Chapter 1
Present day
Edinburgh Airport, Scotland
Sudden nerves filled my belly as I watched the frown deepen on the customs attendant’s face. This was taking longer than it usually did, and I should know. Since graduating from art school four years ago, I’d been flying back and forth to Scotland. Legally, I could only stay for six months on a visitor’s visa, so I’d fly wherever the wind blew me for a few months and then fly back to Scotland for another six months.
Suddenly, she looked up, expression blank. “You’ll need to come with me, Ms. Howard.”
My heart thudded in my chest. “Why?”
“Come with me, please,” she insisted sharply.
Okay. Yeah. Don’t argue with customs officials, Allegra!
Feeling like I was being led to jail, I followed the short, scary woman beyond the customs desks, ignoring the curious gazes of the other passengers behind me. She held open a door for me, gesturing me inside a small room.
Thankfully, I didn’t have a ton of luggage because I’d slowly brought everything I needed over here these last few years. But I was going to miss my connecting flight to Inverness if whatever this was didn’t end soon. I said as much to the attendant and she ignored me, gesturing toward a standard table with a chair on either side. To my frazzled, jet-lagged brain, it looked like an interrogation room.
I let go of my small carry-on roller bag and slumped into the chair. “What’s going on?”
She waited until she was seated opposite me. “Ms. Howard, we’d just like to ask you a few questions regarding the reason for your visit to Scotland today.”
I leaned toward the iPad she had in front of her. “Didn’t I put that on my forms?”
“Yes. But considering you’ve spent an accumulated forty-two months in Scotland in the last four years, that suggests to Immigration that you’re permanently living in the UK without the correct visa.”
Oh shit.
I gaped at her, not sure how to respond because she was kind of right.
“Two of my colleagues are on their way to ask you a few questions about this. Hopefully, it won’t be too long and we can sort this out.”
“My sister lives here,” I said hurriedly. “I’m only visiting my sister. I promise.”
“Like I said, my colleagues will discuss that with you.”
An overwhelming panic filled me at the thought of being sent back to the States. The kind that made my breathing turn shallow and my cheeks tingle. As the woman left the room, I closed my eyes and focused on the breathing exercises I’d learned while studying mindfulness.
It will be okay, I promised myself, trying to shove out the fear.
Somewhere between Inverness and Ardnoch
Eight hours later
We were barely twenty minutes into the hour drive to Ardnoch when my cab driver started making disapproving sounds that soon turned into a jumble of Scottish I didn’t understand. Except for the curse words. Those I understood.
“What’s wrong?” I asked from the back seat of the old taxi.
“Warning light’s on. Sorry, doll, I’ll need to find somewhere to pull over.”
I slumped back in the seat, cursing myself for getting in a car that looked like it was older than me. But the guy had been the only taxi left outside the airport.
It was early June. Tourists were crawling all over the Highlands, taking all the cabs with them.
Sure enough, he slowed the car and pulled it up onto the grass at the side of the road. I’d visited enough times, spent hours and days exploring the Highlands, to know that the tranquil water gleaming in the late-afternoon sun on our left was an inlet of the Cromarty Firth.
We were still a good forty minutes from home.
Home.
If I didn’t do something soon and fast, my home would be taken from me.
I threw the thought away because it tightened my chest. Leaning forward, I asked, “Can I call someone for you?”
“On it.” The cabbie waved his cell at me and then proceeded to contact someone called “Bowbeh.” I assumed his name was actually Bobby. Scottish people. You gotta love those accents.
I did love those accents.
Pressing my nose almost to the passenger window, I sighed heavily. I loved the landscape. I loved the dichotomy of the soft, the gentle, against the rugged wildness. Most of the Scots I’d met were earthy and real in a way I hadn’t always experienced growing up as a child of a famous director and supermodel. Scots had a strong sense of self, of country, had a great sense of humor and were not easily offended, which was refreshing in a world where everyone was offended by everything.
Except for Ardnoch during the summer when tourists descended, the Highlands felt like it was part of another universe entirely. It sounded kind of crazy since I was only twenty-five years old, but I’d found peace here. This beautiful, largely untouched place filled my soul and calmed the voices of a past that still haunted me.
And this place had one hold on my heart that no other had.
Aria was here.
My big sister.
My safe place.
Tears threatened at the thought of not being near her anymore. To returning to long-distance phone calls and daily texts. It just wasn’t the same.
June wasn’t overly hot in this part of the country, but the sun was beating through the window and with the car engine off, there was no AC.
The driver hung up. “Sorry, lass. My mate is coming to tow me to Inverness. We’ll sort you out with a taxi when we get back.”
Shit.
I was jet-lagged, worried, and I just wanted to be in Ardnoch already. Nodding numbly, I mumbled, “I’m going to step out for some air.”
“Be careful of that road. It’s a sixty.”
I knew that from the way cars flew past us, making the vehicle shudder. “I’ll stick to the grass,” I promised.
I stepped out of the car, my sneakers hitting the lush green blades. My legs trembled a little as I straightened. Shutting the car door behind me, I stared out at the inlet. Across the way, a patchwork of fields in varying shades of green, dotted with trees here and there, swept upward. Peeking behind them were hills I’d seen covered in snow only a few short months ago.
The sky above was blue, enjoying a reprieve from the clouds that were now floating into the distance. The sun warmed my face even as a gentle breeze swept up from the glassy surface of the firth. The musky, sweet smell of a nearby cluster of purple thistles mingled in the air with the salty scent of sea and the earthy odor of the surrounding fields.
Home.
I dragged a shaking hand through my hair, trying to quiet the rising panic. Sucking in a gulp of air, I began to pace along the grassy roadside. Think, think. So Immigration told me this was my last visit to Scotland for a while. I was not getting in if I returned in another six months because they’d assume I was trying to live here without a visa. I could fix this. Aria would help me fix this. I’d already been looking into business expansion visas, so maybe I just needed to move my ass on that.
A car horn startled me, and I glanced away from the water to see an old Range Rover Defender pulling up behind the taxi. My first thought was that the cabbie’s friend had arrived, but then I caught sight of the face behind the wheel.
I stumbled to a stop, my heartbeat skipping so it felt like a throb in my throat.
As soon as the road was clear, Jared McCulloch jumped out of the Defender. At the same time, my cab driver got out to see why.
“We’re all right, mate,” the cabbie called. “Got a tow coming.”
Jared lifted his chin but gestured to me. “I know her.”
“Ah, good stuff.” The driver grinned at me. “He can give you a lift, then.”
Butterflies erupted in my belly at the thought. But Jared, expressionless, just nodded. “Of course. You got luggage?”
In answer, the driver opened the trunk and pulled out my carry-on. Jared took it. “Thanks, mate.” Then he looked at me and jerked his head toward the passenger side. “Get in.”
I bristled a little at the order. And the handling of the situation by these two men. No one asked me if I wanted Jared McCulloch to give me a ride home!
Facial muscles straining against a frown, I gave the driver a tight-lipped smile before I grabbed my other bag out of the back seat. With a muttered thanks, I traipsed over to the Defender and reluctantly hauled myself up into it.
My skin prickled with awareness as Jared got in. The Defender smelled of his cologne. He was a farmer. Wasn’t he supposed to smell like a farm? It was so unfair. I felt all of thirteen again, on my first date with Colton Gold. We went to the movies and I barely breathed the entire time in case he thought I breathed too loudly. Every single tiny movement he made I was aware of, and I still, to this day, cannot remember what movie we saw.
That’s how it was with Jared.
How it always was and had been for the last five years.
It was worse being stuck in a car with him.
He didn’t say anything until he’d pulled the vehicle back onto the road. “You all right?” he asked for some reason.
“Fine. You?” He stared straight ahead, and I studied him as I tried to ignore the flutter of attraction I felt simply looking at him.
Usually, there was some warmth to Jared, even if he’d never flirted with me again once he discovered who I was. I wasn’t sure if that was because his cousin Sarah was married to Theo Cavendish who was best friends with North, my sister’s husband, or if it was because I was Wesley and Chiara Howard’s daughter.
Anyway, there had been zero acknowledgment of the heady attraction between us that first meeting, and ever since, Jared had acted like I was a sexless relative. We’d been forced into socializing over the years because of the familial connection. Last year, we’d even shared Christmas dinner.
But he at least treated me with a distant friendliness. And he was warm and funny in a gruff sort of way with everyone else around him.
Today, there was a brittle aloofness in his manner. “Fine.”
“Are you sure?” He didn’t seem fine. “I’m sorry if I’m putting you out.”
“You’re not putting me out,” he replied tonelessly. “I was on my way back from Inverness, anyway.”
My gaze flickered to his hand resting on the curve of the drive stick. He had strong hands, long-fingered but big-knuckled. The nails were blunt and surprisingly clean. The flash of an image, those knuckles caressing my bare stomach, heated my cheeks and I blinked the thought away.
The truth was that I was used to sexual attention. Since I was fourteen years old, I’d been chased by people, young and old. Sexualized before I was ready for it. I could blame genetics for that. Mamma made her money from being beautiful, and everyone said I looked a lot like her. I grew up in a world obsessed with that kind of beauty, around people’s selfish desire to have it for themselves. So I’d always sought out sexual partners who saw beauty in things that other people didn’t. Guys who didn’t make me feel like they just wanted to fuck me for bragging rights.
Jared was the first man I’d ever met who I just wanted to jump because I was attracted to him on a level I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know him or what his thoughts were on the world. I just wanted him.
And for a few exhilarating moments, he’d wanted me too.
The fact that he didn’t anymore because of who I was hurt in a different way to all those who had wanted me because I was Chiara Howard’s daughter.
We drove in silence, but it wasn’t an easy, comfortable silence. I was too aware of him and wondering constantly if he was really that immune to me or hiding his awareness.
While Jared wasn’t a big talker, this monosyllabic version of him didn’t seem right either.
Worry pricked me. “Are you sure everything’s all right? You seem …”
He flicked me a quick look. “I seem …?”
“Preoccupied,” I decided.
Jared replied with a grunt.
Just a grunt. Nothing else.
I didn’t know why that hurt. We barely knew each other, really. In five years, he hadn’t made an effort to get to know me. We were simply cordial whenever we were thrown together.
Turning away, I kept my gaze on the countryside outside the passenger window.
No more words passed between us until we reached Ardnoch.
“You’re staying on the estate, right?”
“Yeah.”
So Jared silently drove me outside the village, down the tree-lined road toward the security gates that led not to the castle that hosted the main club, but to the private gate for residents.
The guards recognized me and let Jared drive in. I directed him down the winding road because it branched off toward other properties.
My parents owned a beach house on the estate. It sat on the cliffs that dropped dramatically toward the dunes and the North Sea beyond. Aria and North bought the beach house next door when a famous studio head had put it up for sale five years ago.
“That one.” I pointed to the New England–style home with its wraparound porch.
Jared made a sound in the back of his throat, drawing my sharp gaze.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he muttered. He shut off the engine and threw open his door, jumping out.
With a heavy sigh, I got out and was just closing the door behind me when he rounded the Defender with my luggage.
“Thanks.” I took it.
“You’re welcome.” Those stunning green eyes barely met mine before he turned on his heel and rounded the back of the car.
I stood there, watching as he got in and drove away without another look or word.
“What the fuck was that?” I huffed at the empty space he left behind.