Chapter 16
The call comes at the exact moment Isla can no longer pretend she won’t make it.
Late afternoon in Scotland. The sky has that pale, indecisive light that never quite commits to evening this far north. Dinner hour approaching. The hour when people settle into routines and expect answers.
Five hours earlier in Long Island, New York. Isla had loved growing up in Colorado, but when her career took off, her mother moved to Long Island to be closer to her.
Early evening. Prime time for control.
Isla stares at her phone for a long moment before picking it up, already knowing what voice will greet her on the other end. Her mother has impeccable timing. Always has. She waits until resistance weakens, until exhaustion dulls the sharpest edges.
She answers on the fourth ring.
“What time does your flight land, and I’ll order you a car,” her mother says immediately, brisk and efficient, as if the decision has already been made.
No greeting. No inquiry about how Isla is doing. No acknowledgment that she might not comply.
Assumption, spoken aloud.
Isla closes her eyes and exhales slowly. “I’m not coming home yet.”
There’s a pause, fractional, controlled, but Isla hears it. The smallest hitch, like a chess player realizing the board has shifted.
“Isla,” her mother says, tone smoothing instantly, “you have obligations. You need to come home.”
Irritation floods Isla, hot and fast.
“Yes,” she says coolly. “I’ve heard from my manager. He’s threatening to pull contracts.”
Her mother exhales sharply. “Then you understand the seriousness of the situation.”
“You got to him, didn’t you?” Isla presses. “Get her home right now. I’m beginning to think you’re afraid of what I’ll find here, and that’s why you’re insisting I come home.”
The silence on the other end is no longer controlled.
Her mother gasps. “That is a ridiculous accusation.”
“Is it?” Isla asks quietly. “Because it’s starting to feel like every time I dig up something inconvenient, you tighten the leash.”
“You paid your respects to your father,” Alisa snaps. “But now it’s time to get back to your life. Your career.”
There it is.
Not family.
Not grief.
Career.
Isla straightens, pacing the length of the suite. The room is vast, with stone walls, heavy curtains, and furniture chosen by someone who understood permanence. She has slept here for two weeks and still hasn’t touched half of it.
Maybe that says everything.
“Maybe it’s time to stop dancing around it,” Isla says.
There’s a warning in her tone, and for the first time, her mother hears it.
“Mother,” Isla continues evenly, “did you know that Keir got a vasectomy a week after I was born?”
The gasp on the other end is loud enough that Isla pulls the phone slightly away from her ear.
“How did you learn about that?” her mother demands.
No denial.
Just panic.
“I found the receipt in his papers,” Isla says. “Why, Mother? Why would he get a vasectomy?”
She waits.
The silence stretches long enough that Isla can picture her mother, standing in some elegant kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, mind racing through versions of the truth to decide which one might still work.
Finally—
“I had a very hard labor and delivery,” her mother says tightly. “Keir was with me the entire time, but watching me suffer… it got to him. I was in labor for nearly twenty-four hours. They should have given me a C-section, but the doctor just knew you were about to deliver.”
Isla closes her eyes.
She’s heard parts of this story before. The long labor. The incompetent doctor. The suffering. That much has always been true.
“Don’t ever use a country doctor who should have retired years ago,” her mother adds bitterly.
It fits. Too well to dismiss.
“In true Keir fashion,” Alisa continues, “he reacted emotionally, without coming to talk to me. He did it without telling me. When he came home in pain, that was the first time I knew what he’d done.”
Isla swallows.
“I wanted more children,” her mother says, voice tight with old rage. “I wanted us to have a family. And yet he ended that possibility without discussing it with me.”
Isla can understand that anger. A decision like that should never be unilateral.
“That was probably the beginning of the end,” Alisa continues. “Then, when he went on tour the next time, he didn’t have to worry about getting anyone pregnant. And when I surprised him, when I brought you to visit him, I found him drunk, in bed with two of his groupies. That was the final straw.”
That part Isla has heard before.
It lands differently now, weighted by everything else.
“So,” her mother says crisply, “now that you know the truth, it’s time for you to come home.”
Isla stops pacing.
“No,” she says simply. “Not yet. The ninety days are not up. I’ll be home when I’m finished and feel satisfied I’ve learned the truth about my father.”
“Isla, your next concert is in sixty days.”
“I’m preparing,” Isla replies. “Every day I practice on his Steinway. It’s a very nice piano.”
The silence that follows is dense. Dangerous.
She can hear the anger seething through the phone lines.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Isla asks calmly. “Before I discover it in his personal papers?”
She gives her mother an opening.
A chance.
“You know everything,” Alisa says sharply. “Your father was a cheater who I kicked out of our home. His music was more important than you or I ever were.”
Why does it feel like she’s holding something back?
Is it the anger? The urgency? Or the way she hasn’t once asked Isla how she’s doing, only when she’s leaving?
“Well,” Isla says, voice steady, “I’m going to continue digging in my spare time, trying to learn who my sperm donor actually was. When the ninety days are up, I’ll put the castle on the market and return home. In the meantime,” she adds, “I’ll be practicing for the concert.”
There’s a long silence.
“You need to call your manager,” her mother finally says. “He’s not happy with you.”
“He’s my employee,” Isla replies coolly. “Not the other way around. But then again, I’ve always thought you were my manager, and Henry was just your workhorse.”
The sharp intake of breath tells Isla she’s hit something vital.
“And Isla,” her mother adds suddenly, voice shifting, “I don’t like that man.”
Isla stills.
“What man?” she asks.
“You know exactly who I mean. Callum Fraser.”
There it is.
Fear.
Not concern. Not dislike.
Fear.
“Why?” Isla asks softly.
“He’s dangerous,” her mother says. “He’s filling your head with nonsense.”
“He hasn’t said anything about you,” Isla replies.
“That’s worse,” Alisa snaps. “Men like him don’t need to.”
Isla’s fingers tighten around the phone.
“Good night, Mother,” she says evenly.
“I don’t like what Scotland is doing to you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s changing you,” her mother says.
“It’s called independence,” Isla replies. “I’m finally learning to live my life on my own. And I am beginning to really like Callum. He kisses like the devil.”
A gasp on the other end of the line has her smiling.
She ends the call before her mother can respond.
The silence after the call feels different from before.
Not empty.
Alert.
Isla lowers the phone slowly, her fingers still curved around it like she expects it to ring again. Her mother has always had a way of reclaiming space even after conversations ended, lingering in Isla’s head, rewriting what was said, reminding her who held the power.
Not this time.
This time, something has shifted.
Callum.
The realization lands fully formed, so sharp, it almost makes her laugh.
Her mother isn’t afraid of the castle. Or Scotland. Or even the truth, not really.
She’s afraid of Callum.
Isla sinks down onto the edge of the bed, pressing her palms to her knees as she lets that idea unfold. It explains too much. The urgency. The pressure. The way her mother’s tone had changed the instant Callum’s name entered the conversation.
Men like him don’t need to say anything.
What did that mean?
Callum hasn’t filled Isla’s head with anything. If anything, he’s done the opposite, held back, stepped aside, refused to lead her anywhere she didn’t already intend to go. He hasn’t defended Keir blindly, but he hasn’t attacked him either. He’s let the evidence speak, even when it cost him.
That’s what makes him dangerous.
He doesn’t control the narrative.
He lets it unravel.
Isla leans back against the cushions and closes her eyes, uninvited memories surfacing, the feel of Callum’s mouth against hers in the storage room, the way his hands had come up like instinct rather than intent, the split second where she’d felt completely unguarded.
Not because he took anything.
Because he waited.
Her mother would hate that.
Alisa has always understood power as something you apply, not something you allow. She directs, schedules, manages, and anticipates. Isla has lived her entire life inside that current, moving forward because the water carried her there.
Callum is still water.
Unmovable.
Observant.
And Isla realizes something else, something colder.
Callum knows things her mother assumed died with Keir.
Not specifics. Not yet. But truths of character. Of pattern. Of fear.
If her mother believed Keir didn’t want a family, Callum’s very existence contradicts that. He is living proof that Keir showed up for his best friend’s son. That he stayed. That he committed.
Isla opens her eyes slowly.
That is why her mother wants her home.
Not because Isla is in danger.
Because Alisa is…
A knock sounds softly at her bedroom door.
Isla’s heart jumps before she can stop it.
She stands, smoothing her hands down the front of her sweater, irritated with herself for the reflex. She crosses the room and opens the door.
Callum stands on the threshold, his expression cautious, unreadable.
“Mrs. Calder said you were in here,” he says. “I wanted to check on you.”
Of course, he did.
“Did she?” Isla replies lightly, stepping back to let him in.
Callum enters, closing the door behind him with deliberate care. He doesn’t invade the space. He doesn’t hover. He stands near the window, hands loose at his sides, like he’s braced for whatever version of Isla he’s about to encounter.
She studies him in the fading light, the lines of his face softened by dusk. He looks tired. Not just physically, emotionally, like someone who has spent the day absorbing truths he didn’t ask for.
“My mother called,” Isla says.
His jaw tightens. “I assumed.”
“She wants me home,” Isla continues. “Immediately.”
“I also assumed that.”
She crosses her arms. “She asked about you.”
That gets his attention.
“What did she say?” Callum asks carefully.
Isla watches his face as she answers. “That she doesn’t like you.”
A corner of his mouth lifts, humorless. “I’m devastated.”
“She said you’re dangerous.”
The humor vanishes.
Callum’s gaze sharpens, something alert flickering behind his eyes. “Did she say why?”
“No,” Isla admits. “But she didn’t need to.”
Callum exhales slowly. “People who rely on control don’t like variables.”
“And you’re a variable,” Isla says.
“I’m inconvenient,” he corrects. “There’s a difference.”
She studies him for a long moment. “You knew she would react like this.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t warn me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Callum hesitates, then meets her gaze fully. “Because you didn’t need more voices in your head.”
The answer hits harder than she expects.
Isla looks away first.
“My mother thinks you’re filling my head with nonsense,” she says quietly.
“Am I?” Callum asks.
“No,” Isla says immediately. “You’re doing the opposite. You’re letting me think.”
Callum nods once. “That’s usually enough.”
She turns back to him, frustration simmering. “Why didn’t he tell you about me?”
The question is raw, unfiltered.
Callum doesn’t flinch. “I don’t know.”
“But he trusted you,” Isla presses. “He raised you.”
“Yes.”
“So why not me?” Her voice cracks despite her control. “Why was I the thing he kept hidden?”
Callum swallows. “Because you weren’t a secret,” he says quietly. “You were a wound.”
The words settle heavily between them.
Callum continues, slower now. “Keir hid the things he couldn’t fix. Not because they didn’t matter, but because they mattered too much.”
Isla presses her lips together, absorbing that. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” Callum agrees. “It makes it tragic.”
Silence stretches.
Outside, the sky deepens toward evening. Somewhere below, the castle settles with a soft groan, like an old animal shifting in its sleep.
“My mother thinks Scotland is changing me,” Isla says eventually.
Callum watches her closely. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Isla admits. “But not the way she thinks.”
He waits.
“It’s making me see how small my world has been,” Isla says. “How carefully managed. How little of it was actually mine.”
Callum’s voice is low when he answers. “That tends to happen when you stop running.”
She meets his gaze, something unspoken tightening between them again.
“Don’t do that,” Isla says softly.
“Do what?”
“Look at me like that.”
Callum exhales, turning slightly toward the window. “Then don’t say things that make it hard not to.”
Her pulse jumps.
They stand there, the space between them charged but restrained, like the storage room all over again, only this time, the door is open, and neither of them is leaving.
Finally, Isla breaks the tension. “I realized something after the call.”
“What?”
“I’ve never been inside Keir’s bedroom.”
Callum turns back to her, surprise flickering across his face. “Never?”
“Not once,” Isla says. “And if this castle is a map of his secrets… then I’ve been avoiding the most obvious place.”
Callum considers that. “Are you ready for that?”
“No,” Isla says honestly. “But I wasn’t ready for any of this.”
She moves toward the door, resolve hardening with every step.
“Will you come with me?” she asks.
Callum doesn’t answer immediately. Then: “Yes.”
No conditions. No control.
Just presence.
And Isla realizes, with startling clarity, that whatever she finds next will not just change how she sees her father. It could also change how she sees her mother.