Milly expected Iain to look surprised. Maybe stare at her in shock as she’d done with Dr. Keller. But instead, he only nodded and said, “Is that so?” As if there’s nothing remotely unusual about a person going from an end stage cancer diagnoses to completely cancer free in a matter of days.
“My doctor is beyond baffled. He double checked my labs from two weeks ago, but everything aligned with the original diagnosis. He said it couldn’t be the drug cocktail he gave me since none of those medicines have anything to do with fighting cancer. They only deal with its symptoms. But according to all my tests, my white blood cell count is completely normal, and all my other tests came back normal, too.”
Milly waited for Iain to react. But again, his response was underwhelming to say the last. “Good. That’s good news then.”
“Yeah, it’s great news,” she agreed, wondering why he was acting so odd. “Though it’s also a huge mystery. Dr. Keller has asked me to participate in a study so he can try to figure out why I—”
“No. No studies. You canna agree to that,” Iain growled, his gray eyes flashing.
“Yeah, I know I can’t,” she answered, shaking her head. “I told him I’d be traveling in New Zealand, so…”
“Wait, you’re still planning to go? To leave Scotland? And your job?”
Milly’s eyes softened. “Iain, listen. Yes, I’m apparently in remission, but who knows how long this will last? I’ve got to start living now. I’ve already wasted three years of my life doing a job I hate. And for what? So I can keep paying off all the medical bills I’ve accrued since I was nineteen? So I can keep my private medical benefits to fight a disease that will most likely come back any day and kill me anyway?”
“It won’t,” he said.
She chuffed, shaking her head. “Iain, you don’t know that. No one does.”
He made an irritated sound, then said, “So you hate working for me that much then?”
She paused, realizing how insulting that must have sounded to him, and she almost backtracked. But why should she lie to him like she’d been lying to herself all these years? “You’re a brilliant, visionary leader. But you’re also really demanding. And being stuck inside that office all day, making sure everything is up to your standards, is not how I want to spend the rest of my life. But, no worries, I’ve already received over a hundred resumes from people who really want to work with you. Good people who are excited and motivated to do this job.”
“I don’t want to work with ‘good’ people,” Iain sneered the word ‘good’ like it was something terrible. “You’re the only one up to my standards.”
Milly crooked her head at him. “C’mon Iain. I know you don’t like change, and you’re used to working with me. But you have to believe me when I say you’ll get used to working with someone else.”
“So what you said to me in the doctor’s office…about love, about gratitude. You didn’t mean any of it? I’m just the arsehole you want to fob off on someone else before you go buggering off to New Zealand?”
“What? Of course, I meant it! But Iain, our time together lasted four days. This is my entire life we’re talking about here, not just some long weekend sex fest. I can’t just stay here indefinitely because you don’t want to train a new assistant.”
“But you can’t just go,” he bit out. “I won’t let you—”
Iain broke off and sat back in his seat when the waitress returned with their drinks. But as her tea cup and his whiskey tumbler were set down in front of them, Milly could still feel the anger and frustration radiating off him, as if it were her own. Even worse, his mask was back, more stony and colder than ever.
Milly tried again. “Iain, I will train my replacement to meet your standards, I promise,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm.
Because what the hell? How could he care more about her leaving Scotland for a month or two until her savings ran out than he did about her having gone into remission? For the first time, she wondered if maybe she’d misread his gruff genius act. Maybe there was something truly wrong with him—
“There is nothing wrong with me. I’m not mad,” he insisted. The mask finally slipped, revealing an expression almost haggard with distress as he said, “But you are not replaceable. Not to me.”
“Iain. I am replaceable. Like, so totally replaceable. You should see these resumes. They blow mine out of the water. And if this is about hooking up again, my savings won’t last that long. I’ll be back in a few months, and if you haven’t already moved on with a new cover model of the week, maybe we can do it again.”
She jumped when he slammed a hand on the table. “Stop it! Just stop it!”
“Stop what?” she asked, spreading her hands in the air. “Being reasonable?”
“Dumping on yourself. When will you see how special you are! How much more braw you are than any other woman I’ve ever met. Any other woman that’s ever crossed my path.”
“I don’t get this,” she said trying to keep her voice low. “It was just four days, and I’ve seen how you date.”
“What did I just say?” he shot back, voice also low. “You must stop comparing yourself to the other women I’ve been with for one night only. You’re more than one night to me. And the fact that you don’t feel the same way? That you’d rather go chasing ghosts in New Zealand than stay here with me?”
He shook his head at her, his gray eye blazing with anger and hurt. “It fecking guts me, Millicent. You might as well break one of those beer bottles and shove it right in my stomach.”
Milly was genuinely struggling to keep up. What was going on here? Opposite day? Was she seriously having a black-and-white French movie level lover’s quarrel in the middle of some random pub? Why was he being so dramatic? Saying these things? Insisting she stay?
“Because you gave me your claim!” he roared, saying the words slowly as if addressing an obtuse child. “If you were a member of my clan, we would be married on this day. You would ken better than to break our mate bond, and you’d be keen to continue working with me because it would mean we’d be near one another day in and day out.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
Iain rubbed a hand over his face. “I know you don’t. Which is why I will go to Faoltiarn first thing tomorrow. Talk with my brother and Da. Get permission to tell you everything, even though it’s days too soon for you to pass a pregnancy test.”
“Wait, what?” Did he just say pregnancy test?!
However, Iain just kept going like she hadn’t said anything. “But in the meantime, you canna just give me your claim and then go buggering off to New Zealand with my bairn in your belly.”
“Bairn? Like, as in Scottish for baby?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’m not pregnant. I can’t get pregnant after all the chemo and radiation I’ve had—”
“You are a very smart lass, but you ken nothing about these matters,” he shot back viciously. “Dinna just slag off our four days in that hotel room together. They meant something, and I ken better than you what you are and are not these days. You no longer have leukemia. It will never come back. You will live, Millicent.”
A heartfelt statement, but then he dipped his head his head down to say, “And you are at this verra moment carrying my bairn. And that means I canna allow you to go to New Zealand or anywhere else where I am not.”
Milly went utterly still. Not because she was afraid. But because she’d never been so clear in her life about anything as she was about what she said next. “Those four days did mean something to me. They meant really fantastic sex with a man who filled my heart with love and gratitude. But obviously for you it meant going to extraordinary measures to hold on to your assistant, so you would never, ever have to put up with change. You complained about your village never changing, but I don’t think you realize how much of that attitude you brought with you to Edinburgh.”
She scooted back from the table then. “I quit. Effective today.”
“What?” he ask
ed. “You can’t quit. I’ll sue—”
“Then sue,” she invited, interrupting him. “Sue me to hell and back. But I’m not going to let you control me like that cancer’s been controlling me since I was nineteen. I deserve better than that. I deserve to live my life without you dictating what I can and can’t do. And you know what, Iain? I’m done living to your standards. So you can take your lawsuit and your job, and you can shove both them up your ass.” She threw him the deuces. “Because I’m out.”
“Nay! Nay, you’ll not leave—” he said, his voice at such a low register, she knew he was gearing up to make another threat.
But this time she didn’t stick around to hear it.
Just stood, shouldered her purse, and walked right out the pub door.
It was raining. Of course, it was raining. And in her mind’s eye, she could see her umbrella, clear as day, right where she left it in the container at the front of the AlgoFortune office doors. But she stepped onto the busy sidewalk anyway. Anywhere else was better than where Iain Scotswolf was—
A hand grabbed her arm, pulled her back, and turned her to face…Iain. He was also without an umbrella. The pelting rain instantly drenched them both, but he didn’t seem to notice. His only point of focus was her.
“I canna let you quit. I canna let you go.”
“Iain, that’s enough,” she said, tugging on her arm. “Just let me go!”
“Don’t you think I would if I could? I dinna like feeling this way about someone who is so keen to leave me behind. I hate it, as a matter a fact. And I can see now why our Scottish council declared it against our laws to carry on with a human for too long.”
She shook her head. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I ken… I ken…”
Iain scrubbed the rain-soaked hair from his forehead. Then as if reaching a difficult decision, he said, “I’m the wolf. I’m the wolf that bit you. And for that reason I canna let you walk out on me. Bonded wolves cannot be without their mates. You wondered if I was mad before. I’m not. But being apart from you for more than a few hours, while you’re pregnant—that would truly drive me into a state of madness.”
Milly stared at him.
And he shook his head with a bitter laugh. “Ach, I can hear you not believing me. Like it’s a thought in my own head. But every word I’m saying is true, Millicent. I am a werewolf. Or what is it you Americans call them? A shifter. Whatever the name, my kind can’t carry human diseases. That’s why I turned you. That’s why you’re cancer free now and why you’re able to bear children despite all the radiation you underwent. Turning you into a werewolf like me was a kind of fixing, which is why I needed you to stay here in Scotland until the next full moon. Of course, I had no notion you’d go into heat before I’d be allowed to officially tell you the full story of what I’d done. But the point is, I saved you. And the even bigger point is you’re my mate. Carrying my bairn. So I canna let you go. Do you understand? It would be physically impossible, and against everything a werewolf is—especially a Scottish werewolf—to let his pregnant mate go.”
Iain stopped then. Breathing hard in the rain. Obviously waiting for her response.
It didn’t take long for him to get one.
“You need to get help,” she told him quietly. Then she very deliberately disengaged his hand from her arm and threw herself into the rush hour crowd.
“Millicent, wait,” she heard him call out behind her. “Please wait!”
She’d never heard him say please before, and his voice sounded tortured as if it was killing him to watch her go.
But she didn’t turn back. She didn’t engage. And this time, she didn’t give him a chance to catch up with her. Instead, she quickly crossed the street onto a square stuffed with so many tourists he couldn’t possibly find her in the crowd.
Chapter Ten
That parting scene probably would have been much more final and triumphant for Milly if not for the immediate sense of abject loss that overtook her as she arrived at an empty bus shelter a safe distance away from where she’d last seen Iain.
At first, she tried to dismiss it. She was a virgin until five days ago, after all. Someone who’d never even been kissed until yesterday. Of course, she’d find it hard to leave behind the first guy she’d ever gotten truly intimate with—even if that was the only way to finally start living her life and making her long-held dream of traveling to New Zealand come true.
Also, Iain was at worst a complete sociopath and at best a seriously deluded nutjob in need of professional help.
So there was that…
But as she waited at the bus shelter, questions started piling up inside her head. Questions about her new cancer-free status. Questions about her seemingly perfect 20/20 vision. Questions about her hair…
Milly looked at herself in the shelter’s semi-reflective window. Her hair was nearly dry, and despite the absence of any product, her curls looked lush and amazing. No longer at war, on the contrary, she could almost hear them singing a cross-cultural round of “Kumbaya.”
The questions kept piling up inside her chest, along with a longing ache…like she’d left a limb behind.
Or a mate.
And none of these questions had answers except…
Technically, every single one of her questions could be answered perfectly by Iain’s crazy claims.
The sound of an incoming bus brought her head up. It wasn’t the one that would take her home to Holyrood, but she recognized it nonetheless because it went right by Tara’s place of work—
An idea came out of nowhere, freezing her in place as the bus’s accordion door opened. And just as suddenly, she animated, waving down the bus driver before he could close the door again.
“Wait! Wait! I want to get on!” she called out as if it were a matter of life and death.
It wasn’t unusual for Tara to come down to find her best friend waiting for her in the ornate lobby of the elegant domed building where the Royal Scottish Bank had been headquartered since the 1700s. But it was unusual for Tara to find Milly there in the middle of the morning, with only a text sent a minute beforehand to alert Tara that her best friend was waiting for her downstairs.
So Milly wasn’t at all surprised when Tara literally ran off the employee elevator, eyes wide with alarm.
“Are you okay?” she called out, her voice echoing across the old building’s cavernous lobby.
Was she okay? That was a long story with the final answer still TBD.
Instead of responding to her friend’s concerned question, Milly said, “Hey, Tara! How’s it going? Um…can I borrow your car?”
Whatever questions Milly might have had about whether Tara was a true blue friend or not were answered that morning. Not only did she give Milly the keys to her little Skoda hatchback, but she also she insisted on taking the rest of the day off and coming with her. Though as a fellow North American who’d grown up driving on the “right” side of the road, she didn’t offer to take on chauffeur duty. That would just be crazy.
Also, from what Milly could tell, her hale and hearty friend who never got sick must have been coming down with something. Because she kept sniffling as they sped down the highway toward the destination.
“Do you need a tissue?” Milly asked sympathetically when Tara sniffed for the umpteenth time. “I’ve got some in my purse.”
“No, it’s just allergies,” Tara answered, waving her off. Then she asked, “Why are we going back to Faoltiarn again?”
Because my boss is crazy, she replied in her head. And maybe I am, too.
Aloud she simply said, “There’s something I need to check out. It doesn’t make any sense, and I know exactly what I’ll find. But I need to see it for myself.”
Then off of Tara’s confused look, she said, “I swear I’ll explain everything on the way home.”
Tara sniffed again, and then carefully asked, “So Iain...invited you back to his place in Faoltiarn?”
“Well, not exactl
y,” Milly admitted with a grimace.
Another sniff, followed by, “Then what exactly is it you hope to find there? Because last I checked that pa—er, clan doesn’t like outsiders on their mountain without invitation.”
“How do you know so much about Faoltiarn and Iain’s clan?” Milly asked, glancing over at her friend.
A beat passed. Then Tara said, “I don’t know. Must have heard about it on the news or a documentary. You know how they always seem to have programs out here about Scottish heritage…and those hillbilly Highland clans, still doing it the way they used to back in the day.”
Milly narrowed her eyes, feeling weirdly defensive of Iain’s hometown. Yeah, it might be a bit old-fashioned but…“Don’t judge until you see it. It’s a neat little place, based on what I saw when I drove out there. Plus, Iain grew up there, but now he has his own tech company—so, you know, it’s not exactly a breeding ground for hicks.”
“Whatever you say,” Tara grumbled.
And Tara’s attitude didn’t improve much once they reached Faoltiarn. She eyed the cute Victorian-era postcard town suspiciously as they drove down the main street. Which struck Milly as odd. There were a few people milling about, and none of them wore overalls—though every male—young or old—wore a kilt, she noted. However, the effect was more charming than creepy. And though many of them stared as she and Tara drove by, Milly thought they looked more curious than menacing.
“See, totally Mayberry,” Milly said as they turned off the main street and headed left around the loch toward Iain’s house. “Maybe you mistook this town for another one you saw on TV?”
“There aren’t any kids here,” Tara pointed out.
Milly gave her a bemused sideways look. “Because they’re probably all in school,” she answered. “It’s the middle of the day.”
Her Scotttish King: (Howls Romance) Loving World Page 24