Hired By My Rich Highland Husband

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

R owan wasn’t accustomed to private chauffeur-driven cars – she wasn’t accustomed to cars in general – but now she was gliding through the Highland landscape in a sleek Maybach like some kind of budget Bond girl.

It was a far cry from Glasgow’s buses, where the air was seasoned with candy-floss vape, weed, and McDonald’s. No death glares from power-mad drivers who’d shut the doors in her face.

No, this private Benz, with its buttery leather seats, felt like riding in a spaceship through a parallel universe. It also felt like a weird flex. Was Maxwell trying to make her feel important to convince her to say yes to his grotesque proposal?

His driver – a stoic man named Oliver who looked like he’d been carved from a similar block of granite – hadn’t uttered a word since leaving the castle. Rowan stared out the window, replaying the morning’s events like an absurdist play.

‘Marry me,’ he’d said. Calmly. As if that weren’t completely bonkers.

Her mind ricocheted between outrage and a strange, unnerving flicker of intrigue. One year. A whole year living in a castle, all expenses paid. Enough money to cover her gran’s care, help her mum, and get a decent laptop that didn’t sound like a dying badger. It was tempting.

But marriage?

She was twenty-four; marriage hadn’t been on her horizon. Not even with Ben, and he’d been near flawless husband material. In theory. Until he’d followed the international hipster call to Berlin two years ago and dumped her arse.

And she should’ve seen that coming.

Rowan knew how to be the fun one, the bold one, the first to say ‘another round?’ at the pub. But real friendships and relationships, the kind that stuck? That was a lot trickier.

Maxwell’s mental. And I’m no less mental for even thinking about it.

Trusting a man like this – controlled, cold, and from another world – felt like walking into a catastrophe with open eyes. And what would it say about her if she agreed to this? Trading her independence for a cheque.

The car pulled up outside the B&B, and Oliver opened her door with the same blank efficiency he’d shown throughout the brief journey.

‘Thanks, mate.’ She paused. ‘Do I have to tip you, is that how it’s done?’

Oliver shook his head. ‘No, Miss.’

‘Anyhoo, thanks for driving me.’

He gave a curt nod and tapped the brim of his cap with two fingers. ‘Only doing my job.’

‘Still nice. See ya!’

The B&B’s reception area smelled of stale biscuits and wet walls. It was still early and Mrs Bellamy wasn’t around as Rowan trudged past the desk, wearing Maxwell’s jumper like a trophy for getting access to a reclusive millionaire.

Mission accomplished, next level unlocked.

After the castle’s vastness, her room felt even smaller. A suspicious brown stain on the ceiling had developed overnight, forming what looked like a crude map of Scotland. She sat down on the bed and pulled out her phone. ‘Time to check on the troops.’

Her mother answered on the fourth ring and sounded exhausted. Night shift again.

‘Everything awright, love? It’s before nine. You never call this early.’

‘Can’t a daughter check on her favourite mother without ulterior motives?’

‘Not when that daughter’s you. There’s always something going on in that head of yours.’ A pause. She heard her mum’s smile fading. ‘I don’t want you to worry, but your gran had a wee tumble last night.’

Rowan sat bolt upright. ‘What? What happened? Is she okay?’

‘Aye, a little bump on the elbow when she got out of bed. She was looking for your grandda again. Thought he’d just stepped out to get her flowers. Got confused about where she was, and when.’

The familiar guilt writhed in Rowan’s stomach. ‘I should be there.’

It wasn’t the physical fall, it was the mental slipping. Each time Gran confused the present with the past, Rowan felt her fading away further. And if the care home couldn’t manage…

‘Naw, love. You should be following your dreams, that’s what you should be doing. Found your story yet?’

She laughed, slightly hysterical. ‘Oh, you could say that. I might have half-accidentally broken into a castle and met its brooding owner.’

Her mother yawned. ‘What’s that now?’

‘Nothing, Mum. Journalism stuff.’ She picked at a loose thread in the blanket. ‘Listen, about Gran’s fees…’

‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ve picked up some extra shifts—’

‘Mum, no. You’re already working yourself to death.’

‘Better than the alternative.’ Her mother’s voice carried that unyielding tone Rowan knew all too well. She’d inherited it, after all. ‘We’ll manage. We always do.’

‘Aye, I guess so. Now go to bed and get that well-deserved beauty sleep. I love you!’

Hanging up, Rowan stared at her phone. Even the idea of writing that story felt absurd when she couldn’t even pay her gran’s bills with it. She checked her emails, hoping for good news from another travel magazine that had seemed interested in her pitch. Instead, she found a rejection for the current commission that might as well have been copied from a template:

Dear Ms MacKay,

Thank you for your work on the Drummond and Dunmarach feature. Unfortunately, due to editorial changes, we won’t be moving forward with the piece at this time. We appreciate your efforts and wish you the best in your future projects.

Rowan blinked. Read it again. They’d let her pitch the story, let her sink time and money into research, let her think she had something solid – only to drop it without a reason. No kill fee, no explanation. Just a boot to the bum.

‘Editorial changes, my arse,’ she muttered and deleted the email. ‘You don’t want to pay proper rates.’

Another email informed her that, due to financial constraints and the economy, her weekly gig writing blog posts for an HR company had been terminated effective immediately, cutting off her only trickle of income. Even though their staff consultants wouldn’t pick up the phone for her meagre hourly rate.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Rowan pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until colours flared behind the lids. Purples and greens, bruises blooming in the dark. Her chest felt stuffed with broken glass, shards catching and tearing with every inhale.

Twenty-four years old and what had she achieved? A collection of rejection emails and an overdraft that grew like a malignant tumour.

She’d done everything right, hadn’t she? University, internships, networking events where she’d smiled so hard her face hurt, pretending she belonged among trust fund babies who treated journalism as a hobby before daddy or mummy got them a proper job.

If she couldn’t make it as a journalist soon, what was the point? How much longer could she chase dreams that didn’t pay?

The memory of her final shift at The Last Drop popped up. Sticky floors, bass that thudded in her bones for hours after, fishing pound coins from puddles of spilt Tennent’s, some steamin’ lad trying to grab her arse while she collected glasses. She’d left that life, surviving on coffee, crisps, and Irn Bru. Day shifts at the café, nights at the club, uni in between. The thought of returning to that made her insides curdle.

The tears came hot and sudden. She buried her face in the pillow to muffle her hiccupping sobs. Her shoulders shook with the effort of containing them, an earthquake of frustration and fear that threatened to split her open.

Her gran’s face swam before her eyes, confused and vulnerable under the care home’s fluorescent lights. ‘Did I tell you about Joe visiting?’ she’d ask. Her late husband was the one place where her mind found rest and safety.

Rowan had only faint memories of her grandda – she’d been six when he’d passed – but she knew he’d adored the ground her gran walked on, and vice versa. They’d met at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom and never spent a day apart for thirty-four years – until he’d died suddenly from a heart attack eighteen years ago. And until that day, Joe MacKay had brought his wife coffee in bed every morning.

That was the kind of marriage Rowan wanted. Not the draining situationships her friends were involved in. And certainly not something like her mother and her biological father, who’d left her mum two years after Rowan’s birth and hadn’t been part of their lives since.

And most definitely not a stone-cold business deal.

The tears dried as she stared at the ceiling stain, her mind churning. What was the alternative, though? Going back to Glasgow and watching her gran lose out on the care she needed? Letting her mum work herself into an early grave? Accepting another soulless gig for pennies?

No.

It couldn’t go on like that.

She opened her laptop and started writing. That always helped to clear her mind and tame the chaos.

A few hours later, Rowan had her notes sorted. Writing kept her from going mad. She exhaled past that tight knot in her chest. Her stomach growled. Yep, the old sausage roll earlier had been a mistake.

Beggars, choosers, blah blah…

Her thumb hovered over her mother’s contact photo. A selfie from last Christmas, Gran mid-eye-roll in the background as Mum grinned under tinsel-draped antlers. She wanted to talk to her. But her mum would ask questions Rowan couldn’t answer. If anyone knew what it meant to rush into marriage and regret it, it was her mother. The screen turned hazy, and Rowan tossed the phone onto the bed, where it sank into the duvet’s faded floral valleys.

Another stomach growl.

Rowan put her boots on, cinching the laces tight around her ankles. Time for a pie and a pint at the pub down the road. Tax-relevant travel expenses, after all. Hashtag freelancer life.

Two hours later, the chips sat heavy in her gut. Rowan turned around on the bed, springs screeching like banshees, and stared at her phone. Now it was Pat’s contact photo that grinned at her. A shot from last Halloween, their faces painted like zombified Spice Girls.

‘Hey Pat, fancy being my witness when I sell my soul to a posh wanker for healthcare cash?’

The words curdled in her mouth.

‘Remember that castle I mentioned? Turns out the lord of the manor’s got a marriage kink. Pass the vodka.’

A text message from her mother interrupted her thoughts:

MAW (21:37) Last update for today: Gran’s arm’s fine, but she’s too tired for a call. Give her a ring the morra. Love!

Small mercies. The ceiling stain had morphed into what looked like Australia. The former penal colony. She chucked a sock at it and missed. Maxwell’s jumper still hung off her frame. She’d half-considered burning it, half-considered never taking it off. A tactile reminder of his stupid proposal.

‘Business merger,’ she scoffed to the empty room. ‘Merging what? My overdraft with his ego?’

Her notebook lay open to yesterday’s entry: Dunmarach Castle – crumbling empire or capitalist relic? Beneath it, fresh ink bled through the page: Would you marry the laird for a year’s rent? Followed by: Asking for a friend.

Somewhere in the village, a dog howled. She imagined it was singing a lament for her dignity. A moth kamikazed into the lampshade, casting shadows that danced across the ceiling.

Rowan grunted and flung an arm over her eyes. ‘All right, MacKay. Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow, the world will look different.’

That was what her gran always said, and she was always right.

Or at least used to be.

Sunlight stabbed through the threadbare curtains, and Rowan blinked awake to the ceiling’s evolving Rorschach test and a mouthful of jumper fabric.

The jumper.

The proposal.

She sat up, vertebrae realigning into something approximating human posture.

The mirror above the sink offered a harsh critique: yesterday’s mascara smudged into raccoon-chic, a crease from the pillowcase on her cheek like a duelling scar.

Her phone buzzed with a message from her bank. ‘Your overdraft limit has been reached.’

Okay. That’s it. I’ve had it.

This was the opposite of a fairy tale, but if it solved the problems that kept her up at night, she could live with a few moral compromises. Temporarily.

And it was a unique opportunity.

‘Let’s look at this logically,’ she muttered to herself. ‘One year of your life. That’s all. Pretend it’s some weird reality show. Big Brother meets Downton Abbey .’

She counted the points on her fingers. ‘You get a story. Gran gets proper specialist care. Mum can cut back on shifts.’ Her voice strengthened. ‘And Max gets…whatever the hell he needs this for. Everyone wins.’

She grabbed her laptop and pulled up the castle’s image again. The grey stones glowed in the light, proud and ancient and full of stories waiting to be told.

Besides, how many journalists could say they married a Highland laird for research?

That’s some gonzo journalism shite. Highly unethical, of course.

The lump in her chest loosened. Maybe she wasn’t selling out. Maybe she was being smart for once, playing the game instead of letting the game play her.

Rowan pulled out her notebook, trying to make sense of the morning’s events and the whole chaos:

Pros of fake-marrying Maxwell Drummond:

- Money for Gran’s care

- Help Mum (stop being the one who lets her down)

- Sell article (probably) – advance career?

- Save enough to buy wee flat

- Live in actual castle

- Gorgeous grumpy husband (shut up, brain)

- Could write book about experience???

Cons of fake-marrying Maxwell Drummond:

- Actually marrying a stranger (snores?)

- Living with Mr Darcy’s evil capitalist twin

- Probably illegal???

- Pride and principles completely destroyed

- Mum might murder me

Her pen hovered over the page. The minuscule, morally still-intact part of her brain screamed that this was like cycling through a minefield. The weight of her decision squeezed her chest. What would it mean for her pride? For her independence? Her (flexible) morals? She thought of her mum’s exhausted voice, of her gran’s grip on reality loosening day by day, and of the mountain of bills multiplying like rabbits on Viagra.

Once she did this, there was no turning back. No retreat. And that thought sent doubt skittering across her mind like a spider she couldn’t catch. But then again…

‘Fuck it!’

The phrase exploded from her like a battle cry, slicing through her hesitation. Pride wouldn’t pay the bills, and independence was worthless if her family crumbled under the weight of it. She grabbed her bag and marched downstairs, pausing only to scribble a note for Mrs Bellamy, before heading back up to the castle – straight into madness.

All rise… Here comes the bride.

The walk back to Dunmarach stretched before her, a winding ribbon through heather and gorse before the forest grew denser. Pewter clouds let single rays of morning sun in, painting the hills in brushstrokes of gold. Rowan stopped and let it sink in. This place was as much a part of her heritage as Glasgow’s concrete streets. Strange, how she’d grown up Scottish but had seen more of Glasgow and Ayrshire than of the Highlands. She knew her ancestors had been cleared and relocated during the Highland Potato Famine in the mid-nineteenth century like countless others. But that was all.

The breeze carried the sweetness of rain-soaked earth, so different from the familiar urban cocktail of bus diesel, piss, and chippy grease.

She breathed it in and something stirred beneath her ribs.

This was her land, too. These peaks and valleys, these prehistoric stones. Her ancestors had been forced out of these glens, driven to the Central Belt by hunger. And they survived. She didn’t know their names or their faces, but she felt their strength in this land. The thought made her walk a bit taller as she picked her way to Dunmarach.

The brass door knocker was cold in her hand. She lifted it once, twice, three times. Each knock echoed like in the stillness of mid-morning.

Maxwell opened the door himself.

So really no butler. Well, well.

His eyes widened at the sight of her.

‘I won’t be cleaning,’ she announced before he had the chance to speak. ‘And I have conditions.’

‘Let’s discuss these conditions inside.’

‘Nope, right here. First: I keep my job. My writing comes first. I want access to the castle’s records. Also, and this is a no-brainer, no shagging.’

‘Is that all?’

‘For now.’ She didn’t look away, half-expecting him to object. But he merely nodded, as if her job couldn’t possibly matter. Or the shagging.

‘Oh, one more thing. You have to tell me your middle name. I refuse to marry someone when I don’t know their full name. For all I know, you could be a Maxwell Bartholomew Percival Gandalf.’

That earned her an actual laugh. Short and surprised, like it had snuck out without his permission. ‘It’s…Alexander.’

‘Maxwell Alexander Drummond. Rowan Drummond.’ She tested the name. ‘Weird, but could be worse. Do we have a deal?’

Maxwell stared at her. His eyes, a mix of slate and ice, were unreadable. He looked as if he was weighing whether she was worth the trouble.

Then he stepped aside and gestured for her to enter. ‘We have a deal.’

The words left goosebumps on her skin. Crossing the threshold of the imposing front door, Rowan couldn’t shake the feeling she’d signed a contract with a very well-dressed, handsome devil.

But hey, at least hell came with free central heating.