Chapter 15
Evan had faced down armed men in dark alleys, talked his way out of gallows-tight situations, and lived one step ahead of trouble for all his adult life.
None of that prepared him for the sight of Ruby sitting in his brother’s drawing room. For a heartbeat, he simply stopped. The firelight caught in her hair, turning it into chestnut and gold, and she looked beautiful in a way that punched the air from his lungs. Her shoulders were tense, but her eyes... her eyes widened when she saw him, relief breaking across her face. The sight of her made his chest ache.
He became acutely aware of everything at once: the crackle of the fire, the faint scent of chamomile and fresh bread, the familiar stone walls of a house he hadn’t stepped foot in for years.
He was standing in his brother’s house. On his family’s old estate.
He washome.
The thought was like a punch to his temple, disorientating and painful all at once. How could he be here? How could he have come full circle like this? It had never been part of the plan. To come here. To see Niall today—or ever, if he was honest. He’d told himself he was done with this place, with the weight of expectation and blood and history.
And yet here he stood, heart racing, because the woman opposite had walked into his life and knocked everything sideways. Since the moment he met her, she had turned his life upside down and inside out.
Ruby shifted. Relief still lingered in her expression—but it was edged now with something sharper. He knew that look. He’d seen it on her face many times, usually just before she did something reckless or brave, or both.
He wanted—absurdly, irrationally—to cross the space between them, cup her face in his hands, and kiss her. To feel her fingers clutch at his coat, to feel her melt against him as her lips found his. He wanted to...
“So,” Ruby said, lifting her chin and glaring at him. “How long were you planning on lying to me about your brother?”
The words landed like a slap. Evan stiffened. “What?” he said, though he’d heard her perfectly well.
She folded her arms, lips pressing into a flat line. “You told me you didn’t know Niall Campbell when I asked you in that inn on the island. And every time I’ve mentioned him since you denied knowing him.”
Something hot and defensive rose up inside him. “I don’t know him,” Evan shot back. “Not anymore.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Ruby said. “You knew exactly what I meant.”
Shame curled low in his gut, hot and unwelcome. He hadn’t wanted her to find out like this. Hadn’t wanted her to find outat allif he could help it. He’d thought he could deliver her to her cousin and disappear again before the past caught up to him. That plan, like so many others since Ruby burst into his life, had gone spectacularly wrong.
His jaw clenched. Shame made anger bubble in his gut like acid. “Ye are a fine one to talk,” he snapped. “Ye accuse me of lying? That’s rich!”
Her eyes flashed. “Excuse me?”
“Ye have told me nothing,” he said, the words tumbling out sharper than he intended. “Not about where ye are from. Not about how ye ended up on that island. Not about why ye were so desperate to find yer cousin that ye’d trust a smuggler to get ye there.”
Her shoulders drew back. “That’s not the same—”
“Of course it is! Ye dinna get to stand there accusing me when ye’ve been spinning half a story since the day I met ye.”
Silence fell, thick and brittle. The fire popped, sending a spray of sparks up the chimney. Evan dragged a hand through his hair. Ruby stared at him, her face pale, lips pressed together. For a moment, he thought she might walk past him and leave. Then she exhaled.
“All right,” she said quietly. “You want the truth?”
He nodded once. “I do.”
She swallowed. “I’m not from here.”
“I know that. Ye are from Cardiff,” he said slowly. “Although ye now live in Edinburgh.”
She nodded. “That’s true. But not the Cardiff you know. And not the Edinburgh you know either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ruby took a step closer. She looked away, staring at the fire as though gathering her courage. Then she looked up, met his gaze. “It means I told you a half truth. Idolive in Edinburgh. But one in the future. The Edinburgh of the twenty-first century.”
Evan stared at her. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t tease that she was pulling his leg. Evan could spot a liar a hundred paces away and everything about Ruby’s expression spoke of utter sincerity.
