by Anna Durand
Rory tugged my hands loose from where I'd locked them over my upper arms. He scooted closer to envelop my hands in his on my lap.
"How does this relate to your engagement?" he asked.
"When the shit exploded in my face, Luke was there to support me." I allowed myself the span of three breaths to enjoy the warmth of his hands. "My family was far away, and I was ashamed to tell them what happened. Luke convinced me I needed to. He sat beside me, holding my hand, when I called my parents. He helped me figure out how to get the photos taken down. I was so grateful to him, I guess I mistook gratitude for love. Three months after the photo fiasco, I moved in with Luke."
"You stayed with him for three years."
"Because it was easy." I inhaled a deep breath through my nose, the scent of him infiltrating my senses. "I swore I'd never let Sebastian's actions affect my future, but I guess they did. I got into this rut with my life. Boring, dead-end job. Boring, dead-end boyfriend. Standing still was easier and safer than uprooting my whole life. Computer programming wasn't my life's passion, and neither was Luke. Both looked good on paper, but all of it stifled me more than I realized, until I got laid off and had to reexamine my choices."
"That's why you married me."
"Kind of." I raised my face to him. "You are not boring, that's for sure."
He drew circles on the desk with his finger. "What's the full name of the scunner who shamed you?"
"Sebastian Zegers. Why do you ask?"
With swift and elegant strokes of his pen, he jotted down the name. "I want to make certain he can't hurt you again."
"Are you planning to exact vengeance on my behalf? That's adorable."
"Not vengeance," he said, clicking the pen to retract its tip. "I'd like to hire an investigator in America to check on this Sebastian man. Find out what he's been doing and determine whether he kept those photographs. If so, I will ensure they are destroyed. Permanently."
Holy mackerel. I couldn't believe he'd do all that for me. We hardly knew each other.
"Um, thanks," I said. "That's an amazing thing to do for your trophy wife."
Rory smacked the pen down on the desktop. "Never call yourself a trophy again. You are my wife, full stop."
"And you are a truly awesome husband."
He made that face, the one that usually preceded a statement about how I would get sick of him one day. He kept quiet, though, leaving me to fill the silence.
"My turn," I said. "What did Graham mean about your first wife having an iron constitution?"
Rory coughed, his face pinched. "I'm not sure. Isobel wanted things I couldn't give her, left me because I was boring and—"
He flinched, as if he'd revealed too much.
"Is that why you keep telling me I'll get tired of you?" I asked.
He bored his gaze into the darkest corner of the room. "I met Isobel near the end of my traineeship, the final step in becoming a solicitor. I was twenty-five, she was twenty-three. We married six months later, and only after that did she start to complain about my work. She thought being a solicitor was dull and unglamorous, kept telling me I should at least become a corporate lawyer where I'd make more money. Isobel despised the fact I often worked pro bono for those who couldn't afford a solicitor's fees. When she walked out, she told me I would never find a woman who would tolerate the long hours I put into my work, the late-night calls from panicked clients, and what she called the 'pittance income' I earned."
No wonder he assumed I'd dump him too.
A tiny spark of hope ignited inside me. He'd shared a piece of his painful past for the first time.
"How long were you married to her?" I asked.
"Five years."
Oh dear God. Five years with a woman who despised his job and clearly made him feel unworthy? Love had defeated him, I sensed that much. Isobel played a role in the drama, but I was sure the story had more acts.
"Thank you for telling me all of that," I said. "It couldn't have been easy to talk about."
"You are the first person I've told the whole truth."
A tingle rushed through me. I was the first?
"May I ask one more itty-bitty question?" I said. "Not about your exes."
"Go on."
"What's the real reason you got irritated when I hugged Aidan?"
He slithered off the desk and retreated behind it, lowering his body into the chair. "It's ridiculous."
"I love ridiculous. You know that."
He ducked his head, scratched his scalp, and said, "You hugged everyone, even Gavin Douglas. You hugged Aidan twice. But you haven't hugged me today."
"Sure I have."
He shook his head slowly, those luminous eyes assessing me.
"I haven't?" When he shook his head again, I pushed off the desk. "I can remedy that right this minute."
Lickety-split, I circled behind the desk and plopped onto his lap. When I wound my arms around his neck, he stiffened. I rested my cheek on his shoulder anyway.
"What are you doing?" he said.
"I upgraded your hug to a cuddle."
"Hmm." He linked his hands over the small of my back. "Ye willnae do this with Aidan."
"Only you," I assured him.
Here in the library-office, Rory and I held each other for several minutes, his warmth radiating into me, and I snuggled into him even more. It felt so nice to be with him like this, especially after we'd shared our bad memories. I reveled in the closeness, loving the feel of him around me, the softness of his shirt and the tickle of his breaths when they ruffled my hair.
He cleared his throat and tried to sit taller, but my body hindered him.
"Something wrong?" I said, without lifting my head from his shoulder.
"It's about the wedding." He cleared his throat again. "We shouldn't have sex until after the ceremony."
I popped up, hands on his chest. "You've got to be kidding."
"No."
"We're already married. Everyone assumes we're getting it on twenty-four seven."
"Out of respect for our mothers, we shouldn't have sex until after the wedding."
Laughter spurted out between my closed lips and through my nostrils, resulting in an attractive series of piglike noises. "Respect for our mothers? That's the lamest excuse in the history of lameness. You're trying to use our moms as a wedge to keep some distance between you and me. I get you're feeling weird about confiding in me but—"
"Ahmno feeling weird," he said in a somewhat petulant tone. "We should take a break to become accustomed to…well…" He squinted his whole face as he struggled for a lamer excuse. "Until we're accustomed to living together."
I traced a finger along the seam of his lips. "You are full of it, Mr. MacTaggart, but I'll make a deal with you. Or rather, a little bet."
"What are the stakes?"
"If I win, you agree to participate in one activity of my choosing. No bitching, no growling, no eye-rolling. Agreed?"
"All right." He tightened his arms around me. "And if I win?"
"The same. I'll participate in one activity of your choosing."
His hand drifted down to my hip, and his fingers probed the hollow. "What is the wager?"
"No sex, like you suggested." I swept a hand up his neck, toying with his earlobe. "I bet you we'll both be naked in my bed inside of four days."
"I can wait until the wedding day."
"Oh sure," I said, making my voice huskier while I worked his lobe with my thumb. "There's no way you'll make it three weeks without at least one good fuck. You're way too passionate to go cold turkey."
His fingers massaged my hip with more ardor, pressing in deeply. Lust darkened his whisky eyes, the pupils large, and his lips parted in preparation for a kiss.
"Do we have a bet?" I asked.
"We do," he said, his voice deep and silken.
I hovered my mouth a breath away from his lips. "Three weeks, Rory."
He rose, picking me up with him, and spanked my behind. "I have work. You'l
l need to entertain yourself."
"Oh, I'm really good at that." I angled my head up to expose my throat. "Maybe I'll entertain myself in my bedroom for a while."
With that, I flounced out of the room.
Upstairs, ensconced in my private chambers, I checked my phone. One text from Luke. He'd heard I got married and was shocked. I couldn't blame him.
As I plunked my phone on the bedside table, shapes in the walk-in closet caught my eye. Pushing up on my elbows, I peered at the cardboard boxes stacked just inside the closet door. The boxes had escaped my notice earlier, what with my moping distracting me—plus, I could only see them from a particular angle, through the few-inches gap between the closet door and the jamb. My belongings had arrived sometime during the day. Rory had promised to take care of it, and he had.
The sight of my possessions should've cheered me. Instead, it left me with a sour taste in my mouth.
My life, all thirty-four years of it, summed up in ten lonely boxes.
Chapter Nineteen
Several hours later, as the sun sank beneath the horizon, I finished the scrumptious meal Mrs. Darroch had cooked up for me. Seated on a stool at the granite island in our modern kitchen, I mulled the day's events. Meeting Rory's family had wiped me out, but I'd taken time to bid Jamie goodbye. The guest wing seemed empty and rather forlorn without her spunky, cheerful presence.
This evening she'd been bummed because her boyfriend, Gavin, had flown back to America. I hoped her new hosts, Aidan and Calli, would find a way to lift her spirits.
"Are ye finished, dearie?" Mrs. Darroch asked, bent over the sink washing the dishes she'd refused to let me take care of for her.
I passed her my empty plate and glass. "Thanks for making me dinner, Mrs. D. You don't need to take care of me, though. I can make my own food and do my own laundry."
"Ye can, but ye donnae have to. I'm the housekeeper. It's my job to care for the honorary laird and lady of Dùndubhan."
"Not used to being waited on." I slid off my stool. "Where might I find my husband?"
"In the office."
"But it's after eight."
She finished washing my plate and glass, drying her hands with a dish towel. "Rory's a darling boy, but he works too hard. Avoiding life, I'd say."
"Yeah, I think so." I smiled. "Better not let him hear you calling him a darling boy."
"He's used to it. I've been with Rory for seven years, since before he married the last one."
The last one? That would've been Una. "Rory's lived in this castle for seven years?"
"Excepting the eight months the last one lived here, he's been alone." She dropped the dish towel on the counter. "Havenae seen him this content in all the time I've known him. You suit him."
"Do I?" I laid a hand on the island, its marble cool under my palm. "Can't quite figure why he bought a big old castle."
"It was a shambles," Mrs. D explained, "and the owner couldn't afford the upkeep anymore, much less the cost of restoration. Rory paid a generous price to save this castle from falling into ruin. His brother Lachlan contributed to the restoration, despite Rory insisting he didn't need charity."
"Sounds like my husband, proud and stubborn." Hands on my hips, I said, "These long hours he works, that's going to change. I'll make sure of it."
Mrs. Darroch followed me out of the kitchen. It resided in the guest wing, and we both turned right down the hallway. When I headed for the door to the dining room, she bid me good night and bustled down the short hallway on the right to the side door of the house.
I breezed through the dining room and out into the vestibule, then up the stairs and through the great hall to the door of Rory's office. I raised my hand to knock but stopped when I heard soft snoring inside the room. I closed my hand around the knob and eased the door inward.
My husband slumped in his chair, asleep.
I tiptoed across the room, behind the desk, and crouched beside him. Rory's head had lolled to the left, cradled by the chair's back, with his mouth open. His left arm lay slack on the desk, his hand weighing down stacked papers, knocked askew. Though his hand blocked my view of the bottom half of the top sheet, I glimpsed familiar words on the top section.
It was our marriage contract.
A tightness burned in the back of my throat. Why had he been examining the contract?
My gaze landed on him again, asleep at his desk, and a pang throbbed in my chest. He looked so at peace, so adorably unkempt with his hair mussed and his shirt wrinkled. I noticed an empty whisky glass next to his computer, and a bottle of Ben Nevis nearby.
Drinking while perusing our marriage contract?
I tried not to draw conclusions from that fact. Only Rory could tell me what he'd been up to in here, all alone, tossing back a glass of whisky while inspecting the document that bound me to him for a year. A legally unenforceable document. A promise between us.
He made a tiny moan in the back of his throat.
My heart melted as I gazed at him. I couldn't leave him like this.
I half-stood to press my lips to his cheek.
"Wakey-wakey," I said, cradling his face in one hand. "Rory, wake up."
His eyelids fluttered open, and his bleary eyes sharpened into clarity. "Emery?"
"You got another blonde, American wife stashed in a closet?" I straightened and patted his shoulder. "Get up. You are not sleeping in your office."
He shooed my hand away. "I'm fine here. Have work to—"
"Nope." I seized his hands and leaned back, compelling him to rise. "I decree you shall not spend the night in your office when you have a perfectly good bed upstairs."
He grumbled but clambered to his feet. His mouth split open on a giant yawn.
"Come on," I said, supporting him with an arm under his as I encouraged him to move toward the door. He staggered, and I glanced up at him. "How many glasses of whisky did you have?"
"One."
I clucked my tongue. "Alcohol and jet lag aren't a good combo."
"Ahmno jet-lagged."
"Says the man who was found unconscious at his desk." As we exited the office, I strapped my other arm around his front side. "It's beddie-bye time for Rory baby."
He grunted but kept walking, his steps shuffling though he no longer staggered. Not drunk after all, I deduced, and guided him through the cavernous great hall and up the stairs. We passed the second floor, but he stopped us at the third-floor landing, before I could drag him through the doorway into the hall.
Pointing toward a door at our left, he said, "There."
"Where's that go?" I craned my neck to see around him and examine the doorway I hadn't noticed before.
"My room," he said, sounding as exhausted as the shadows under his eyes made him look. "Private entry and exit. Lairds needed a way to escape their wives."
I bit back a sarcastic comment about the fact he made me sleep at the opposite end of the long hallway, so why did he need a separate escape route. Becoming the bitchy, bitter wife didn't appeal to me.
We could talk about the separate-bedrooms thing later.
Rotating us both toward the closed door, I grasped its knob and twisted. The knob didn't budge.
"Locked?" I said. "Is the main door to your room locked too? It wasn't the other day when you showed me around."
"It's locked now."
"Rory, Rory, Rory," I said on a long exhalation. "This extreme need for privacy from your own wife is going to change. Are you afraid I'll sneak in and steal your underwear?"
He fished a set of keys out of his pocket and selected one. As he inserted it into the door lock, he mumbled, "This is how I live."
"No, honey, this is how you hide from life."
Though he stood frozen with the key in the lock, his fingers holding it, his gaze shot to me. For the longest moment, he kept his unblinking eyes pinned to me as if I'd spoken shocking words. Did he seriously not see he was hiding?
He unlocked the door and swung it inward just enough to admit
his large body. "Good night, Emery."
My husband shuffled into the bedroom, keeping the door mostly shut so I couldn't see inside.
I wanted to ask him about the contract and why he'd been looking at it, but the discussion could wait until tomorrow.
"Good night, Rory." I hopped up to kiss his cheek. "Sleep late for once. You need the rest."
Uttering a noncommittal noise, he shut the door. A lock clicked into position.
I stared at the door for a minute, maybe longer, struggling to understand why he needed to bar me from so much as peeking inside his private sanctum. At last, I gave up and shambled to my room.
◆◆◆
No sign of Rory the next day. He got up before I woke and stayed sequestered in his office through lunch, summoning Mrs. Darroch to bring his midday meal. I whiled away the day exploring the castle, inside and out, discovering the garden wall had a door embedded in the rear section of its wall. Outside the wall, behind the garden, lay a manicured clearing littered with a half-dozen wooden posts. They resembled slender telephone poles scattered on their sides. Cabers?
Maybe, but I saved that question for later.
The grounds also included an old carriage house converted into a three-car garage, though Rory kept his Mercedes parked in the driveway. The garage housed a Range Rover, all by its lonesome in the massive space. Both cars cost more than my college education.
My explorations proved to me the only locked room was Rory's bed chamber, accessed by the door in the stairwell or the one at the end of the third-floor hall. He kept both doors sealed tight, wife-proof and vacant. He couldn't have spent more than six hours a night in that room, given his sixteen-hour work days and factoring in time for bathing, dressing, and eating.
By seven in the evening, I realized he wouldn't show up for dinner.
I ambled into the kitchen just as Mrs. Darroch picked up a tray full of food—intended for my husband, I knew, since the housekeeper had informed me he ate all his meals in his office.