My voice dripped with acid. So did my heart, but I kept my face calm, cold, remote. I wasn’t going to let Donovan Caine know how much he’d hurt me that day—how much he was hurting me now. I’d thought we could have something together, a real relationship. That maybe Donovan was someone I could share my heart and life with, dark though they were. But that hope had burned up and crumbled to ash, like so many other things in my life. Hope. A wasted emotion, more often than not.

“I came here to explain,” Donovan said in a low voice.

“Can you please just let me do that?”

“Fine,” I snarled. “Explain.”

Donovan drew in a deep breath. “I’ve thought about you every day, Gin. Ever since that first night we met at the orchestra house. The night Gordon Giles was murdered. I’ve replayed that scene over and over in my head. And not just that one. That night at Northern Aggression. The time we spent together at the country club. Then, in my car a few weeks ago. That night in the rain. I can’t get you out of my head. Your voice, your smell, your laugh, the way you feel against me.”

“Why is that a bad thing?” I asked. “We’re attracted to each other. That’s what people do when they’re attracted to each other.”

Donovan stared at me. “It’s a bad thing because of who you are and what you used to do.”

I’d expected the words, but they still stung. I sighed.

“If this is still about Cliff Ingles—”

He shook his head. “It’s not about Cliff, not anymore. I know why you killed him. Like I told you before, I might have done it myself, if I’d had the chance. No, this is about me.”

I just looked at him.

Donovan drew in a breath. “Do you know why I didn’t come see about you at the mine?”

“Not really.”

“After that night we were together on my car, I felt like maybe there could be something between us,” he said in a low voice. “But then you said you were going after Tobias Dawson. To kill him. And I let you. I let you. I just stood by in the background while you went after another man—to murder him. I did the very thing I’d always sworn not to do—I looked the other way. Not because Dawson was a bad guy, but because of you. I compromised myself because of you, Gin, and what I feel for you.”