"Wanted you?! Do you think I fucking planned this?!" She shouted, tossing the first of the five coins at him with as much force as she could muster. There was no chance of Lachlan denying he had taken her virginity, not with the trace of sticky blood she left afterwards. He could hate her, could resent her for the last of his days, but she would not allow him to make her out to be some kind of hussy.

"I had the choice and I chose the man who would still love me in a year." She spat back almost as viciously as his I read the letter. Lachlan and she were bound by trauma and grief, love was just an inevitable force of nature.