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‘No.’ He comes alive. ‘I’ll see you later.’
He turns to leave and then hesitates. My heart leaps. What now?
He looks back at me, a curious glint in his eye. ‘I’m not, by the way.’
‘You’re not what?’
His eyes flit to the screen of my laptop and to my horror I’m still on that page, with the headline blazing—Is our Dashing Fitzroy Gay?
Of all the articles it had to be that one...
Floor, swallow me now!
‘I’ll take the dashing, though.’
Something glitters behind those chocolate-brown eyes...something that triggers a thousand flutters inside me, each one contending with the mortifying burn.
‘Goodbye, Summer.’
And then he’s gone, and I want to stick my head and my nether regions in the nearest freezer. Maybe the café will have one out back big enough to take my entire body if I ask nicely enough...
I opt for slamming the laptop closed and pressing my forehead into its solid metal top.
Edward
I pull open the door to the street and can’t resist one last look.
She’s face-planted on her laptop and laughter bubbles up inside me, its force as surprising as its presence. I shake my head, step out, grateful for the chill in the morning air.
Nothing about this is funny.
Nothing at all.
She’s been back in my life less than twenty-four hours and already turned it on its head. No. Correction. Gran has done that. And as much I loved her, respected her, on this she couldn’t have called it more wrong.
Or hurt me any more than she has.
It’s not about the money. It’s about love and loyalty and my ancestral home. How could she do this? Gift half of it to a woman who’s been MIA for twenty years? How could she bring her back into my life and risk exposing me to that kind of pain again?
Betrayed and broken, I have no idea how to fix the way I feel. But I’ll stay in control and buy myself the necessary time to eradicate her from my life for good. I have my advisors looking into the terms of the will—if there’s a loophole, they will find it.
There’s no blood connection and no bond... The woman didn’t even make it back for Gran’s funeral. What kind of person claims to care and doesn’t even turn up to say goodbye?
I clutch the letter in my coat pocket and swallow down the rising sickness, walk away before I storm back inside the café and demand that she tell me.
Now isn’t the time or the place. Glenrobin is.
My jaw is throbbing by the time I enter the foyer of my Scottish headquarters, the double-height entrance enhanced by its glass front, white-tiled floor and flashes of chrome. Some might say it’s clinical—to me it means business. A space for focus and success. Success I’ve worked damned hard for, proving that I’m more than just my father’s name... My father’s title.
And look at Summer now...being gifted a fortune so vast it could feed a small nation and having done nothing to deserve it, too.
Well, over my dead body.
Sorry, Gran.
