Page 3 of A Secret Scottish Escape

I surprised myself by letting out a gravelly laugh. It sounded alien, as though it didn’t belong to me. “Oh no. They were in bed together, weren’t they?”

Emma inclined her head. “I’m very sorry, but yes, it would seem so.”

I dragged my palms down the front of my jeans and shot out of my chair again. “This can’t be happening,” I murmured, my engagement ring flickering on my finger. “So, you’re telling me my fiancé had a fatal heart attack while he was shagging his ex-wife?”

Tom and Emma sprang up from their seats to stand in front of me. “We’re so sorry, Layla,” emphasised Tom again.

Shock and anger were battling it out inside of me. “Not as sorry as I am.”

Emma hovered in front of me. “Is there someone we can call for you? You shouldn’t be on your own right now.”

I traced my disbelieving fingers up and down my arms. I tugged needlessly at the hem of my jumper. “Harry,” I muttered. “You could ring Harry.”

“Harry Devlin is Layla’s Dad,” explained Tom to Emma.

“And Faith,” I added in desperation. “I want Faith.”

As I muttered those words, the irony wasn’t lost on me.

Mac and I had first met when I was assigned to interview him for a lifestyle magazine almost two years ago.

He was this louche, charismatic, older man with a ready smile and a prominent nose that only seemed to enhance his character.

Mac had flirted outrageously with me from the beginning of the interview, and as I was departing the Edinburgh restaurant where we’d met for lunch, he’d snatched my mobile from my hand and entered his number.

I remember feeling warm and fuzzy with flattery and admiration for this political thriller writer, and after allowing a couple of days to pass, I had rung him.

After a few dates, Mac insisted on visiting me in Loch Harris and was swept away by its silvery waters and swathes of forestry.

He said he had been energised by its beauty and I was delighted when he announced he was renting one of the plush new holiday apartments that had sprung up close to the town.

My dad had been sceptical of Mac from the beginning, especially when he learned that he had been married before. “But there’s a twenty-five-year age gap between the pair of you,” he would protest. “He could be your father.”

“But he’s not, is he? You are.”

I recalled Dad sucking in the air through his teeth. “And now you’re moving in with him?”

“Correction, Dad. Mac is moving in with me.”

My father had pushed his tanned hands into his combat trouser pockets. “Stop being so pedantic.”

Then he had reached out and given me a protective hug. “This must be boosting the old codger’s ego no end, being seen with a gorgeous twenty-nine-year-old.”

“Old codger?” I laughed. “Really?” Dad’s sombre expression made me laugh louder. “Mac’s only fifty-four, Dad, not ninety-four. And you’re only a year older than him.”

A flush appeared across my dad’s weather-lashed cheeks. “He’s been married before, love.”

“Well, so have you,” I pointed out, trying not to pull up images of my mother.

Tina was like this faceless silhouette at times, who had lingered on the outskirts of my life, before she’d taken off to London, leaving my shattered Dad and her confused young daughter behind.

The less I thought about my mother, the better I always felt.

“That’s an entirely different situation,” argued my dad.

“No, it isn’t. He’s over fifty, Dad, just like you. At that age, baggage is only to be expected.”

Now, that baggage – in the shape of Hannah, his ex-wife of twenty-four years – had reared her head in all its severe, black-bobbed glory.