“No buts, Scott,” Ethan sipped his coffee. “She loves Bacon’s painting. I want her to have something that will remind her of me. Something personal.” This way, at least, she’s going to think of me everyday.
“It’s not that simple,” Scott answered. “He doesn’t want to go ahead with the plan anymore.”
“Simple? No. Doable? Yes,” replied Ghost’s computerized voice. “And, what is best: it would not cost much. Can you imagine how he would feel with her beside him? How grateful he is going to be?”
“I don’t know...” Scott ran the back of his hand over his forehead.
Scott would do anything to see the smile back on the face of that proud man that had showed him only kindness. However, to act behind his back and against his wishes could have terrible consequences.
“It’s not magical or anything. No one will ever know how we did it. MacCraig’s sister-in-law is bent on revenge. We can use her and then put all the blame on her.”
Scott scratched his head, not sure of what to answer. “Mr. Ashford loves her. He’ll be furious if she is hurt or humiliated.”
“I can guarantee her honor would not be touched, if this is your fear. In the end, the fault would be MacCraig’s or Miller’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Did I ever disappoint you?” Ghost smiled as he heard Scott’s sigh and his negative. “Great. Hear me out.”
Scott sat more comfortably on his chair, praying he was doing the right thing and said, “I’m all ears.”
Chapter 33
Airgead Caisteal.
Friday, August 6th, 2010.
7.02 p.m.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, she will be mine. Mine and no one else’s. No Davidoff, Ashford, Westwood, not even Leibowitz. She will be a MacCraig. He breathed in the fresh air and looked around.
The amorphous chaos by the loch had taken the shape of a tall pavilion that ended in an incredible chapel which looked like it was made of crystal. The Santo family had a creative vein he never could have imagined from Sophia’s line of work. Everything they created was different, classy and dashing. From the stationary to the dresses. He was sure the guests would be surprised tomorrow.
Alistair shook his head amused as he sat in one of the acrylic chairs and watched Jeff Leatham, with a white rose between his teeth, dance and laugh with Valentina and Victoria.
He turned his head as he heard Sophia’s musical laughter. She was still wearing the riding gear she had ordered for the tournament that his father had held at Craigdale Castle in their honor. Her daring redingote was made in the MacCraig’s tartan colors: thin red and yellows lines crossed with the brightest green and midnight blue. She was happily showing the world she was to be his.
Still, he was unsure. Still, he couldn’t believe it.
Tavish and Sophia, arm in arm, walked down the stairs and made their way onto the catwalk covered with Persian rugs over a wide white carpet, which started at the last step and ended at the entrance of the chapel.
Jealousy elbowed its way into Alistair’s heart and he squinted at the handsome couple his brother and his fiancée made. Tavish had been around Sophia more and more since her stabbing. He would fit her better; he doesn’t have my past; he could give her children. Perhaps, it’s another MacCraig she wants. And perhaps... another MacCraig wants her too.
He looked away, reasoning with himself. Stop this, Alistair Connor. You should be grateful that Sophia is adored by your family and that she’s not another Heather.
A soft hand on his shoulder made him raise his head, lines still creasing his forehead. He could see the joy shining inside those hazel eyes he loved so much and he prayed the joy was because of him.
“I was looking for you,” she said, straddling the chair in front of him.
“Here I am,” he smiled at her, scooting to the edge of his chair to kiss her. From the corner of his eyes, he saw that Tavish had walked to where the twins were.
“I have a proposal,” she said after he broke the kiss. “We- I-” Dammit! “I want us to sleep separately tonight.”
What? He looked at her speechless. Why?
“It- It may sound strange but- It’s just that- Oh! Dammit! I want to surprise you tomorrow. I want you-”
“No.”
“No?” she looked at him quizzically. “Why not?”
Because I’m unsure and I want you near me. I need you. “Nobody has ever told you no?” He raised an eyebrow and his poker face mask descended over him.
Oh, yeah. You, included. “But it’s such an innocent request. It won’t hurt-”
He stood up and held out his hand for her, “Come. Let’s take a walk.”
She watched his face as they walked away from the hubbub in silence and entered the maze by the sequoia alley. Sophia could hear the delightful squeals of Gabriela, Ariadne and the other children who had come with their parents to her wedding as they sat on the bench. “Gabriela is loving all this activity.”
“Aye,” he answered curtly.
Sophia looked at him. There it is again. That unnerving unreadable mask. She rolled her eyes heavenward. Sophia, don’t you think it’s time to stop this? She stood up and moved in front of him. That’s enough. She bent down, put her hands on his knees and, looking deep into his green eyes, scolded, “Stop. Stop that right now. We are getting married tomorrow for better and for worse. Wipe that mask off your face and tell me what you are feeling.” She stood up straight and put her hands on her hips, tapping her foot on the ground, “Right now, Alistair Connor.”
He didn’t know if he should laugh or scowl back at her. On impulse, he snaked his arms around her waist and brought her flush against him, burrowing his nose in her breasts. White roses, orange blossoms and vanilla. This is my apple a day.
“Hey,” she whispered, dipping her fingers in his long hair, combing it. “What is it?”
Alistair raised his head to look at her and, for a shimmering moment, Sophia thought she saw fear in those forest green eyes.
She caressed his cheekbones with her thumbs and traced his lips. “Talk to me.”
Do you love me? Will I be able to make you happy? But his fears seemed too ridiculous to be voiced and he just shook his head, incapable of understanding himself.
“I love you, you know? I know I don’t say it much. It’s so overwhelming that I don’t want to trivialize what I’m feeling. Sometimes, silence says more than words.”
But he kept his eyelids lowered, his long black lashes shadowing his cheekbones.
“Alistair Connor. Look at me,” she perched sideways on his thigh when he raised his head again. “You can trust me with your feelings.”
He sighed deeply and his lips curled in a self-deprecating grimace. “Jittery bridal nerves.”
Oh. Cute. She smiled, endeared, “Really?”
“Aye,” he nodded. “Don’t ask me to sleep away from you. Not tonight. I need you.”
She gazed at his eyes, which could communicate so many emotions when he let them, and agreed, “It will be as you wish, Alistair Connor.”
“I love you, Sophia. Forever will be not enough to show you how much I love you,” he whispered before kissing her with fervent passion. He realized that his stomach was tied in knots.
She shifted looking for a more comfortable position and he made her straddle him without breaking the kiss.
“I knew you were her prince charming,” Gabriela’s voice reached them through a thick fog of lust.
They sprang apart.
Alistair’s hands on her waist stopped her from falling on her butt and he guided her onto the bench beside him.
Sophia looked at him, asking for help. However, he seemed on the verge of laughing.
Gabriela threw herself on her mother’s legs. “It’s sooo romantic, Mama.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Kids are too advanced for their ages nowadays. Alistair thinned his lips to impede his bubbling amazement.
Oh, God! Struggling with her own la
ughter, Sophia picked Gabriela up in her arms, setting her on her lap. “Do you think so, angel?”
“Oh, yes, I do.” The little girl united her hands and entwined her fingers, her blue eyes looking dreamingly at her mother. “Soooo romantic.” Gabriela beamed at Alistair. “Just like in Beauty and the Beast. I knew you were her Prince Charming!”
Oh, no. Not that Beast again. Alistair crossed his arms over his chest and growled at the child, “I am. Not. The beast.”
“Yes,” she bobbed her head, the blonde pigtails bouncing around her face, “you are.” She start counting on her little fingers. “You are big. You are handsome. You have long hair. You know how to dance. You have a beautiful and old castle.” Gabriela looked at him from under her lashes, twinkles in her eyes, “You shout sometimes, but I’m not afraid of you because I know you are gentle too.”
I don’t shout. “When have you heard me shouting?”
“Oh! When Mama was playing ball with us,” Gabriela affirmed.
Sophia giggled.
“Ah!” was the only thing he could answer. How can this small little girl render me speechless so easily?
“Kiss again?”
“Ah-ah,” Sophia shook her head. “Let’s save the kiss for the wedding tomorrow, shall we?”
“Oh! Yes, the wedding.” Gabriela cocked her head to the side and looked from one to another, biting her lip. She furrowed her delicate blonde eyebrows in thought. Clearly, there was something that she wanted to say.
Alistair searched Sophia’s eyes for a clue but she lifted a shoulder, indicating she didn’t know what it was.
“So, Fairy, are you excited about tomorrow?”
Gabriela held out her chubby arms to him and he picked her up from Sophia’s lap.
“I am,” she said as she made a ponytail with the long ends of his hair. “Does it mean that...” she flicked her eyes in Sophia’s direction, “from tomorrow I can call you Daddy?”
What? Stillness came over Sophia. She could feel Alistair’s intense gaze on her.
Sophia wished to say no.
Sophia wished to say yes.
She looked at the two people she loved most in the world and didn’t know what she wished anymore.
“Mama?” Gabriela was eyeing her with a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
Oh, Gabriel. Help me. She closed her eyes for a moment and she could clearly see Gabriel’s impossibly happy smile the first day Gabriela had said ‘Pa-pa’.
“Gabriela,” Alistair put his warm hand over Sophia’s and squeezed reassuringly, “we can talk about this-”
“No.” Sophia drawing a steadying breath and opened her eyes. “No. Let’s talk about this now.” Be gentle, Sophia. She is a child, not an adult.
Oh, Christ. Please, say yes, Sophia. Without a word, Alistair put his arm over her shoulders and brought her closer to him.
Sophia prayed that the trembling she was feeling inside didn’t show. “My angel.” She is not asking to replace Gabriel. She just wants a living father who she can give her love. Sophia cleared her throat and started again. “My love, your father loved you very much. You were precious to him. His life, his heart. And I’m-” She stopped because the tears were threatening to fall and she didn’t want to cry in front of Gabriela. Sophia, remember: To love is to put your loved one’s happiness above everything else.
Gabriela’s eyes rounded and she nodded. Beneath Alistair’s hair, she crossed her fingers and waited for Sophia to finish answering her question, not knowing if the answer would be yes or no.
I see. Alistair’s heart broke in two. There will never be a child calling me Daddy. “What your mother wants to say, Gabriela, is that Gabriel was your father and-”
Sophia put her finger on Alistair’s lips. Love cannot be imprisoned, Sophia. Almost choking on her restrained tears, she whispered huskily, “Angel, your father and I, we’ll be very happy if you call Alistair Connor, Daddy.” By letting you love him openly, Gabriela, I’m keeping your love for Gabriel alive.
With a piercing happy scream, Gabriela hugged Alistair’s neck and then flung herself onto her mother’s lap, embracing her, “Thanks, Mama. Thanks.”
Gabriela’s joy was so great that she couldn’t contain it. She jumped down from Sophia’s lap and ran away to meet Ariadne, screaming the news out loud.
Alistair’s arm over Sophia’s shoulder tightened and he rested his forehead on hers. “Thank-” His throat locked and he closed his eyes as the inevitable tears flooded them. Oh, Christ!
Sophia felt the tremor that went through Alistair’s big body and she knew that he was as moved as her.
You can’t see how much you deserved to be loved, can you? She wrapped her arms around him and whispered, “Alistair Connor, you don’t have to thank me. What I did... It was so simple.”
Simple? He drew a deep breath and cleared his throat, struggling to steady his raging emotions. He raised his head and opened his eyes to look at her, rasping, “Simple?”
Her thumbs dried the tears that rimmed his eyes and wetted his long lashes. She softly smiled at him, whispering, “You know, Alistair Connor... love is not about oneself, but about the other. It’s not about receiving, but about giving. It’s not about keeping, but about freeing. Love is not love if not shared. All I did was say yes to a free given love that could not be kept selfishly imprisoned.”
As he watched her, a strange feeling unfurled. It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he’d witnessed one of those miracles of nature. Alistair had to close his eyes. It was such a bright light that it could only be felt. When he spoke, reverence could be heard in his voice. “Sometimes, Sophia, when I look at you... When I hear your words... I feel like I’ve discovered a shining sun, so dazzling that it can’t be true, but then I know it’s real because incessantly it warms and lights my soul with gentleness and love and I wonder,” he opened his eyes and framed her face in his long hands, “I wonder what I’ve done to deserve you.”
Simpler answer. You are you. Melting under the most soft and loving kiss Alistair had ever given her, Sophia vowed she would convince him that he was deserving.
As they followed the kids back to the house, Alistair noticed that Alexander and two of his friends had joined the group around Sophia’s twin sisters. “Seems they have gathered a court of fans.”
She turned her head to see the scene. “It’s always like that. They are young, beautiful... carefree... I don’t know... They have something magical.” Something I lost along the way.
When she looked back at his face, he was eyeing her intently.
You have no idea, do you? He shook his head.
He wished she knew her own beauty. Not the outer one. That she could see, even though a little distorted. He wished she could know how beautiful she was inside.
He wanted to scream to the world what a special gift she had given him and Gabriela just a few minutes ago. He promised he would spend the rest of his days - their days - showing her how much he treasured her. He framed her face in his large hands. “No one, Sophia, no one is more magical than you.”
She mimicked his gesture, cupping his face in her hands, and said, “Maybe it’s you who brings out the magic in me.”
He smiled a self-deprecating smile, but before he could say anything, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him firmly on the lips. “Come on. Let’s save your friends from those crazy girls. Dinner will be served earlier today. I don’t want to look sleepy and tired tomorrow.”
“You are always perfect, Beauty. Especially in the mornings.” He put his arm on the shoulders of the most gentle and giving woman he had known in his whole life wondering what would he do without her.
Saturday, August 7th, 2010.
9.15 a.m.
The sun was shyly shining outside and the temperature was just perfect. The balmy weather and the warm breeze guaranteed the most beautiful and agreeable of days.
Sophia finished her breakfast and walked to the bathroom remembering Alistair’s disappointed face
when she pushed him out of the bedroom at nine o’clock.
A perfect day for a wedding. She had made it. Every small detail was in place. That devil of a stubborn man, he had proven himself right. Sophia grinned at her naked reflection in the bathroom mirror and stretched, arms over her head, closing her eyes. Today, I’m not going to worry about anything.
“You drive me crazy when you do that,” Alistair murmured in her ear, his hands circling her waist.
She spun in his arms looking at him, surprised. “Alistair Connor. What are you doing here?”
“This is my bathroom and you are my wife-to-be. How can you ask me what I’m doing here?” He wrapped his arms around her tightly, pressing her naked body to his dressed front. “I’m enjoying the view.” He wiggled his brows, looked down at her breasts and back at her face, grinning. “Have you showered already?”
“Ah-ah. We can’t do this today. Or rather, not now. I have a busy schedule. And, Lord You’re-not-supposed-to-be-here, didn’t we agree fifteen minutes ago that you would only see me again when the castle doors opened?”
“Did we? I don’t recall.” He bit her earlobe and softly chewed on it as his hand kneaded her buttocks gently. He turned her to the mirror and rested his chin on the top of her head so he could see her face while his hands traveled down and spanned her flat belly. “You are so beautiful. I love this mischievous smile of yours. And when your eyes turn this yellow diamond color, I know that you and I are in for a hell of a good time.”
“I have to shower and get ready,” she complained in a moan, turning her head to look at him.
He pressed his advantage when she parted her lips and kissed her deeply, saying afterwards, “I’ll wash your hair, then.”
“Right. Wash my hair,” she twirled in his arms and her hands yanked his T-shirt off.
His hands cupped her breasts and his thumbs circled them until they had budded for him. He leaned her against the sink and his head dipped to taste her throat.
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