Page 44 of A Scottish Highland Hideaway

“I don’t.”

Marcus looked exasperated. “Oh, for pity’s sake! Why not?”

He opened his mouth to protest, but I stopped him. “I will tell them, if the situation demands it, but not right now. It’s safer all round that the fewer people who know what’s going on, the better. I haven’t told Amber or Rowan about who I used to be for the same reason.”

He shot me a disapproving frown.

“Marcus, please. I’m asking you not to say anything to Mum and Dad. Not yet.” I dragged a weary hand down the side of my face. “Please. Just let me handle things for the time being.”

He flicked back a strand of hair. “Ok! Ok! I still think you should tell them, but you know you can trust me.”

“Thank you.” I offered him a small smile. “After all this, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to head straight back home to Edinburgh.”

Marcus was incandescent. “Are you kidding me? I’m not leaving you to deal with this mess on your own!” He stroked the candy-striped bedspread. “I was planning to stay a few days, if that’s ok?”

“You know you can stay with me for as long as you want.”

“Thank you. And anyway, let’s face it, I’ve got nothing to rush back for.”

I didn’t want to push Marcus into talking more about Jacob before he was ready, but I didn’t like the thought of my brother bottling up his emotions either. “You don’t have to go into details yet if you don’t feel like it, but I’m just wondering if Jacob has said any more about why he called the engagement off? It’s just so sudden.”

My brother’s mouth folded downwards. “I haven’t heard from him. I still can’t fathom it either and believe me, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.” He clicked his fingers and flinched. “Our future. Up in smoke. Just like that.”

My eyebrows gathered. It didn’t make sense. “And there were no indications from him that there were problems brewing?”

“Nope.”

He stared past my shoulder, his bright blue eyes dimming again. “Even Mum and Dad were shocked. Mum especially. She said he must’ve realised he wasn’t good enough for me, which is a load of old bollocks of course.” He shook his head. “I mean, it was so thoughtful of Mum and Dad to ask Jacob round the other week for dinner, when I was away at that training course in London. They’ve been so good to him.”

A kernel of suspicion began to grow. That was odd. Mum hadn’t mentioned anything to me. I frowned at him. “You never told me that.”

Marcus dismissed it. “It was no big deal.”

I turned this over in my head. “What day was that? Can you remember?”

Marcus snatched up his mobile beside him and checked his electronic calendar. “It was a week past, Thursday.”

A warning bell clanged in my head. “Are you sure?” I pressed. “Definitely the Thursday?”

Marcus waggled his phone at me. “One hundred per cent. Why?”

I forced my face into a casual expression. “Nothing. Just having random thoughts, that’s all.”

Marcus gave me an odd look, before tossing his phone back onto the bedspread.

Our dad hadn’t been at home at Bannock House that evening. He’d been away overnight with his golfing buddies in St Andrews for their annual soirée. I remembered because I’d called Mum, she hadn’t picked up and so I’d rung Dad instead to say hi and had been serenaded by half a dozen pissed, middle-aged men.

Confusion welled up inside of me. Why would Mum have chosen that night to have invited Jacob round? She would have known Dad wouldn’t be there.

A discomfiting sensation took hold. I felt ashamed for even thinking it, but did Mum know something about Jacob that we didn’t?

Lunchtime swung around and my preoccupied thoughts kept morphing to Declan lurking around in Glasgow.

I couldn’t settle or concentrate on anything.

I felt useless, standing here, while the spectre of my sleazy ex-fiancé kept insisting on haunting me.

I actually thought I was beginning to push him out of my past and now he emerges again, trying to cause havoc.