushed Phillip away the instant he started to kiss her. She wished she had. It wouldn’t have changed what had happened, but it wouldn’t have left her feeling so complicit.

“I welcomed his kiss at first. I didn’t realize . . .” She forced herself to look Alex in the eye. “I didn’t realize he wouldn’t stop when I wanted him to. I told him to stop. I told him I didn’t want this. I tried to fight back—I did!—but he was strong, and at the time, I had no idea how to defend myself. He pinned me down and forced himself between my legs.” She took a deep breath to calm down before saying the words. “He raped me.”

It was strange how such ugliness and so much pain could be boiled down into a couple of short sentences.

Alex hadn’t moved, but she sensed the rage boiling inside him just under the surface, ready to explode.

“But you know the worst part?” she said. “When it was over, he acted like he’d done nothing wrong. Like I’d wanted it, and now I was just crying because I realized I’d given up for free what should have been bought with a wedding ring. For a while, he even made me question what had happened. But he raped me, Alex. I swear to you, I didn’t want—”