Page 100 of The Christmas Highland Lodge

Blake’s brows bunched together. ‘Not if you’re an excellent and expert climber.’

I pulled a comical face. ‘Like you, you mean?’

‘Possibly.’

We stood up in companiable silence, letting the steel-grey sky splinter with more marmalade sun. The wintery kaleidoscope of shades smudged over Ben Linn.

‘So, what happened?’ I asked in a gentle voice. ‘After you discovered about Amy.’

‘A messy, protracted divorce. Because I refused to try again with our marriage, she became spiteful.’ He kicked at the shoreline. ‘My mum had passed away two years previously and a couple of the newspapers were trying to make a big thing of my marriage breaking down.’ He sighed. ‘That was when I decided to leave Edinburgh and try to start over somewhere else. What was it you said? Reset?’

He offered me a wry smile that made my heart throb in empathy for him. ‘My agent wasn’t too happy about my decision to “go off grid” as he put it, but I felt I needed to. I had no choice.’

I nodded. ‘I don’t blame you. Sometimes, you have to put yourself first.’

‘You do.’

I flicked him a look. ‘Was that why you decided to quit TV? Because of your marriage breaking down?’

Blake rubbed at his beard and turned away from me to study the hills again. ‘Yes. I didn’t want to be in the middle of some media storm.’

The thought of him daring to blame himself for Amy’s behaviour, just because of his sudden media success, was ridiculous. I risked a look up at him. ‘I heard you on the phone that day when she called you up by the cabins.’

‘I’m sure you did. It would have been hard not to.’

I took a moment to appreciate the scenery laid out in front of us, like a moody watercolour. ‘What did she want?’

‘Amy wanted what she always wants: more money. Turns out Tyron isn’t making enough of it for her liking. She’s a user. It took me a while to realise it. I think deep down I knew she was like that all along, but I thought she might change – or at least I hoped she would.’

Blake scuffed his boots against the shingle. ‘I think the success I was having with my books and the TV series made her worse, not better.’

My heart lurched for him. ‘What Amy did is no reflection on you. You didn’t deserve it. It was her decision to cheat on you. It’s obvious how much you love her.’

‘Loved,’ he clarified.

I paused, considering what he had just said. ‘And can I ask you what happened to Amy?’

‘She ended up marrying Tyron. Last I heard, he had qualified as a personal trainer and they had emigrated to Portugal. Amy has opened up her own beauty parlour out there with the proceeds she got from our divorce.’ Blake shot me a look. ‘But it obviously isn’t enough, seeing as she was trying to squeeze more cash out of me by telling me that Tyron isn’t getting the number of wealthy clients he thought he would.’ Blake gave his dark head a shake. ‘It never was enough money for her.’

I turned over in my mind what he was telling me. ‘Well, more fool her for treating you like that.’

I realised the vitriol towards the woman was heavy in my voice. Blake studied me.

‘And as for your dad turning up the way he did…’ I pressed my lips together, couching in my head what was the best way to broach this delicate subject. ‘I totally understand why you felt that you needed a new start after going through all that.’

Blake looked lost as he studied the patchy sun dipping and weaving behind the clouds. ‘That money in my account, all the money I thought was from my grandmother… That helped me get started on my mountaineering training.’

‘Did it?’

‘Oh yeah. I was able to undertake my instructor’s training in Wales and France. Like most things, these sorts of courses are not cheap.’ Blake kicked at a random stone on the shore. ‘I learnt everything from the technical aspects of rock climbing and mountaineering, to improvised rescue, teaching, mountain environments, navigation, group adventure activities. It really was the whole nine yards.’ Blake stopped and almost smiled. ‘Sorry. I’m going on a bit. I sound like you talking about Christmas.’

‘Thanks for that.’

‘You know what I mean.’

I eyed him. ‘Blake, for what it’s worth, you ought to know you aren’t stupid at all. Far from it.’ I let my hands rise and fall by my sides. ‘From where I’m standing, you were the innocent party in all this. You were caught up in some sort of tangled, resentful game. I’m sure your mum didn’t mean for it to get as out of control as it did or that you would suffer because of it.’

Blake flexed his dark brows at me, not appearing convinced.