Out of Sight

  Ryder smiled and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “He’s a worrier.”

  “I think anyone would be in his shoes.”

  He’d been through so much. They all had.

  Isla waved them off before rejoining Ethan in the kitchen. He’d helped himself to another muffin, but he set it down on the side when he heard her come in the room.

  “Well, are you?” he asked.

  Isla took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  Ethan’s jaw set. “I dinnae need you to look after me, Isla.”

  “But I might need you to look after me,” she said quietly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Isla took a deep breath. “Len is selling up.” She hadn’t planned to tell him, not wanting to worry him on his first day home, but there didn’t seem to be any way to avoid it. “He and Tim have talked at length about what to do moving forward. Len is ready for retirement, and Tim doesn’t want to take over. So he’s decided to sell the shop, and split the profits between Tim and me.”

  Ethan’s face dropped, and she knew he understood what it meant to her. Financial freedom, but at a cost. No more shop, no more job, no more Len. Her family and her home, gone forever. She would have to start over.

  “Parsons & Co has been everything to me, my life, my home, my family. But I always knew it couldn’t last forever. I could just never imagine where I’d go, or what I’d do when it came to an end. But now the end is here, and suddenly it’s crystal clear. Len will always be family to me, no matter if I’m living under his roof, or not. But I have a new family now, too. And a new home.”

  Ethan’s face went slack, and his eyes flickered rapidly. “You mean...here? With me?”

  “Where else?” Isla reached for his hands across the table. “We’re having a baby, Ethan.”

  That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Ethan’s Adam's apple bobbed a few times, and his nostrils flared, as he tried to take hold of the panic that had clearly seized him at the reminder.

  “Hey.” She squeezed his uninjured hand in hers. “Dinna fash yerself.”

  Ethan’s mouth tugged into a lopsided smile at the sound of her butchering his accent.

  “Pray god the wee one has better pronunciation than their mama.” He raised one eyebrow.

  Isla grinned. “So what do you think? Is this place big enough for the three of us?”

  A frown fell across Ethan’s features once more. “It isnae exactly a castle.”

  “I don’t need a castle, Ethan. I have you, and that’s enough.”

  “Isla.” Pain sliced through Ethan’s features. “There are things I need to tell you, things you deserve to know, about what happened.”

  He was right. They still hadn’t spoken about the past, about Briony, about his accident. The last few weeks had been about recovery, but some wounds needed to be reopened in order to heal, and Isla knew that for Ethan, this was one of them.

  “Okay. But first, I’m giving you a shave.”

  *

  Ethan perched on the edge of the bath, his heart pounding. He wasn’t sure which terrified him more, the idea of Isla with a blade to his throat, or telling her about his past. He listened to her rummaging in a cabinet. Surely there wouldn’t be anything in there?

  “Ah, here we are.”

  It seemed he’d underestimated his brother and Ryder, who’d apparently thought of everything when they’d kitted out the cottage.

  Ethan swallowed. “Have you ever done this before?”

  “No, but I shave my legs all the time without accidentally chopping one of them off. How hard can it be?” She turned on the taps, filling the sink.

  Ethan touched a hand to his throat unconsciously.

  “You know, Ethan MacRae, I don’t believe that you trust me not to slit your throat.”

  Ethan dropped his hand to his side. “I trust you.” He trusted that she wouldn’t do it deliberately at least.

  Isla hummed like she didn’t believe him. “You should probably take your top off.”

  “Oh aye?” Ethan raised an eyebrow but did as he was told, discarding his t-shirt in the bath behind him.

  “Right,” Isla sounded like she was psyching herself up.

  “Isla, you dinnae have to do this. It can wait.”

  “No, it can’t,” she said firmly.

  “What happened to liking me scruffy?” Ethan ran his good hand over his chin.

  “I do like you scruffy.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “But this isn’t about what I want.”

  Ethan heard water splashing, then she was running a warm, damp, cloth across his face. “If you were willing to attempt it over a hospital sink with a disposable razor, then it’s obviously important to you.”

  Isla moved away, and then just as suddenly she was back, this time covering the lower half of his face in shaving cream. She rubbed small circles over Ethan’s jaw, and he felt his nerves beginning to slip away. Then she reached one arm away - for the razor, Ethan assumed - and his nerves were back in an instant.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “None whatsoever,” she said with an air of nonchalance. “Now keep very still.” Isla gripped Ethan’s jaw in one hand, and he felt the press of the razor along his left cheek and heard it scrape across the stubble beside his ear.

  “Oh, this isn’t as scary as I thought,” Isla said, rinsing the razor off in the sink with a splash.

  “Ye havenae got to my jugular yet,” Ethan pointed out.

  Isla moved between his legs again. “So what did you want to talk about?”

  Seriously, she wanted to do this now? Ethan took as deep a breath as he dared with a blade pressed to his face.

  “I dinnae want to talk about anything, but I think we have to.”

  Isla paused, lifting the blade from his skin. “You know, I already know about Briony, about your affair, about the baby. What else is there?”

  Ethan inhaled and exhaled slowly. “The truth.”

  Isla pulled his skin taut, and slicked the razor lightly across his jaw. “I’m listening.”

  “We were friends,” Ethan began. “The three of us. Anthony, Briony, and me.”

  Isla sloshed the razor in the sink. “I saw a photograph.”

  Ethan nodded. “One of many. Anthony and I were at uni together. He and Briony...they came as a pair. Or so I thought. After university, we were all working in development, so the parties, the adventures, our friendship continued...only somewhere along the way, the dynamic shifted.” Ethan paused as Isla moved the razor down his neck, before continuing.

  “I realised I was seeing Briony more than I was seeing Ant. Not that he minded. He was tied up with this and that, and Connor and I hadn’t taken over the company yet, so I had time on my hands. I think Anthony was glad I was around to fill his shoes...never imagining of course, that I would. There’s no excuse for what I did. They’d set a date for the wedding, and Briony was wild and desperate. I think she’d planned for me to be her last fling before tying herself to Ant. She trusted me not to tell him, and not to fall in love with her. In the end, I failed on both counts.”

  Isla’s fingers stilled at his jaw.

  Ethan took a deep breath and continued. Determined to see this through, and get it all out, once and for all.

  “Then she fell pregnant. She cried when she told me. She’d worked out all the dates in her head, and there was no way it timed up. The baby was mine. I didnae ken what to think, how to feel. I loved her by then, and I knew she loved me- at least more than she loved Ant - but I loved him too. We’d been best friends for years. I couldnae imagine telling him, but I knew we had to. But Briony wouldnae hear of it.”

  Ethan’s hand tightened on the edge of the bath. “Ant invited me out for drinks for my birthday. Said we should make a night of it, the three of us. I told him I wasnae well, that I’d come down with something. I knew I couldnae sit opposite him and let him buy me a drink, while Briony sat beside him pregnant with my baby. I was beginnin
g to feel like the monster I was. Little did I know she had plans…” he trailed off.

  “She told him she was going out with friends, but she’d bought me concert tickets. A birthday present - and I realise now - an apology. A consolation prize. But I thought it was a sign. She wanted to spend my birthday with me. We were going to figure something out. She would call off the wedding- it would be awful, but maybe at some point down the line Ant would forgive us? I dinnae ken. I wasnae thinking straight by that point, but she was. We left the concert early. She’d insisted on me having champagne, for my birthday, and probably hoping it would take the edge off when she finally dropped the bombshell. So she drove. And then she started talking. She couldnae call off the wedding, she said. It would break everyone’s hearts. Her parents and Ant’s parents were close, they holidayed together. It wasn’t just our lives we had to think about, but everyone else’s. I said I didnae give a fuck about anyone else or their god damn holiday plans. That I loved her, that we were having a baby together. No, she said. Ant and I are having a baby together. I realised, then that she meant to lie to him. To raise the kid as his. I went mad. I told her that I wouldnae live a lie, or force my best friend to. ‘Some best friend,’ she said.”

  Ethan hung his head. “The last thing I said to her was that I would tell Ant everything the next day. She was hysterical. And then everything seemed to slow down and speed up at once. She clipped the barrier, overcorrected, and then we were in the air. Neither of us were wearing seatbelts. Maybe if we had been...I dinnae ken. When I came out of the coma I was blind, and she was buried, and I didnae need to tell Anthony anything, because he already knew.” Ethan’s shoulders dropped. “The evidence was right there. We’d both lied about where we’d been. We were in a car together. She was pregnant. He came to visit me in the hospital before he left the country, and I pretended to be asleep. That’s how much of a coward I was. He told me that he knew everything and that he blamed me entirely. If I’d been brave enough to speak I could have told him that so did I.”

  Isla pressed a cold flannel to his face in silence, and Ethan took a deep shuddering breath. His head pounded and his heart ached, but he felt lighter somehow, for having finally told someone. No, not just someone. Isla. The only person that mattered. But she still hadn’t spoken. She’d silently shaved him, and cleared the sink, and said nothing at all as he’d burdened her with the horrors of his past.

  Oh god. What if it was too much?

  “Isla?” His voice cracked, still hoarse from the fire, and all the talking. “Say something, please.”

  She took the flannel away and began moisturising his face. “I’ll talk, but only if you promise to listen and not to interrupt, okay?”

  Ethan gave a solemn nod and braced himself.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Ethan.”

  Ethan opened his mouth to protest, but she pressed a finger to his lips silencing him.

  “It was an accident. You said so yourself, to Anthony, that night.” There was a tremor in her voice at the memory, and Ethan reached for her.

  “But if I hadnae been so selfish, if I could have let her go...she’d still be here. They all would, Briony, Anthony, and the baby.”

  “You can’t take responsibility for everything, Ethan. You have to allow people their choices. Yes, you had an affair, but it takes two. Yes, you betrayed your friend, but Anthony’s reaction, the way he chose to deal with what happened, or not, that was on him. We all have our choices, and I’m choosing you.”

  “But-”

  Isla clamped a hand over his mouth. “No more talking from you. You need to rest your throat.” She took her hand away but replaced it instantly with her mouth. She kissed him hard, without restraint, her hands soft on his bare shoulders.

  Ethan’s head was tilted back to reach her, and Isla moved her lips down his freshly-shaven neck, and over his chest, dropping to her knees between his open legs.

  Ethan inhaled sharply as she trailed kisses down his stomach, like the beating wings of the butterflies building inside him. Her hands slid down his chest, her nails scratching lightly against his skin. Ethan groaned, and tipped his head back, gripping the edge of the bath tighter.

  Isla lowered both his joggers and boxers in one movement, and then he was naked before her, with nothing to hide behind if he’d even wanted to. Last time she’d knelt before him like this, he’d stopped her, but this time was different. She knew everything, and she still wanted him, still believed him worthy of her.

  Isla’s hands trailed up the inside of his thighs, with an almost unbearable slowness, and then she was gripping him in one hand, and cupping him in the other and Ethan’s fingers slipped, squeaking against the enamel of the bath as he held on for dear life.

  Isla’s tongue flicked against him, and Ethan hissed between his teeth, moving his good hand to her head, and sliding his fingers into her hair.

  “Isla.” It was a plea, and a prayer, and the only word he could manage.

  “Shh,” she reminded him, her breath blowing hot across him, sending a shiver rippling down his spine, and then she took him in her mouth.

  Ethan’s hand was fisted in her hair, as she moved up and down between his thighs, her mouth hot, slick, and wet around him. Ethan moaned, and she slid one hand beneath him, pulling him closer, taking all of him in. Fuck that felt good.

  Ethan groaned. And then there was nothing. Nothing but the tingling of his scalp, the heat pulsing through him, the pleasure spreading over his skin, and her, kneeling before him.

  “Isla,” he begged, in a voice that wasn’t his own.

  She quickened her pace, and Ethan’s breath raced, his vision speckling as he hurtled towards his climax, exploding in her mouth, swearing, trembling, and calling her name.

  Isla rose onto her knees, trailing soft kisses up his stomach, and chest, finally arriving at his mouth. She brushed her lips against his.

  “I love you, Ethan.” She gripped his chin gently between her finger and thumb. “There is no part of you that I don’t love. Nothing from your past, nothing you tell me, nothing you do is going to change that. So if you’re still waiting for me to leave, you can stop now. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Ethan leaned forward, and kissed her like his life depended on it, tasting himself in her mouth, sweet and salt, like the tears that ran unchecked down his face.

  Isla pulled back and brushed them away.

  “And if you’re waiting for judgement from me, you won’t get it. You lost the woman you loved, your unborn child and your best friend, in a split second. But somehow, you carried on living. You’re no coward, Ethan.”

  Ethan shook his head. “I didnae carry on living, Isla. I was going through the motions, keeping my promise to Connor, and nothing more. Until you arrived.”

  “But why me? What did I do, that Ryder or Connor couldn’t?”

  “I dinnae think you did anything. I think you were just you. And for the first time in years, I found myself anticipating something, wondering when I’d next speak to you, and what you might say, and I started looking forward instead of back. You showed me an alternative universe, where I wasnae a monster. You made me believe there could be something beyond what happened. An ‘or’ instead of a full-stop. That the past may be written, but the future is a blank page.”

  “Not so blank,” Isla said, taking his hands in hers, and placing them against her stomach. It was already rounding out. Not enough to be noticeable visibly, he imagined, but Ethan could feel the difference.

  “I never dared to hope for a new chapter,” Ethan said. “But with you, I feel like we could write an entirely new book.”

  Isla kissed him, her hands cupping his jaw, her fingers soft against his skin, tender from the blade. “Just so long as it has a happy ending.”

  ~ 18 months later~

  Epilogue

  The roses were in full bloom. The sweet scent of summer hung heavy in the air, and a bee droned past Isla’s ear. She hummed her own tune as she walked
barefoot across the velvet lawn, a nameless song she’d heard Ethan play on the upright piano that they’d pressed into the last remaining corner of the cottage. Every other slither of space was taken up with prams, and toys, and life spilling from cupboards and off shelves. How Ethan didn’t trip and break a limb every single day amazed her, but somehow he navigated their cramped living space the same way they’d both navigated the past year and a half: one step at a time, feeling their way through.

  Isla’s sandals dangled in one hand, and in the other, she held the hot, sticky, unwilling hand of their son.

  Lenny was one. He had a head full of golden curls, and golden-brown eyes. His nose was still that of a baby, but his mouth was all Ethan’s- when it turned down there wasn’t anything on Earth Isla wouldn’t give to see it quirk at the corners again.

  He was full of energy, and just starting to get his own ideas, none of which involved being made to walk at a snail’s pace across Rosehill’s grounds. He would rather have run, tumbled, and crawled, the knees of his striped dungarees turning bright green, but as much as she loved to see him play, Isla was aware this wasn’t their space anymore. At least, not only theirs. The renovations were complete, and Rosehill Hall was officially open, as the rehabilitation facility of Connor’s dreams.

  It had been her suggestion, but a business decision in the end. The project in Portobello continued to stall, and MacRae and Sons continued to haemorrhage funds with every delay. Ethan had rejoined his brother in the family business, and when the repair bill had come in for Rosehill, it had become apparent that they both needed to cut their losses. The castle belonged to both brothers now, but neither one of them intended to live in it. Instead, potentially hundreds of people who’d suffered trauma, and life-changing injuries would benefit from having the time, space, and support to work through it.

  At first, Isla had thought there was an irony to it. The castle which had housed so much trauma over the centuries, the backdrop to her own trauma, the fortress in which Ethan had hidden away, suddenly becoming an environment for hope and healing. But that was before she’d worked up the courage to go inside.