Chapter 2
Two
FYFE
Two years ago
I drove down Castle Street, the main street through Ardnoch, an avenue of identical nineteenth-century terraced houses with dormer windows. Most of the homes had been converted into boutiques, cafés, and inns. In among them was Morag’s, a small grocery store and deli, Flora’s, the most popular café in the village, and Callie’s Wee Cakery, Callie’s mum’s bakery.
The cobbled streets and old-fashioned lampposts, the creeping ivy and hanging flower baskets in bright bloom for the summer, made the village picture-perfect. Once upon a time, I’d never imagined returning here, no matter how quaint and idyllic it was.
Yet, two years ago, I found my way back. Maybe fate had a hand.
Or maybe Deirdra.
When my old neighbor passed away, I’d gone home to Ardnoch for her funeral. I was pissed off at myself for not being better at staying in touch when she’d done so much for me. While I was drowning my sorrows in the Gloaming (a hotel, pub, and restaurant owned by Lewis’s uncles), my best mate’s dad, Thane, approached me, along with his brother Lachlan. Lachlan Adair owned and ran Ardnoch Castle and Estate, a private members-only club that catered to film and TV industry people.
Somehow, our conversation turned into a job proposition, and I found myself bringing my cybersecurity company home to Ardnoch. My team all worked from home, so it was easy enough for me to make the move. We now protected all of Lachlan’s (and the rest of the Adairs’) businesses from digital threats, as well as some of the club members, so being able to use the estate as a base to meet those clients made the most sense. Since I was proficient in all types of security, I also advised on the security system for the estate. Lachlan used a drone perimeter, but I’d boosted its digital defenses so it was nigh impossible to hack.
I’d gone from wondering how I’d feed myself as a teen to having more money than I knew what to do with. At uni, I’d created an online game in my spare time that grew so popular, I sold it for millions to a large gaming company. They also offered me a job. Fans of the game wanted more from me, but creating games was just something I was good at. Not something I particularly enjoyed.
When one of my favorite uni professors realized what a great fucking hacker I was, he decided to employ my talents for good. After I’d freelanced for him, he recruited me to join his cybersecurity company. After graduation, I decided to set up my own company because I liked being my own boss. Money. I had it now. Financial independence. Pride, I had that too. In my achievements and in my company. My job meant protecting people from digital threats, people I chose to work for. I refused to work for individuals or companies whose morals didn’t align with mine. I could feel good about that.
I’d been home for two years, had bought a fancy architect-designed house, and traveled any chance I got. Once I was a forgotten kid from the Highlands and now I was a man who had seen a bit of the world, only to discover, he craved home after all.
But Ardnoch wasn’t the same without Lewis and Callie.
Not once in those first years in Edinburgh did I contemplate returning to my hometown. Yet as the years passed, the bitter memories faded and were overtaken by the good ones. While I’d met friends at uni, none of them had Lewis and Callie’s staying power. Those others were surface friends who you had a good time with. It made me realize Lewis and Callie were my home.
Yet they were broken apart. Callie was off in Paris at a pastry school and Lewis was in London.
Until now.
Driving straight through the village, I continued until I hit the small development of architect homes on the McCulloch farm. Locals Jared and Allegra McCulloch had developed the small neighborhood on their land and sold off the lots for a small fortune. My house had plenty of land around it and floor-to-ceiling windows that captured the views of rolling hills and surrounding woodlands.
I’d barely been in the house five minutes when I heard Lewis’s Harley growl to a stop on my driveway.
After seven years apart, Lewis and Callie had reconnected in London with a drunken one-night stand. It was the push Lewis needed to get his finger out of his arse and go after the woman he loved. While I might not understand his obsession with only one woman, I believed my best mate was incapable of loving any but her. So I was rooting for them. Lewis had graduated and was now a fully fledged architect, and he’d accepted a job at his father’s firm in Inverness so he could come back to Ardnoch to pursue Callie.
They’d split up as teens because Lewis hadn’t wanted to stay in Ardnoch and Callie did. Lewis had realized over the years that all he’d wanted was to see the world. He’d been pining for his ex and his childhood home ever since.
I was damned happy my best mate had returned.
Lewis Adair was as tall as me. Back in Edinburgh, I usually felt like the biggest bloke in the room, but maybe there was something in the water in the Highlands. Lewis got his height from two of his uncles. His uncle by marriage was tall too, as was Callie’s father. There were quite a few big guys you wouldn’t want to mess with walking the streets of Ardnoch.
Unlike me, Lewis didn’t stroll around in suits and Derby shoes. He kept his long hair in a man bun, his beard wasn’t nearly as neat and trim as mine, and while I had no tattoos, Lewis had many. One of his arms was covered in a sleeve of meaningful tattoos I was pretty sure only I knew were mostly about Callie. He strolled into my house in jeans, biker boots, and a long-sleeve tee, looking very much like the biker who’d parked his Harley outside my front door.
It was great that he could drop by anytime we wanted now.
And I had to remind myself of that when Lewis stalked inside, preoccupied over Callie. I’d been about to share with my friend my plans to open the house up even more by removing the wall between the entrance and the rest of the living space, but he looked like he had something on his mind. That’s when he explained Carianne’s moronic plan to get him and Callie back together.
Carianne and I hadn’t seen much of each other since my return, but now that Callie was home, I was sure we’d bump into each other. She was already doling out her usual nonsense because she’d suggested Lewis fake date her to make Callie jealous. And she suggested this after admitting she had feelings for Lewis and wanted to date him for real.
He’d barely finished relaying this to me when I told him it was the worst idea I’d ever heard. It would only push Callie further away, and I could tell by his expression, deep down, he knew that too.
Before he could respond, his phone rang and he answered a video call.
It was his wee sister.
Eilidh.
A pang of emotion I couldn’t quite identify echoed inside, and I sat down next to Lewis to speak to her.
For the last few years, I’d watched from afar as Eilidh Adair became a famous actor. A bloody great one at that. I was a fan of her TV show Young Adult . Though I found it difficult to watch her portray such a harrowing character and I fast-forwarded through the sexier scenes she acted out. The last time I’d seen her was in London at a wrap party for the first season of the show. I was visiting Lewis and I tagged along. She’d been flirty as ever, but there was a disconnect. Like there was a wall between us and she was no longer the wee girl I once knew. Seeing her in national ad campaigns and movies, hearing the internet gossip about her love life, and her being so beautiful she didn’t seem real … it only heightened the distance.
Once we’d been close, but now we were worlds apart.
Right then, however, with no makeup on, Eilidh was more like the teenager I remembered.
“Fyfe Moray, I always knew you were a smoke show,” she said upon seeing me.
It was a knee-jerk reaction to roll my eyes and get up off the couch. “And you haven’t changed a bit.” I sat on the opposite couch again, giving Lewis space with his sister. But I felt something like relief. Because the Eilidh I’d just seen was nothing like the unattainable goddess who’d broken away from her family. From Ardnoch. From us all.
Christ, it was possible that pang I felt was … maybe I’d missed her a little.
“So, what’s perfect timing?” I heard her ask her big brother.
Lewis frowned at his phone screen. “Are you okay?”
Why wouldn’t she be? I sat up straight, waiting for her answer.
“I’m fantastic. For the first time in ages, I have a few weeks off before the next project.”
“Is that the film you’re shooting in Romania?”
“The very one. I’ve been lounging around my flat, doing bugger all for a few days. It’s nice, but I’ll get bored soon enough, I suppose.”
I scowled as Lewis’s concern ratcheted up. I knew Lewis and their whole family worried about Eilidh. She didn’t check in with them nearly enough. And I realized I resented her a little for it. While Lewis fucked off to London, he never lost contact with any of us. I spoke to him nearly every day, and I knew he checked in with his family all the time. There was no doubt in my mind that distance wouldn’t keep him from us. However, Eilidh had made her own family with show biz people. It was like she didn’t need the Adairs anymore. As someone who’d found solace in them because my own family was shit, it pissed me off that Eilidh took hers for granted.
I was pulled from my musings as I realized Lewis was filling Eilidh in on Carianne’s plans.
“After asking him out!” I called, getting up to sit back down beside Lewis. Needing someone else to agree that her plan was terrible, I continued, “He forgot to mention Carianne asked him out for real first.”
“Not surprising.” Eilidh shrugged. I noted the dark circles under her eyes and wondered if she was working or partying too hard. Or both. “I always knew she fancied Lewis.”
It would have been nice if I’d known that back then. “Aye, apparently even when she was dating me.”
“I remember telling you she wasn’t good enough for you,” Eils said, and then turned to her brother. “And you’re an idiot if you trust a woman who has admitted to secretly harboring feelings for her friend’s boyfriend and boyfriend’s friend for years. Let me tell you, Carianne is hoping that by pretending to date her, you’ll fall in love with her instead, like some fucking stupid rom-com.”
And there it was. I’d forgotten beneath Eilidh’s devil-may-care attitude and flirting, she was perceptive as hell. It was what made her such a good actor. Understanding the human condition. “That sounds like Carianne,” I agreed.
Lewis huffed. “Carianne’s nice, no? I mean, she loves Callie.”
“Maybe.” Eilidh grimaced. “But she’s also always been jealous of Callie. When we were kids, it didn’t matter what Callie had, Carianne had to have it too.”
“I remember that.” I nodded. “When we were dating, if Callie got something, Carianne wouldn’t shut up about it until she got it too. I just thought it was what girls did.”
“No.” Eilidh screwed her face up at me. “Way to generalize us.”
My lips twitched with amusement. “It’s called assessing female behavior on fact-based evidence.”
“A report based on the behavior of one subject is ludicrously flawed and inaccurate.”
A spark of enjoyment flickered through me. “It’s based on all the girls I’ve dated.”
“Then maybe you should be more discerning in your choice of sexual partners. And according to Lewis, those are many.”
“Pot meet kettle, no?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m discerning.”
“Really?” I thought of the guy I saw her hook up with at a wrap party a few years ago. “Do we really think so?”
Eilidh opened her mouth to retort, and I realized I was anticipating her response because I was disappointed when Lewis cut her off.
“You’re both right,” he admitted.
“We are?” Eilidh wrinkled her nose in a way that made her look all of fourteen. “About what again? Fyfe befuddled me with his mild misogyny.”
“Uh!” I gaped at her, trying not to laugh. “How dare you?”
Eilidh grinned, and I felt a flush of pleasure at seeing her beautiful smile brighten her expression. “You’re so easy to wind up.”
I rolled my eyes because we both knew I was letting her wind me up. Then I turned to Lewis. “What are we right about?”
“That pretending to date Carianne to make Callie jealous is a bad idea. Not only is it childish, but I think it would push Callie further away.”
“Agreed,” Eilidh and I said in unison and then shot each other a scowl neither of us meant.
“So …” Lewis sighed heavily. “Any ideas on what I should do next?”
“Well.” Eilidh smirked. “I know this might not make you happy, Mr. Impatient, but I think you should try a different tactic. It’ll take longer, but it’s more likely to work.”
“And what’s that?”
“Ask her if you can try to be just friends.”
“Just friends?”
“Just friends. Then you can spend time together without all the pressure, and you can remind Callie that you’re a loyal, good person she can trust.”
There Eilidh went again, being all smart and wise and perceptive. I wondered how many people in her life missed how deep Eilidh’s waters were because they were so blinded by the beauty and flirt and charm.
Lewis looked at me.
“She’s right,” I agreed.
“Did it hurt you to admit that?” Eilidh teased.
“Why? Because I’m mildly misogynistic?”
“Did I say mildly? I meant wildly.”
Amusement curled the corners of my mouth. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this much fun bantering with someone.
“Friends,” Lewis interrupted us. “You both think I should propose friendship?”
“If you want to prove that your first thoughts are to Callie, then aye,” Eilidh insisted. “She needs trust to build between you again.”
A few minutes later, to my surprising disappointment, Eilidh hung up. Lewis left to consider his options over Callie, and I got back to work. However, that feeling lingered throughout the day. The disappointment. The gnawing sense that something was missing.
Then, as I was getting ready for bed that night, my phone buzzed.
I picked it up to find a text from an unknown number.
Despite your mild misogyny, it was nice catching up today.
Grinning, I saved Eilidh as a contact and replied:
If you call insulting me catching up. It felt more like a roast.
My phone binged and my smile stretched my face.
I also called you a smoke show. Trust you to home in on the negative. Also I miss your glasses. Did you get laser eye surgery, Fyfe Moray?
Nope. Contacts. I’m wearing my glasses as we speak.
Well, that’s a relief. For a minute there, I thought my Fyfe had disappeared.
Her Fyfe.
That felt better than it should.
Shoving that thought away, I replied honestly.
You’re one to talk. Today is the first time I saw the real Eils.
What does that mean?
You were you and not the untouchable BAFTA Award-winning Eilidh Adair.
Is that what I am?
Somehow I sensed the melancholy in her reply. I hadn’t meant to upset her.
It’s been a while since we spoke. All I’ve known of you is what I see on TV or on ad campaigns.
Well, I’m still me.
I got that today. It was good to see.
I waited for a response, but a minute passed and nothing. Disappointed, I put my phone down and reached for my e-reader. I hoped I hadn’t offended her.
Then a minute or so later, my phone binged again. I dropped my e-reader in my rush to pick up the mobile.
If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell Lewis or anyone?
Disquiet filled me. I didn’t like the idea of keeping anything from Lewis, especially pertaining to his sister. But once, almost ten years ago, Eilidh had kept a secret for me.
You can tell me anything and I promise not to share it.
I waited impatiently for her response.
I’m lonely
Fuck.
My thumbs hovered over the screen.
I hated the idea of Eilidh out in the world, alone and lonely.
I knew what loneliness felt like. Didn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Come home, Eils.
She took a few seconds to reply again.
I can’t. I’m under contract to do this film in Romania.
Shit. My thumbs flew over the screen.
Then text me, call me, anytime. I’m here.
I don’t want to bother you.
Eilidh, you’re never bothering me. Promise me you’ll keep in touch.
Okay. I promise.