She pursed her lips. “That’s true. And worrying. You should get that checked out.”
I shook my head and sipped my coffee, amused. “We could say you hate my cooking.”
Isla caught a piece of egg as it slipped from her mouth. “At the rate I’m shoveling this food back, I don’t think that’ll work either.”
I sighed. “Should we just say we fight constantly?”
“Oh, sure,” she quipped, “everyone will totally buy that the way we’ve been in their faces about being all lovey-dovey for the past weeks.”
I huffed a laugh. When I first proposed this idea, I hadn’t actually expected this part to be so difficult. I’d thought that by now, we’d both be scrambling to get away from each other.
But that simply wasn’t the case.
“What if,” Isla said, awkwardly playing with her napkin, “we just…don’t break up?” Her eyes flicked in my direction then away quickly.
My heart kicked against my ribs. I could feel a smile trying to spread across my face, but I did my best to bite it back. “I suppose we’ll have to, since it seems there really is no way to stage this fight that feels believable,” I said, knowing it was a total lie. If we wanted the town to believe we’d broken up, we could make it happen. Butwasthat what we wanted? For my part, the answer was no.
“Exactly,” Isla said. She propped her head on her hand, grinning at me. “I guess we have no choice but to stay together.”
“That seems to be the case,” I said, relieved. I didn’t want to stop holding her hand when we went out together. I didn’t want to have to keep my distance in public—and definitely not in private. Maybe this wasn’t how we’d planned for things to go, but the best plans left room for improvement, didn’t they?
“The one benefit is we don’t need to make such a show of our relationship now,” Isla reasoned, sipping her juice. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and I couldn’t help staring at them. “That means we don’t need to worry about going out all the time and can spend more of our time staying in…together.”
“I like the sound of that,” I agreed. Ireallyliked the sound of that. “And I plan to take you up on that offer. Even more when I get back from Edinburgh.”
Isla’s face fell. “What do you mean when you get back?”
I swallowed hard, wincing as the edge of the toast scratched the back of my throat. Why did she look so upset? “Well, now that the property has passed hands and the announcement is live, I need to get the ball rolling. You know, meet with the architects, lock down the contracts.” I’d hesitated to invest too much of my time planning while the project was still unconfirmed. But now, I was eager to break ground on construction. “That means heading back to the city even though I’d love to stay longer,” I wiggled my eyebrows, “andstay inwith you.”
Isla’s eyelashes fluttered, lines crinkling across her forehead. Not quite a frown, but close. “I thought you were going to be sticking around.”
“I’ve been here for weeks,” I pointed out.
“And you’ve been doing all right working remotely, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Though most of my contacts are back in the city. It’s just easier to arrange meetings and such there.”
“But you just signed up to help with the summer festival,” Isla argued. “And now you’re leaving?”
Unease coiled through me, tingling in my hands. I curled them over my knees, squeezing. She wasn’t trying to get between me and my work, was she? Because I knew firsthand that that led to failed deals and embarrassment. I had no intention of venturing down that road again.
I looked into her eyes and brushed the idea aside. That’s not what was happening here. She just wanted an explanation, nothing more. “I’ll make sure that I’m back here in time to fulfill all my duties to the festival,” I assured her, trying to get her to smile. “I’d never cross the council after they were so good to me.”
Isla pressed her lips together. “Right.”
“Hey,” I said, nudging her leg under the table with my own. “I’ll be back and forth plenty. You’ll see. It’s not like I’m going to up and disappear. There’s a lot in Braeburn worth coming back for. Trust me.”
Her lips curled like a bow, her cheeks pinking. “Like…Hamish’s pies?”
“Well, yes, obviously.”
She huffed a laugh. “That’s good,” she said, more reassured. “And it’s not like you’re planning to leave thisminute, right?”
“I do have some things to finish up before I head off,” I agreed.
She stood, abandoning her breakfast, and took me by the hand. “I have something you need to finish.” She flashed me a positively wicked grin, and I let her drag me back to her bed to show her just how good I was at finishing things.
17
