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Maggie was certain her knees would give out at any second now. Her whole body was trembling, and she had to focus to draw breath into her lungs, to keep upright, to hear what Nathan was saying.

𝑁𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛!

Every fibre of her being screamed out at his nearness. It terrified her because she longed for it. She longed for more. After everything that had happened, she still couldn’t hate him. Not the way he deserved. Not the way she ought to.

“My husband?” Maggie mumbled, not certain she’d heard him correctly.

“Yes, your husband,” Nathan snarled as he advanced.
Her breath lodged in her throat as he moved toward her like a hunter on the prowl, and she could not help but shrink back. It had been a long time since Maggie had portrayed such weakness. She barely recognised herself in the woman she saw tonight. Always had she stood tall with her chin raised and her shoulders back.

Only right here and now with Nathan, it seemed all her resolve had disappeared. She knew what she ought to do. What she ought to say. What she ought to make him believe.

Her body, however, would not comply, too caught up was it in the way her heart almost beat out of her chest and the way her soul cried out to the man who regarded her with utter hostility. How on earth dare he be angry with her?

“I dunno what ye mean,” Maggie replied as the marble column in her back stopped her retreat.

A muscle in Nathan’s jaw twitched as her words jarred him to a halt only a few steps from her. “Why would you lie?” he snarled. “I saw you with him, dancing, laughing.” His lips pressed together in disgust. “You looked happy. Was that what you wanted me to see? To see you happy with another? After ten years?” His voice rose, grew angrier and, for a second, Maggie feared he would slap her so much was he shaking with the effort to hold his emotions at bay.

It didn’t make any sense.

Maggie shook her head. “Why would ye speak to me in such a way? I did nothing to hurt ye. I−”

“Nothing!” he boomed, then surged toward her, his hands seizing her by the arms.
Maggie gasped. A part of her was terrified of the way he spoke to her, not recognising the man she’d once known in the one before her; another part, however, quivered at the feel of his hands on her bare arms. His skin was hot against hers and, for a moment, she feared his heat would burn her.

His blue eyes drilled into hers, and his breath was coming fast. “I never knew you, did I?” he all but whispered, confusion and regret coming to his features. “You were never the woman I thought you to be.” He shook his head. “You couldn’t have been or you would never have…”

“Release me!” Maggie snapped, unable to bear the feel of him any longer. “Ye have no right to speak to me thus, to suggest I did anything to hur−” Her lips clamped shut as Claudia’s voice once more echoed in her head, urging her to hold her head high. “Release me!”

Swallowing, Nathan complied, then took a step back, his arms hanging limply at his sides. “How could you?” Pain echoed in his voice, and Maggie felt it with the same force as she’d felt her own.

“I did nothing,” she stated fiercely, her gaze not veering from his. “I−”
“You came back,” Nathan accused, bitterness clinging to his features.

“You came back with him.”
Maggie frowned.

“Him?”

“Your husband!” Nathan snapped, anger once more lacing his voice. “How dare you pretend that−?”

“My husband is dead!”