Page 130 of Princess of Pride
He and I are leaving at the end of the month with Wes. I personally don’t want to see her again.
“I don’t, but Wes does.”
“Wes doesn’t want to worry about her. She’s still his little sister.”
“Would it kill you to give her the job here?”
He slides his hands into his pocket and considers my question. “How do you feel about it?”
“It’s not my castle.” I shrug and relax my hands to the bottom of the tub.
“It is. This is as much a part of you as it is of me. We became who we are here. I’ll never forget our time here for as long as I live.”
Aww. I could slip under the water and melt into a pool of mush at the bottom.
He runs the backs of his fingers down my cheek to my chin. “As much as I love when you fuck me with your eyes, I love that look the most.”
“When I look at you like I love you?”
“You do love me.”
“And you love me.” He hasn’t said the three word sentence to me yet.
He bends to my cheek and presses a warm kiss to my skin. In my ear, he whispers, “I would end lives for you. There will never be anyone else.”
Two weeks later
Rory hugs me as we stand in front of the castle near the two waiting SUVs. The sun shines brighter than I’ve seen so far, not a cloud in the sky, and the temperature is supposed to reach 30°C—which I calculated to be 86°F. They say it’s a fluke. Maybe it’s Scotland’s way of giving me a warm goodbye.
“Please bring him back,” Rory whispers in my ear. “He’ll stay away on principle. Don’t let him.”
“I won’t,” I assure him.
As the new leader of the MacReid family, Knox is content enough to declare peace on the highland castle as long as Rory is the owner and Lachlan no longer a resident—like Angus had wanted.
For a brief time, Rory and Lachlan thought things might get worse considering Lachlan killed Knox’s dad. It was self-defense. Angus shot first, but even if he didn’t, he took me and that is unacceptable. Not only to Lachlan but to the rest of the MacReids. If you take one wife, none of them are safe.
They negotiated new terms, agreed to keep the castles and MacReid businesses separate like they’ve been for centuries, and agreed to cease kidnapping family members—not that Lachlan or Rory or their mum had tried to kidnap anyone from that side of the family. Lachlan made this clear to Knox when he came to the castle and met with him and Rory.
I got to meet the son of Angus so he could apologize for his father’s attempt to abduct me twice. The second time was more on me. I chose to run and put myself in danger, but Lachlan says that had nothing to do with Angus’s plan to kidnap me again.
Knox looks like his dad but is leaner, younger, and less menacing.
Rory releases me and moves to his half-brother, giving Lachlan a big hug. “I’m going to miss you.”
This breaks my heart. Lachlan would travel back and forth regularly to the castle, like he always has, if he could. Not as the owner, but just to be with his brother and in the place that his mother wanted her family to remain.
If he’s unwilling to come, afraid he’ll rock the boat, I might have to run away to Scotland so he’ll chase me.
“Take care of him,” Rory says to me.
It means a lot that he trusts I can. But then Rory and I never had problems. Wes, on the other hand…
Speak of the devil. The brooding blond emerges from the castle with his usual sour expression. I no longer assume it’s directed at me.
Tessa stands near the SUV parked behind ours, the one Wes will be in on our way to the airport. I only saw her once before now when Lachlan forced her to apologize to my face.
She brought me a beautiful flower arrangement too. It was weird, but I took it and accepted her apology solely based on the fact that it was sincere. I could see it in her eyes, along with an insecurity that hadn’t been there when we first met.
