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‘You might not say that when people start talking.’
‘I will. I know I will. Because you’ve made me believe it—made me believe that I can change my family legacy. But you won’t even take a chance on changing yours.’
‘I can’t, Cal.’
His heart breaking, Cal tried one last time. ‘You say you’re doing this for your baby, to make things easier for Daisy and Ryan and even me. But what about you? What about what you want?’
With a sad smile Heather picked up the rucksack from her bed. ‘I don’t deserve what I want.’
And then she walked out of the room, the castle and his life—like the ghost he wasn’t even sure existed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE TRAIN RIDE home was miserable.
Even in summer the sleeper train from Edinburgh to London was freezing, and Heather’s coat barely kept her warm enough to stop her shivering. Tears leaked constantly from her eyes, chilling her cheeks, but she couldn’t have stopped them if she’d tried.
She’d left her heart, maybe even her soul, in Lengroth Castle, and she had no idea if she’d ever get them back again.
But the train wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was telling her father everything.
It took her four days to pluck up the courage, but in the end she knew she couldn’t wait any longer if she wanted him to hear it from her instead of reading it in some magazine.
It was a miracle the news wasn’t out there already—that or the fact that Cal had used the old Bryce magic to keep it hidden for now. But the truth would come out in the end. Even the truth about her feelings for Cal, which she realised now she’d been denying for as long as she’d been feeling them.
Now her father sat opposite her, in the same armchair by the window that had been ‘Dad’s chair’ her whole life, a cup of tea long gone cold at his elbow. She’d wanted to shield him from the worst of her actions, wanted to fudge the truth and skip over certain events.
But she hadn’t been able to. She owed him the whole truth, however awful it was.
‘And so you came back here?’ her dad asked eventually, after she’d finished.
‘Yes.’
Her dad reached for a biscuit from the plate on the coffee table.
‘I can leave if you want,’ Heather said. ‘I mean, I know this is going to be a big story. It’ll probably make the papers. And I’ll totally understand if you want me far away when that happens. I was thinking maybe I could rent a cottage somewhere in Wales—like where we used to go on holiday. Take some time away from everything.’
Before she’d even reached London there had been a full year’s wages sitting in her bank account. Cal had been as good as his word—even when she hadn’t. He’d given her the means to take time to figure out what to do next, and she could never thank him enough for that.
Maybe she’d send him a postcard from Wales. If he ever wanted to hear from her again, that was.
‘Or you could go back to Scotland right now,’ her dad said, and Heather started, staring at him in confusion.
‘You...you really want me to go?’
She’d said she’d understand it if he did, but when it came to it she’d hoped her father would support her. And why would she run away to Scotland, of all places?
Her dad slipped his glasses from his nose, folded them, then placed them on the table next to his cold tea—a gesture so familiar that it made Heather’s heart ache for the time before this summer. Before she’d ever met Ross Bryce, when life had been simple, ordered and safe.
‘Heather. Sweetheart. I will love you and support you your whole life—whatever you choose to do, and whatever mistakes you make. And you will always have a home here.’
‘Thank you,’ Heather whispered, her eyes burning with more tears that wouldn’t fall.
‘But I’m your father, and it’s my job to tell you when I think you’re making a mistake. And I don’t mean getting pregnant by an earl, or running away and not telling me. I mean leaving Cal and those two children up there in Lengroth.’
Heather blinked. ‘I’m sorry...?’
Sighing, her dad reached forward to take her hands—a reassuring gesture that reminded her so much of Cal that her heart ached anew.
