EILIDH
“Mumma!” Millie called from the living room. “Mumma!”
I glanced up from my laptop to find Millie pointing at the TV. I’d had it on low on one of her cartoon shows while I worked on some rewrites Theo had sent over for our show. Millie, however, must have switched a channel or something because a trailer for Young Adult was playing.
Muttering expletives under my breath, I lunged for the remote and changed it back to her cartoon.
“Mumma!” Millie toddled over to me indignantly, reaching for the remote. “No!”
“Mumma’s right here.” I dropped the remote and lifted Millie into my arms. “You don’t need to see Mumma on TV because I’m right here.”
“No, no.” She stretched toward the remote control, her face crumpling.
The sound of our security system binging had relief flooding through me. “Is that Nana Regan?”
Millie let out a giggle of excitement. “Nana!” I took her hand and we slowly made our way over to the panel on the wall. Sure enough, it was Mum getting out of her car.
She was here to collect Millie because Fyfe and I were celebrating a very belated one-year anniversary this evening.
A lot had happened in the past year.
So much.
Not all of it pleasant.
Of course, I’d had to endure facing Peter Pryor at trial. Had to endure knowing the jury had seen enough of the footage he’d kept of me to know that he’d violated my privacy for years from the age of nineteen. The media were like buzzards all over the trial, trying to pick at my innards. Fyfe and Millie kept me strong. The work Theo and I were doing on the show kept me strong. Knowing I had a beautiful future ahead of me if only I could get through my ugly present kept me going.
Peter Pryor was sentenced to ten years in prison for stalking, assault, and violation of privacy. To me, it wasn’t enough.
But it didn’t matter.
Pryor died of a stroke three weeks into his sentence.
It was a sad legacy for a man that his death provided nothing but relief for me.
After the trial, I faced another round of scrutiny when I testified against Dr. Cameron Phillips. He wasn’t charged, but it was still worth it to go through that because he lost his medical license. Uncle Lachlan told me just yesterday that Dr. Dick, as we called him, had relocated to Australia.
Good fucking riddance.
Though I felt bad for Australia.
They deserved better than Dr. Dick.
There were some lovely moments in the year. Like Millie calling me Mumma for the first time instead of Ae . And the first time she walked by herself. Now she was toddling around the room, picking up things and usually throwing them. We had to have eyes on the back of our heads.
“Shall we open the door for Nana?” I asked.
Millie clapped her hands and almost stumbled with her exuberance. “Yesh!”
I took her hand again and opened the front door.
Mum’s eyes lit up when she saw Millie. “Millie Billie!”
“Nana!” Millie reached out for her with her free hand, all the while straining at my grasp.
My entire family had fallen deeply in love with Millie. To them, she was as good as my biological daughter. Loving Millie made me understand my mum better. There was a small part of me that had always worried since Morwenna came along that Mum might never love me like she loved Mor. But I knew now, loving Millie, that I had nothing to worry about. My heart belonged to Millie just as it would belong to any biological children Fyfe and I might have together.
A half hour later, Mum had departed with Millie and her overnight bag, and I got in the shower. Fyfe and I had a night to ourselves, so I wanted to be plucked and gleaming for what I hoped would be a very energetic evening in bed.
I was straightening my hair when I heard Fyfe downstairs. He didn’t call up or come find me, so I finished getting ready and strolled downstairs in the sexy floral summer dress I’d bought just for the occasion. I left my hair down and my feet bare. Rounding the staircase, I turned and abruptly halted. The lights were low and our dining table was aglow with candlelight.
Fyfe had thrown his suit jacket over the back of the couch, removed his socks, shoes, and tie, and rolled up his shirt sleeves while he cooked at the stove. The living space already smelled amazing.
He glanced over at me, his eyes flickering down my body from behind his dark framed glasses. He’d worn them just for me today. “Hi, baby.”
I bit my lip against a giddy smile because this man still made my belly flutter. Probably always would. “What are you making?”
“Spaghetti puttanesca.”
“Yum.”
“Wine?” He lifted a bottle with his free hand and poured into the empty glass next to his.
“I’m getting the full treatment tonight, huh?” I hopped up onto the stool at the island to watch him. “Anything I can do?”
“Drink your wine, relax.” He gave me a sexy grin full of promise.
Oh yes, tonight was going to be good.
I sipped at my wine and told him about how excited Millie was to leave with Nana Regan.
“Until she realizes she’s staying the night,” Fyfe murmured before taking a drink.
“She’ll be fine,” I promised. “She’ll settle.”
“I know.”
I loved how he worried about her. I just loved him. “I love you.”
He looked at me from beneath his lashes, his lips curling at the corners. “I love you too.”
“You sure you don’t want any more?” Fyfe asked, standing up to take my plate.
“Nope. I’m good.”
“Was it all right?” He scowled at my half-eaten plate.
“It was delicious.” I did not lie. “But you promised me tiramisu, so I’m leaving room.”
“You’ll have plenty of room.”
He was so dim sometimes. “Fyfe, I don’t want to be stuffed with food if we’re going to be banging each other’s brains out in an hour.”
Fyfe shot me a smug grin over his shoulder. “I see. Leaving room to be stuffed by my cock.”
I walked into that one. “Ha! You’re hilarious.”
“I am hilarious.”
Shaking my head at his nonsense, I couldn’t help but admire the sight of him moving around the kitchen. Sometimes it still felt unreal that Fyfe Moray was mine. That he loved me back when the very idea of that had been a deep-seated fantasy I’d carried for years.
He looked over at me, narrowing his eyes.
“Problem?”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“You’re watching me. A lot.”
“I like watching you.”
His brow furrowed in thought.
Weirdo. Laughing under my breath, I stood up. “I’m going to the bathroom. It’ll give you a reprieve from my ogling.”
“Aye,” he agreed a little vehemently. “You do that. You should do that.”
“ Okaaaay . I will.” Thinking on it, Fyfe had been acting odd all evening. Fidgety. Like he was waiting for something to happen.
I’d just assumed he was eager for us to eat so we could get to the sex part of our belated anniversary activities.
When I returned from the bathroom, Fyfe didn’t look at me as he moved around the kitchen. “Desserts just coming.”
I nodded and sat back down at the table. I was mid sip of refreshed wine when Fyfe announced from the kitchen, “You know, I always pictured doing this somewhere exotic. With a scenic backdrop and some kind of romantic relevance.”
“Doing what?”
He grabbed a plate off the island, what I assumed was dessert, and moved slowly toward me as he continued, as if I hadn’t asked a question. “But then I thought I wanted to do this where you and I truly began. In this place …,” he said, setting the plate in front of me, “where you told me you loved me and where I realized I’d loved you for far longer than I’d ever admitted to myself.”
My heart hammered as I stared at what was on the plate.
Not dessert.
An open black velvet ring box with a solitaire diamond engagement ring nestled within it.
“Here is where I somehow fell more in love with you than I thought possible as I watched you fall in love with Millie. Here is where I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with you.”
I wrenched my gaze from the ring, eyes blurry with tears as I gaped up at my boyfriend. “Fyfe?”
His smile was slow and seductive as he reached over and plucked the ring from the box. Then he lowered to his knee in front of me and raised my left hand in his. “Eilidh Francine Adair, will you do me the greatest honor of my life by becoming my wife?”
I didn’t need to think about it.
“Yes.” I nodded, tears spilling quick and fast down my cheeks. “Yes.”
Fyfe slipped the ring onto my finger and I barely had time to look at it before he scooped me into his arms, kissing me hard and hungrily, swinging me around as if I weighed nothing. We knocked off his glasses we kissed so hard.
He eventually lowered me but only to clasp my face in his hands and kiss me more reverently, gently, like I was the most precious thing in the world. “I love you so much,” he whispered gruffly against my lips. “I can’t wait until I can call you Mrs. Moray.”
I clung to him, my fingers curling in his shirt to pull him closer, deeper. “I love you.”
Fyfe released me to press his forehead to mine. “I’ve had that ring burning a hole in my pocket for six months.”
I reared back. “What? No way!”
He nodded. “I wanted it to be perfect, so I kept planning all these proposals and none of them felt right. Then I realized that it didn’t need to be some grand thing … and that I just wanted you to be mine.”
“This was perfect,” I promised him. “Fyfe, this is our home. It’s where our family lives. It’s perfect.” I wriggled my fingers, watching the diamond sparkle beautifully in the light. The ring was classic, elegant, no fuss or frills, and so me. “The ring is perfect too.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it.” I beamed at him. “Millie will love it too. Her mumma and dada are getting married. She can be our flower girl.”
Cuddling me close, Fyfe brushed the hair off my face and asked, “Small or big wedding?”
“Small. By the loch on my uncle’s estate. He’ll close it off for a private event.”
“Sounds great. Can he do that next month?”
“What? Why?”
“Because I don’t want to wait to call you my wife.”
“Then don’t.” I tugged on his shirt with a sexy smirk before taking him by the hand to lead him upstairs. “Marriage is just a piece of paper, after all.”
“I like the way you think, Eilidh Moray.”
A delicious shiver skated down my spine. “Then come, husband. Make love to your wife.” My sudden squeals of laughter could be heard through the house as Fyfe lunged, chasing me upstairs to our bedroom.
Hours later, replete and so blissed out with happiness I couldn’t speak, I lay in my husband-to-be’s arms and considered how different life was now. How just a few short years ago, I’d felt so lost, wandering the world without an anchor.
Because it was here. With Fyfe. In the Highlands.
Waiting for me to find him. To find myself.
To find our forever together.