On Dublin Street The Bonus Material - Samantha Young Page 0,45

Shannon now was because the studio was like a family and everyone else liked her. Cole needed to make the effort to keep the peace.

She’d been fantastic company at the art gallery and even more so at dinner with Hannah and Marco. When Hannah interrogated him about her in the kitchen Cole had been roiling with frustration because everything within him told him that Shannon Macleod should be his perfect match.

But he could still hear her calling him ‘nothing’ with her beautiful face twisted in distaste.

Last night’s revelations, however, had changed his entire perception of her all over again.

“I need you to know that you’re not nothing and when I said that, that was my issue. Not yours. You shouldn’t have to carry that.”

He felt a pang in his chest, remembering the way she’d looked into his eyes with that sad, luminous violet gaze that could bring a man to his goddamn knees.

“I tried to fight. I tried, but he was so much bigger than me.”

Cole winced, his fists clenching at his sides as he stood in the doorway to his private studio.

“He stopped hitting me. And he started touching me, tearing at my clothes, repeating over and over that I was his. And I—I knew. I knew he was going to rape me.”

“Fuck.” Those words felt like a punch to his gut.

“No… I got away… I should have gone to the police.” He could hear her sobs, felt them still, “I didn’t think. I didn’t mean to be so selfish.”

Now he knew.

Shannon blamed herself for her brother’s imprisonment. She believed she made bad decisions about men. So she tried to protect herself and Cole could understand that. Now he knew all the glimpses of the woman who offered chocolate to clients, soothed those with broken hearts, won over Rae of all people, and worried about a stranger’s dog was the real Shannon. The one that shredded him, pushed him away and was bitter was the one in cold metal armor trying to hold everyone at bay so she didn’t get hurt again. Maybe if her family hadn’t turned their backs on her she would have come out of the bitterness. But she’d been left to deal with it all by herself.

Cole had decided as he laid in bed the night before that the pain in his chest put there when she told him what had happened to her, and stayed there at the thought of her being lonely and feeling unloved, meant he had feelings for her that couldn’t be ignored. So Cole was going to show her there were good guys out there. A guy who would cherish her and protect her. A guy who would stop her from growing bitter and alone. A guy who would make her laugh again.

Him.

The fact that she trusted him enough to tell him her story gave Cole the confidence he needed to start Operation Seduce Shannon. Between that and the off-the-fucking-charts chemistry between them Cole felt it wasn’t a case of ‘if’ but ‘when’. And he didn’t care how long it took as long as the end result was Shannon in his bed.

“Right, enough,” he muttered to himself. Distraction in his line of work could mean bad things so for now it was time to get his head in the game. Still, a little while later as he sat reading over some new legislation documents Stu had left for him to look through, his body tensed with awareness at the sound of the bell tinkling from the front of the studio.

Shannon had arrived at work.

He didn’t have to wait long for her to appear with his morning coffee.

She, thankfully, looked well-rested, her gorgeous hair spilling down her shoulders and back in waves and silky ringlets. Fuck, but she had the kind of hair a man just wanted to run his hands through, or fist as he—

Cole grinned, throwing the wayward thought away as he stood to accept his coffee. Instead of taking it and letting go, he wrapped his hand around hers and asked, “How are you feeling?”

She gave him a reassuring smile. She had the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. He needed to make her smile more. “I’m fine,” she said. “Honest.’

Sensing she wasn’t lying, Cole finally took the coffee but as his big hand slipped away from her small one, he couldn’t help the dark thought intrude that she was so petite her ex, if he was anywhere near Cole’s height and build, could have fucking killed her when