Chapter 1

They couldn’t be allowed to fight. He had to think of a way to stop it—there was no other option. If Rhys fought with her and lost on this, it wouldn’t only be the argument he lost: it would also be his entire relationship with his sister.

Stepping out the front door into the heavy morning fog (a mist that usually clung to the mountainside to some degree at all times at this high an altitude) he followed Maggie’s retreating back to the cliff face, where she stood looking impassively down over the valley far below.

Misty gray heather surrounded her feet, growing stubbornly in the craggy rocks with the other vegetation brave enough to live on the mountainside. When Maggie heard the crunch of Rhys’ approaching feet over the crudely gravelled path, all his sister could manage was a cold tone.

‘I didn’t ask for company.’

Under her knitted cap, that soft, dark brown hair was braided past her shoulder blades in two long plaits. Silken, smooth hair he had once run his fingers through...

Although it pained him she wouldn’t even look at him, Rhys kept his tone light when he replied. ‘I know you didn’t ask for company.’

Even when he stopped directly beside her, to gaze down at the valley plunging deep below, Maggie showed no sign of even glancing in her older brother’s direction. You could have cut the silence with a knife it was so thick, and Rhys tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, his heart hammering away.

When Maggie finally spoke again, her words dripped with acid. ‘So. Did you enjoy yourself last night?’

Rhys swallowed again, hard, bile rising in his throat. ‘No ... you know I didn’t. I couldn’t stand it, Maggie. He was such an asshole!. The way he was treating you ... and I’d had one too many, and—’

‘That’s no excuse.’ Her words were flat, her stare unwaveringly ahead.

What could he say to that, when he knew just how guilty he was?

Did it matter that the previous night had been absolute torture? Maybe it was no excuse. Maybe she was right to be angry with him. But watching his sister smile, and drape herself over that sleazeball at his table had just been more than he could the stomach, and even worse, it was the very same table Maggie had once shared with him...

Unbidden, seeing her kiss that dinkwad like that– so painfully softly–a memory had clawed its way to the surface of Rhys’ consciousness: a late night, coming home at eleven after driving up the mountain in the pouring rain. Maggie’s tinkling laughter, her hair darkened and drenched as he leant in to taste the rainwater from her lips. He remembered fumbling with the key in the dark, their bodies pressed together, and the frantic way she’d responded to his touch as he’d carried his sister to the table. Her guttural moan made his cock even stiffer as Maggie encouraged him to push blissfully inside...

Rhys never remembered feeling quite as good as in the moment when he pressed his naked body against hers.

The memories had already been assaulting him since she’d come to visit, arriving just the day before—had it really only been yesterday?--and with an unexpected, entirely unwelcome guest.

Jared, his sister had proclaimed, adding, ‘My boyfriend,’ without meeting Rhys’ eyes, instead turning to smile at the blithering idiot standing at her shoulder.

So she’d meant every word, six months ago. When she’d ripped her way out of his life.

‘I fucked up, okay?’ Rhys said now, shoving his anger, his hurt, his misery down.He was only able to be at all apologetic because he’d hurt her.

The bitterness of her laughter surprised him.

‘Yeah, well, you could say that,’ Maggie said dryly, seating herself on a large rock. She pulled her knees up to her chest, rummaging in the breast pocket of her coat before she produced a lighter and joint, flicking it into flame, lighting, and inhaling deeply before finishing. ‘You know, I thought my first visit back here would be very different.’

Rhys had been settling himself on the ground a few feet away, but now his anger sparked up at her continued animosity. ‘So did I,’ he shot back, before he could help it, the words coming out sharper than he’d intended.

A moment before, he’d wanted nothing more than her to look at him, but now when his sister glared at him, but all he saw was the anger in her glaring brown gaze. There was nothing of the sweet, shy love and tenderness that had once lived there; none of that soft, open way she’d once looked back at him with.

And certainly not the flushed, rosy look she got when he was on top of her, eyes languid and half-closed, heavy-lidded. He’d been in love with that expression on her face–had never expected it would one day be gone.

Sometimes her eyebrows would be drawn together, or not, but Maggie’s lips were always red and parted, swollen from his kisses, opened to let out those gentle moans. Her moaning was almost always his undoing, the way she would rise her hips up to meet his thrusts eagerly; something still so sweet and innocent about her demeanor that he almost felt he took her virginity again and again every time he was inside her...

Those memories had haunted his dreams regularly since she’d left the mountain.

Six months is not so long as to forget. Not for Rhys, at least. The pain still felt fresh inside him. It seemed Maggie, on the other hand, had successfully done what she’d set out to do. Left him behind, in the dust. Moved on with her life. Carved out something entirely new and different.