Page 39 of A Scottish Highland Hideaway

He paused for a moment before speaking again. “I’ve dropped by about a couple of new tip-offs I’ve received.”

Zach’s voice made me refocus. “About what? Ezra King again?”

He raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. “No. Well, at least one of them is.”

“Oh?”

He pulled a brief smile.

Confusion burrowed in my chest. What the hell was going on?

I stared over my desk at him. “So, what’s this all about?”

Zach lasered me with his black-lashed eyes. “Firstly, I’ve been told by a very reliable contact that Ezra King has two daughters by two different high-profile women. But he doesn’t know they exist.”

My stomach exploded in a swarm of worried butterflies. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Surely Caroline and Laura hadn’t been going around telling everyone?! Oh God. Did that mean they were scammers after all? Had I been about to be duped by them as well? Anger and disappointment began to flare up inside me.

“Really?” I croaked. “Sounds like something you’d see on daytime TV.” I paused, trying to couch my words. “How did you come by that information? Did you bump into these two ‘high-profile’ women in the street or something?” I was mentally willing it not to be the girls themselves who’d told him. I was weary of being sceptical of people and wanted to be proved wrong.

Zach arched one brow. “A friend of a friend in the showbiz management world.”

“Right.” I heaved an inward sigh of relief. Ok, it wasn’t definitive evidence that Caroline and Laura were genuine, but at least it didn’t seem they’d been the ones blabbing to journalists about their possible connection to Ezra.

Zach leant forward in his chair. I could make out his shadow of dark stubble. “My editor, Adam, was tipped off yesterday.” Light flashed in his dark eyes. “If I can get exclusives on both of these stories, it’ll give a huge boost to my journalistic career.”

“Bully for you,” I ground out.

Zach gave me a look.

“And then there’s the other thing.” He paused. “Adam was at an editors’ lunch yesterday in Glasgow and he said there was some drunk guy hanging about outside the hotel. He got Adam’s attention by fawning all over him and saying how wonderful Stargazer magazine is. He’d obviously done his homework. Then he told Adam he was once in a relationship with a Scottish aristo party girl.”

I sat up straighter, as though someone had just fired an electrified current through my whole body.

No. It couldn’t be. It was too much of a coincidence.

The breath felt trapped in my throat.

“Adam said he was a right scruffy individual and didn’t look the type to be marrying someone like that.” Zach carried on talking, while the panicked buzzing in my ears got louder. “But he said this guy sounded genuine.”

I licked my lips. “And?”

Zach steepled his hands in his lap. “The guy told Adam he’d sell his story. Adam said he was wittering and slurring, and he could smell the booze off his breath, but this guy insisted he almost married her but got cold feet at the last minute.”

Cold feet? The lying, cheating bastard! He’s a crook!

My heart charged against my ribs so hard, I thought it was going to burst. Was Declan going to risk telling a lot of lies to the press? He was the one who left me at the altar, so to speak. Ok, I dodged a bullet, but that lying toad ran off with the money I gave him. It should be me who was talking to the press about him if anything. Not that I would ever do that.

Aware that Zach was studying me, I forced my expression into a neutral, calm one.

“So, a drunk guy accosts your editor in the street, claiming he was engaged to some aristocrat. So what?” I said.

Zach shrugged. “I know what you mean, but Adam said there might be a good story in it and the guy did seem the real deal. Claims that his ex is living somewhere in this area, but she’s trying to keep under the radar.” Zach’s eyes shone. “If I’m lucky, I might be able to get a double exclusive: Ezra King and the Bollinger Babe.”

My insides shuddered at the name the press labelled me with. “Sounds scintillating,” I said dryly.

Zach’s mouth twitched. “You’d be surprised at the appetite for this kind of thing,’ he said.

“Really?” I said, as though it wasn’t the entire reason I’d changed my name and my appearance, to get away from the gossipmongers and the pack of press dogs.