Absent in the Spring

by Carrie Elks

  Lachlan gave a wry smile. ‘A bit like buying companies and breaking them up before selling them on, you mean?’

  ‘Exactly like that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my dad was all about building things. Me, not so much.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Alistair asked. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands.

  Lachlan shrugged. ‘I tend to invest in other people’s dreams. It’s my job to make as much profit as I can out of them.’

  ‘And you enjoy your job?’ Alistair asked. It didn’t sound as though there was an agenda to his question – he seemed generally interested.

  ‘Yeah, I love my job.’

  Alistair nodded slowly, pursing his lips together. ‘Well, maybe you’re more like your father than you think.’

  16

  Thou hast her, France; let her be thine

  – King Lear

  It had been more than twenty-four hours since Lucy left Glencarraig Lodge, and yet she still couldn’t think about anything else. Every time she closed her eyes she could see Lachlan, every time she touched her lips she could feel his mouth against hers. They’d crossed the line so far it wasn’t funny. She should forget everything that had happened.

  But some things were easier said than done.

  Lifting her hand up, she ran her fingertips along the scar that zigzagged from her temple, remembering how gentle Lachlan had been as he traced it.

  Where’s this from?

  His question had been so casual, and yet it had stirred up a maelstrom of emotions inside her. Reminded her what happened when you took your attention from the road. What happened when you were reckless, when you didn’t bother clipping in your seatbelt.

  What happened when you lost control.

  ‘Here’s your coffee, and the mail arrived.’ Lynn placed the mug carefully on Lucy’s desk, then passed her the pile of envelopes, varying in size and colour. ‘Oh, and your sister made the gossip rags, again. Did you know she and Sam are expecting twins?’

  Lucy smiled, for the first time that day. ‘Cesca called me last night. She said she was shocked, especially since they broke up last week according to Entertainment Weekly. Apparently next month they’ll have a secret wedding.’ The lies the tabloids wrote were a source of amusement at the Robinson and Balfour office. Lucy had long since stopped believing any of them were true.

  ‘Well, make sure I’m invited.’ Lynn winked.

  After she left, Lucy covered her face with the palms of her hands, sighing. What a bloody mess. Every time she thought about Lachlan her stomach tightened, as though it was being tied in a thousand knots. What the hell had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t been thinking, that was the problem. She’d thrown herself into the moment, hadn’t thought it through. Had been completely unprofessional.

  Taking a deep breath, she took a quick scan of her emails. The one at the top grabbed her attention. Not from him, but about him at least. A last-ditch offer from his brother to relinquish his rights to the land and title at Glencarraig. At least some things in life were predictable.

  Her cursor hovered over the forward button. She should send this to Lachlan straight away. Licking her lips, she hesitated, afraid of what opening their communication might unleash.

  Why couldn’t everything be normal?

  This was why she should never have gone to Glencarraig with him. It made things murky, made her question herself when she should be on top of her game. She’d played with fire and it had burned her, and she should learn a lesson from it.

  Sighing, she clicked on the forward button, quickly tapping out a note asking Lachlan for his orders. Dammit, she meant instructions. She highlighted the word, replacing it, feeling the relief washing through her as she clicked the send button.

  Just the thought of him giving her orders was enough to set her whole body on fire. She dropped her head into her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. If she was this affected by the thought of him, what would she be like when they were face to face again? He only had to look at her and she’d go weak at the knees.

  Lifting her head up, she looked through the glass wall of her office, and across to the partners’ rooms on the other side. The thought of Malcolm finding out what she’d done in Glencarraig made her feel sick. Everything she’d worked for would be ruined.

  And yet she still couldn’t get Lachlan out of her mind.

  The rest of the afternoon was a write-off. Letters that would usually take her minutes to deal with lay unread on her desk. She asked Lynn to hold her phone calls – half afraid he’d try to circumvent her mobile phone and call the office instead. She left her coffee undrunk in her mug, a thin film covering the top of the liquid as it cooled.

  Thank God it was almost the weekend. Her father was safely settled in to his home, her sisters were fine in their lives across the world. She could afford to hole up in her apartment, to actually get the work done that she should have finished this week, and by Monday everything would be back to normal.

  It would be calm, quiet and completely under control.

  Just the way she liked it.

  When Lucy’s email flashed up on his screen on Friday afternoon, Lachlan was sitting in the library at Glencarraig, his laptop resting on the polished oak table as he took part in a videoconference with his directors in New York. It was early morning in Manhattan, and spring sunshine shone through the window behind Marcus, his finance director, making the laptop screen work overtime to adjust to the light.

  ‘Cash flow is good. We have a few overdue items, but nothing to get twisted about,’ Marcus was saying. Lachlan leaned back on his leather chair, flicking at the report in front of him as Marcus continued to speak. His eyes were drawn to his phone, his fingers twitched as he reached for it.

  ‘When are you coming back to the office?’ Marcus asked. ‘There are a couple of things I need to take you through in person.’

  Lachlan put the phone down and concentrated on the screen. ‘I’ll be back on Monday afternoon. Ask Grant to slot you in for an hour, I should be at the office by one.’

  The meeting was winding down. He could hear Sean, his marketing director, murmuring about leaving at lunchtime to head to the Hamptons. From what Lachlan could see it was a fine spring day in New York, with temperatures almost in the seventies, according to his weather app. A contrast to the cold front that had followed him up to Glencarraig, and the biting wind that was howling around the windows of the lodge.

  ‘How about you, are you staying in Scotland until Monday?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘No.’ That was one thing Lachlan was certain of. He wanted a distraction, a way to quell his thoughts. His body still thrummed with the memory of her touch, giving him an ache that he couldn’t quite shake off.

  He’d tried, God knows he had. And yet he still felt this discomfort, this unbearable itch that he couldn’t quite reach. It was aggravating.

  ‘But you’re not back in town until Monday?’ Sean said. ‘Are you heading somewhere else for the weekend?’

  ‘I might head to the mainland,’ Lachlan said quietly. Surely somewhere in Europe could provide him with a distraction.

  The videoconference had barely ended before he grabbed his phone, impatiently unlocking it and pulling up his emails. There was her name, right at the top of the list. He stared at it for a moment, trying to work out if he was angry or relieved.

  Maybe a little of both.

  We’ve had another offer in from your brother’s solicitors (see below). Nothing unexpected. Please let me know how you’d like me to proceed. Kind regards, Lucy

  That was it. No friendly note, no hint of flirting, just pure professionalism. It was as though their trip to Glencarraig had never even happened. His lip curled down as he read her words again, then closed the email as quickly as he’d opened it.

  He needed to go somewhere that didn’t hold memories of her smile. Somewhere that he wouldn’t spend the whole time thinking about how she felt as he moved inside her.

&nbs
p; Paris. He’d go to Paris.

  Anywhere was better than here.

  It was eight o’clock on Friday evening. Lucy was curled up on her sofa, mindlessly flicking through the television channels, finding nothing worth stopping to watch. The rain was pattering on her window, a not-so-welcome change from the snow she’d seen in Glencarraig earlier that week, and she’d cranked the heating up even though it was April, and it really shouldn’t be needed.

  An hour ago she’d called Juliet, wanting to check on her sister, but she’d been diverted to voicemail. Then she’d called Kitty, and got her voicemail too. She hadn’t bothered calling Cesca – not wanting to hear a recorded voice for the third time. Even her furry house-invader had better things to do – she hadn’t seen the neighbours’ cat since she got back from Glencarraig. It was as though she was the only one without plans, and Lucy couldn’t help but feel lonely.

  After another half-hour of reality shows that managed to kill off more than a few of her brain cells, she turned the television off, and carried her half-eaten meal for one over to the kitchen, scraping the remnants into the bin and sliding the plate into her dishwasher. She’d just closed it when her phone started to ring – the loud beeps making Lucy almost run to answer the call. A chat with one of her sisters was just what she needed to get herself back on track, to remind herself who she was.

  And then she saw the name on the display and everything turned upside down.

  She hesitated for a moment, her finger hovering over the call button the same way her fist had hovered near his door that night. Watching, waiting, debating.

  She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d left him in Glencarraig on Thursday morning. He hadn’t responded to the email she’d sent, either. Was he angry at her, or was he as regretful as she was? Lucy wasn’t sure which she’d prefer.

  Her phone rang for the seventh time and she knew it was now or never. One more beep and it would go to her voicemail, and any courage she had might disappear for ever. Taking a deep breath, she finally pressed accept and slowly lifted the phone to her ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello?’

  He hadn’t expected to feel the relief he did when she answered the phone. His whole body relaxed into his chair, the tightness in his shoulders dissolving into the quilted fabric. Crazy how just one word made all the tension disappear.

  He’d been in Paris for three hours. In spite of his best intentions, the city had done nothing to stop him thinking about her, and nothing to stop him wanting her. Instead, it had just made him obsess about her even more. As the taxi had weaved its way through the pretty Parisian streets, he’d found himself wanting to point things out to her. Wanting to show her the way the Eiffel Tower lit up at twilight, the way the bars in the side streets had spindly metallic tables that people spilled out onto. The way everybody smoked here like it was still 1989, the blue plumes twisting up into the cool night air.

  ‘Lucy, it’s Lachlan.’

  She didn’t answer. He leaned forward, picking up the whisky he’d ordered half an hour ago. The ice had melted, but the drink was still strong as it hit the back of his throat.

  ‘What are you doing right now?’ he asked her.

  Another pause. Jesus, this was such a bad idea. But then she answered and he immediately felt better.

  ‘I’m thinking about going to bed.’

  ‘And what are you doing tomorrow?’

  ‘Working. I’ve got lots of emails to catch up on, plus one of my clients is in court next week. I need to make sure everything’s ready.’

  He took another mouthful of whisky, letting it warm his tongue the same way her voice warmed his soul. ‘Come to Paris.’

  ‘What?’ The shock in her voice reverberated down the phone line.

  ‘You’ve never been here, right? So come over and join me, come and see some sights. Tick another thing off your bucket list.’

  ‘You’re in Paris?’ She sounded confused. ‘I thought you were in Glencarraig?’

  ‘I had some air miles to use up.’ He smiled. Edinburgh to Paris would barely make a dent in his air miles.

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘Right now? I’m sitting in a bar on the Rive Gauche, watching the world go by. And I’m thinking how much better it would be if you were with me.’

  He could hear her take in a deep breath of air. ‘I’m your solicitor, Lachlan. What we did at Glencarraig… it should never have happened. We should pretend it never did. Just go back to being client and attorney.’ She sounded as unconvinced as he felt.

  ‘I know we should. But it’s Friday night. You’re not an attorney right now, and I’m not a client. We’re just a man and a woman without anything better to do. So why not throw caution to the wind and get on a plane? Spend the weekend with me, and then we’ll pretend that none of this ever happened.’ He hadn’t realised how much he needed this until he heard her voice. Now his whole body was tense again, as he bit down on his jaw, waiting for her response.

  ‘It’s nine o’clock at night,’ she said. He could almost picture her shaking her head. ‘I wouldn’t be able to get a flight until tomorrow, and that wouldn’t leave us any time.’

  ‘There’s a flight leaving Edinburgh in an hour and a half,’ he told her. ‘And if you look outside your window, you’ll see a car there. I’ve told him to wait for twenty minutes, long enough for you to pack a bag and get in. He’ll drive you to the airport.’

  He heard the pad of footsteps as she was walking across the room, then the swish of curtain as she pulled it back. He was on tenterhooks, waiting for her response, desperate for her to say yes.

  ‘Oh my God, there is a bloody car there.’ She laughed, and it made him smile. ‘You really are crazy, do you know that?’

  Yes, he did. But she was the one driving him crazy. ‘I’ll have another car pick you up as soon as you land. You can be here in a couple of hours.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ In spite of her words, she didn’t sound annoyed. More intrigued than anything else. ‘So I fly out, we spend the weekend together, and then we go back to being professional?’

  ‘I just want to show a beautiful girl a beautiful city. So what do you say?’

  Another swish as she closed the curtains, then the knock of her feet as she walked somewhere in her apartment. Lachlan found himself holding his breath, waiting for her answer, desperate for it to be the right one.

  ‘Okay,’ she finally said, her voice soft. ‘I’ll get on a plane and I’ll meet you. But you’d better have a big glass of French wine waiting for me.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ he said, ending the call, a huge grin breaking out on his face. As far as he was concerned he’d buy her every damned bottle in France if she wanted it.

  17

  Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it were

  made for kissing, lady

  – Richard III

  Lucy looked up at the hotel in front of her, the white brick façade looming high above the street, illuminated by the bright Paris moon. Before she could even walk towards the entrance a doorman had appeared, taking her suitcase from her and ushering her into the entrance hall. ‘Mademoiselle Shakespeare?’ he asked, rolling the ‘r’ of her name. ‘Monsieur MacLeish is waiting for you in the lounge.’

  Lucy followed the direction of the doorman’s arm, past the elegant chairs in the lobby, and towards the old paintings that adorned the walls. Past them was a door, the word ‘Salon’ painted in gold above it.

  ‘I’ll have the bellhop take your case to your room,’ the doorman told her.

  Lucy nodded, thanking him in her terrible French, and then breathed in sharply. It wasn’t just this beautiful entranceway that felt foreign to her, it was everything she was doing right then. She wasn’t the sort of woman who flew to Paris at a whim, and she definitely wasn’t the type who agreed to spend the weekend with a man she hardly knew. And yet here she was, her heart cantering in her chest like a thoroughbred, her feet propelling he
r towards the room where he was waiting for her.

  The salon was as eye-catching as the entranceway had been, its tall windows framed by expensive draped curtains, the walls dominated by dark tapestries that spanned from floor to ceiling. But it wasn’t the décor that she was staring at, it was the man sitting in a chair on the far side of the room, his white shirt open at the neck, his sleeves rolled up. He was lifting a glass of amber fluid to his lips. But then their gazes met and they both froze.