Lethal in a Kilt (Hot Scots Book 7)

by Anna Durand

  He disappeared into his office, shutting the door.

  For ten minutes, I scrutinized my desk calendar without comprehending anything that was written on it and chewed on the end of my pen. Finally, I picked up the phone and called Keely. We agreed to meet for lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

  I arrived as Keely was clambering out of her car. Though I offered to help her, she waved me away. "I'm pregnant, not incompetent."

  "There's nothing wrong with accepting a hand."

  Keely shut the car door. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm getting plenty of help from Evan, whether I want it or not."

  "I'm surprised he didn't drive you here."

  "He tried to, but I scowled at him until he gave up on the idea."

  The affection in her voice was unmistakable. Her husband might've been driving her nuts, but she loved him for it.

  Rob hadn't been half as anxious about my pregnancy as Evan was about Keely's, but then, Keely was over forty. I'd been twenty-seven when Chase was born. Pregnancy over forty brought a host of potential complications, and though Keely had evidenced none of those, Evan had reason to be concerned for the health of his wife and child. He did go a touch overboard with it, but only because he loved his wife so deeply.

  "Serena," Keely said, her tone sharp.

  I blinked rapidly. "What?"

  "You were daydreaming, weren't you? About Logan, I hope." Her lips curved into a sly smile. "He's jalapeño hot, isn't he?"

  "Hm, I don't think a married woman should be salivating over another man."

  "Admiring a sexy man is acceptable, and Evan knows I don't want anyone else." She bumped her shoulder into mine. "But I think you're doing more than admiring Logan's hot body. Am I right?"

  I took hold of her elbow and urged her toward the restaurant's doors, pretending I hadn't heard her question. "Let's go inside and get a table before the lunch crowd descends. I'm famished."

  "Sure you are." She waggled her eyebrows. "For something Scottish, I bet."

  "Honestly, woman, you are too old to be talking like a teenage nymphomaniac."

  Keely let me shepherd her into the restaurant, and a waitress took us to a booth, handing us menus before she left. We sat on opposite sides of the table, which I decided had been a mistake. Every time I glanced up, Keely was smiling at me in that annoyingly knowing way. If she'd been sitting next to me, I could've avoided looking at her.

  Since I couldn't do that, I held the menu in front of my face to block my view of her.

  The waitress returned to give us glasses of ice water.

  Once the waitress had toddled off again, my best friend cleared her throat deliberately. "For the record, no woman is too old to salivate over a MacTaggart man. They're the brawniest, sexiest men you'll ever meet. And those accents? No heterosexual woman on the planet can resist a sultry Scottish brogue."

  I set down my menu, remembering the way Logan spoke my name. Sultry. Yes, that described it perfectly. Brawny? He was that, for sure. As for the other part, I had done the deed with him twice, so I guessed that answered the sexiness question.

  Feeling suddenly warm, I swigged a mouthful of ice water.

  Keely examined me with her keen gaze, her lips puckering on one side and then the other, back and forth, puckering and unpuckering.

  "What?" I demanded, sounding testier than I'd intended. I took a slow breath to calm myself. "You're staring at me like I've mutated into a hairy, bug-eyed monster from another dimension."

  Keely laughed. "Hairy, bug-eyed monster?"

  "Chase is into cheesy old sci-fi movies at the moment."

  She laid her menu on the table and spread her palms over it. "I think it's time you tell me about you and Logan. Evan thinks you're having panic attacks about it."

  "Panic attacks?" I collapsed back against the booth. "Your husband needs a new hobby, since he sucks at amateur psychoanalysis."

  "I've known you for a long time, sweetie, and I've never seen you act this way before."

  "I've never been this way before." I rubbed my forehead and moaned pitifully. "Logan drives me crazy. I can't figure out what his game is. I mean, he can't be...interested in me."

  "Why not?"

  The waitress came back to take our orders, giving me a few moments of peace before the best friend interrogation started up again. Once the waitress had left, and we were alone in our secluded corner of the restaurant, Keely repeated her question.

  "Why couldn't Logan be interested in you romantically?"

  "Because he's obviously not that kind of man." I gulped down a too-big mouthful of water and spluttered when it went down the wrong way. Once I'd recovered, I said, "But if all he wants is sex, why does he keep hanging around? Making up excuses to see me?"

  Keely screwed up her mouth, considering the question, then that knowing look returned. "You've slept with him, haven't you?"

  I snatched my napkin off the table and pretended to concentrate on placing it on my lap.

  "You did," Keely said, sounding far too pleased with the idea of me having sex with Logan.

  "Maybe," I mumbled. "Twice."

  Keely tipped forward but couldn't lean over the table very far with her big belly. "Maybe twice? If you slept with Logan, there's no need to be shy about it. You're an adult, he's hot, and I'm your nonjudgmental best friend."

  "I have a teenage son who thinks Logan MacTaggart is the coolest guy in the universe, like he's James Bond and Superman put together."

  "What's that got to do with you and Logan tangling in the sheets?"

  "There were no sheets either time." I propped my elbows on the table and bowed my head. "Yes, Logan and I had sex."

  Christ, I swore I could feel her smiling. When I glanced up at her, she was grinning.

  "It's not a good thing," I said. "Well, it was good, but—Ugh. You know what I mean. Logan and I are complete opposites, and I do not want any kind of relationship with him. Most of all, I do not want my son to get attached to Logan and think we might get married or whatever."

  "Would that be so awful? Maybe you and Logan can work as a couple."

  "No." I shook my head, my throat going dry and tight before I even spoke the next words. "It can't happen. I had the love of my life, I lost him, and I will never love anyone else."

  "Did you ever think you might get more than one love of your life? For different times in your life?"

  I gulped more water, chomping on an ice cube. "You don't get it. Even if it were possible, I don't want to do it."

  "Do what?"

  "Fall in love again. I'm done with that shit."

  Keely observed me in silence, her expression no longer shrewdly certain, but instead filled with empathy. "Oh sweetie, don't push Logan away because you're scared. I know how hard it was for you when Rob died, but—"

  "Rob was a wonderful man. Logan is...weird."

  "I know you loved Rob, and he was a good man in general. But come on, I was there. I know how much he hurt you when he—"

  "Stop." I held up a hand to emphasize how much I needed this conversation to end. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

  Keely watched me some more, until the waitress arrived with our food.

  We didn't say much during our meal, but on our way out of the restaurant, Keely stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  "You say you don't want to have feelings for Logan," she said, "but I think it's too late. You wouldn't be this upset if you didn't already feel something for him."

  "I'm not in love with Logan."

  "No, not yet. But you're afraid you might fall for him."

  God, I hated it when she understood me. How could I hide my fears from myself if I couldn't even fool my best friend?

  "Do me a favor," Keely said. "Let yourself consider the possibility you might not actually hate Logan. Maybe you're afraid to like him."

  I shut my eyes for a moment, pulling in slow, deep breaths. "Fine. I'll consider it."
>
  "Good."

  We said goodbye, and I drove back to the office. For the rest of the day, I did not see Logan. And every so often, I took my best friend's advice. I let myself think about Logan MacTaggart, and I considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I didn't despise him. Even considering the idea felt like a betrayal of Rob, of everything we'd had together, but that was the fear talking. I forced myself to entertain the possibility I could develop some sort of feelings for Logan.

  Maybe I liked him. A teeny bit. Somewhere deep down in my psyche.

  Thinking about it scared the hell out of me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Logan

  For two days, I stayed away from Serena. I moved into my new apartment, but unpacking didn't take long since I'd brought only two pieces of luggage. The rest of the time, I slouched behind my desk in my office and stared out the windows in between pretending I knew what the fuck I was doing here. No one at this company needed my advice on security issues. They'd been vetted and signed nondisclosure agreements. Evanescent designed and manufactured security devices, and the specifications for those were proprietary information. After the Ron Tulloch incident last year, when Evan's lead accountant had embezzled from the company and blackmailed Evan himself, the company had instituted new security measures. It all involved technology. I knew next to nothing about that.

  Which begged the question of why I hadn't resigned and gone home.

  Evan had offered to buy me lunch today at his wife's favorite restaurant, which served Mexican food. Keely had stayed home, feeling tired after her outing yesterday with Serena. So I endured the male version of girl talk with my cousin, with no one else there to serve as a buffer. I liked Evan, but his attempt at matchmaking was making me seriously consider assassinating him.

  The small talk ended once our appetizer arrived. The waitress delivered a bowl of queso and a larger bowl overflowing with tortilla chips. Evan consumed three chips dripping with cheese before he laid into me.

  "It's time you asked Serena out on a proper date," he said in a tone that reminded me of my father when he'd found out I'd failed a math test. "I know you had lunch with her on Tuesday, but it's time to step up. Take her to dinner."

  "Why?"

  Evan consumed another cheese-laden chip. "Because you want to woo her."

  "Woo? Does anyone call it that these days?"

  "Nice evasion, Logan, but you're not fooling me. You like Serena."

  "You make it sound like we're children." I snatched up a chip and crumbled it with my fingers. "Maybe I should pull her hair to let her know I like her."

  Evan grinned. "You admitted you like her."

  "I—You tricked me." Grumbling, I dunked a chip into the queso and shoved it into my mouth. Chewing gave me an excuse to not talk for a few seconds. "No more manipulation, Evan. You and your wife can't maneuver me and Serena into a relationship neither of us wants."

  "Keely and I are doing no such thing." Evan leaned back, the fingers of one hand tapping on the tabletop. "I thought you and I were having a conversation, that's all. Why are you so sensitive about the idea of dating Serena?"

  "It's ridiculous. Having sex with her twice doesn't mean we have anything in common." Maybe I'd spent the past two days thinking about her to an almost obsessive degree, but that meant nothing. I liked fucking her, period.

  Evan's face lit up. "You had sex with Serena?"

  Bod an Donais. I hadn't meant to let that slip. Did it matter that Evan knew? Serena might have told Keely about our liaisons, but being a good friend, Keely hadn't told her husband.

  I shoved another loaded chip into my mouth before answering. "Aye, we had a poke or two. I'm sure you'll read deep meaning into those two brief encounters, but it was strictly sex."

  My cousin adopted his analytical expression, the one I'd seen many times before, a sure sign he was trying to dissect me psychologically. "One of those encounters happened at my house, right before your sisters arrived. Correct?"

  Sometimes I wished Evan wasn't quite so clever.

  "That's right," I said. "It happened on the sofa in your living room."

  Evan took his glasses off and examined them, as if he were looking for stains. "You can't keep your hands off Serena, can you? That means you—"

  "I do not like her, not the way you mean. She might not be the bitch I thought she was, but we will never become more than colleagues who occasionally have a poke. End of discussion."

  Evan slipped his glasses on again. "All right, no more talk of Serena."

  The waitress brought our food, granting me a reprieve that lasted about thirty seconds.

  The second our server left, Evan said, "I need you to go to Seattle tomorrow."

  "Why?"

  "To attend a conference. I don't want to leave Keely right now, so I need two of my top people to go instead."

  I stabbed my knife into the burrito I'd ordered, my focus on my plate and the food I no longer felt like eating. "What is this conference about?"

  "Technology, of course. We are that sort of company."

  "Evan, I know nothing about that."

  "You know how to take notes, don't you?"

  I sawed on my burrito with my dull knife. "Send someone who knows what to make a note of."

  "You're going to force me to order you to do it, aren't you? Well, all right." He set his hands on the table, leaned forward, and spoke in his CEO voice. "I command you and Serena to attend this conference."

  The knife tumbled out of my grasp. "Me and Serena? Bloody hell, Evan, this is nothing more than another attempt to push me into dating your executive assistant."

  "No, this is your employer ordering two of his best employees to attend a work-related conference." He affected a nonchalant attitude, like this wasn't an underhanded scheme at all. "If ye cannae keep your hands off each other, that's not my fault."

  "It's bollocks, Evan. You and your wife cooked up this barmy plot to push me and Serena together."

  He took a bite of his food, chewing it slowly. "As a new employee, you need to learn more about the business. A conference is an excellent way to do that."

  I muttered a curse in Gaelic and hacked at my burrito until it resembled a dismembered corpse.

  "You have no choice," Evan said. "Unless you want to resign. Serena thinks you mean to quit, and I gather she's a wee bit upset about that."

  Upset? At the idea of me resigning? Impossible. The woman wanted me gone.

  Of course, she had asked me to be honest with her, to tell her about my past. Maybe she did want me to stay. I'd never given up on a mission before, and I didn't like the idea of giving up now. I would stick with this boring, pointless job for a while longer—only so I could get her naked and satisfy my curiosity.

  "I'm not resigning," I said. "And if you insist on sending me to Seattle, with Serena, I will obey your command. Donnae be surprised if one or both of us doesn't survive the trip."

  "You won't kill each other." Evan picked up a chip, twirling it between his fingers. "You'll have all weekend to get better acquainted."

  "All weekend? I assumed it was a one-day event."

  Evan pulled a brochure out of the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to me. "The conference starts at noon tomorrow and ends Sunday evening. You're not obliged to attend every session. I'll leave it up to you and Serena to decide which ones are important."

  Nearly three entire days with Serena? No meddling friends or relatives. No teenage son. Just the two of us. I'd promised not to pester her for sex, and I meant to keep my word, but I'd be essentially alone with her all weekend. Not long ago, I'd planned on seducing her at the first opportunity. What had changed? Why had I made that promise to her?

  I pictured Serena in her red dress, the one she'd worn on the night when I'd first kissed her. That body. Those lips. Her silken hair brushing my skin. In the copy room, I'd finally taken her, and at the Saturday brunch I'd learned what it felt like to co
me with her body enveloping my cock. The memory of being inside her tormented me, but I still hadn't seen her without clothes. A full weekend alone with her would offer plenty of opportunity to strip her naked and explore every inch of that sumptuous body.

  But I had promised. Though I might've been a bastard, I had enough honor to keep to my word.

  Her soft lips. Her slick flesh. Those gasping moans.

  Mhac na galla. One whole weekend of pure temptation. My bagais already ached at the thought of her. By Monday, my balls would have turned to stone.

  If I accepted the job Alex Thorne had offered, I could get out of this mess I'd gotten myself into with Serena. I wouldn't need to see her again, ever.

  Since when did I run away from a complicated situation?

  One weekend. I could handle that. If we accidentally had sex, so be it.

  I snorted at my own thoughts. Accidentally had sex? I'd become as witless as my cousins, and over a woman, no less.

  "You leave at six a.m. on the company jet," Evan said. "Feel free to join the mile-high club."

  "Stop it, Evan. I'm not touching Serena again."

  "We'll see."

  Somehow, I survived the rest of lunch without assassinating Evan. I returned to my office, but immediately got called to the third floor for a pointless meeting with the head of R&D, a man called Marvin Wilson. He claimed to want my input on how to keep their already secure rooms more secure. The R&D teams worked in areas protected by doors that required a code to unlock them. What could I contribute to their security? Nothing. I was an expert on keeping secrets and wheedling them out of other people. I knew nothing about keypads and electronic locks.

  Wilson was professional and friendly, but I was certain Evan had arranged this meeting. He wanted to convince me I performed a valuable service here. His effort had failed. My meeting with Wilson only reinforced the fact I did not belong at this company.

  Yet I was traveling to Seattle for a tech conference.

  After my pointless meeting, I headed for the elevator. While I waited for it to arrive, I skimmed through the information Alex Thorne had texted me—for the tenth time since I'd received it. Alex had a unique definition of "details," which meant he provided very little in the way of actual specifics about the job. Still, his offer was intriguing. Excellent pay, an enticing mystery, the chance to travel. I had no real ties here in Utah. I could accept Alex's offer.