Chapter 4
FOUR
DISRUPTION
Gordain
Ella hit the path that led to the loch edge. I paced alongside. She gave me a fake smile, but her face was glum, and it stung me.
“I know I’m being a bitch. You don’t need to tell me.” She tucked her hands under her armpits. Pink stained her cheeks, and her eyes shone with tears.
“Why do ye think I’d say that?”
“Because any reasonable person would hear her out and judge it rationally.” She stopped and fixed her gaze on a boat bobbing on the calm waters. “I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to. What she did was shite.” I scrubbed a hand over my hair because I had no idea what to say. Not a clue. And I was the last person who should be doling out advice. My instincts ordered me to reach out and give her a hug, but that was wrong, too. Fuck. “Can I do anything?”
Ella gave a short laugh, already leaving. “No, but thanks for the offer. I’m going to take a walk.”
“I’ll make dinner in an hour, aye?”
Because that was going to help.
By way of an answer, I got a wave. But Ella’s attention had already gone.
By sunset, Ella had returned, but she’d gone straight to her room. I sent Ally up, but he came back down saying she was about to take a shower and had told him through the door to go away.
Her friend, Taylor, waited it out. She ate at our table, the twins keeping her company.
I had no appetite. Instead, I sat at my laptop by the great hall’s fire and stared into the flames.
Before Callum had left, he’d taken me to one side and gave me a list of things to keep an eye on while he was gone.
Contractors laying a cable up to two cottages he was converting.
A new tenant who would be calling at the castle to collect their keys.
He’d then asked if I was sure about staying. I’d given him a look because, as much as we both loved Ally, there was no guarantee the centuries-old castle would still be standing if he was left in charge.
But that wasn’t my main reason.
I dropped a line to Jordie. Change of plan. Can’t make it tomorrow.
Shame. Got a better offer? he replied.
Something like that. I typed back, though that wasn’t true. Not in the way he meant.
Finally, Ella appeared on the stairs, her freshly washed hair still damp and tied back, and her long sweater loose over snug leggings.
I sat forward, but her gaze didn’t come my way.
“Taylor?” she said.
“Funny story,” her friend said, crossing to the centre of the great hall. “Wasp’s on the same flight to the US as me. I’m flying out with him in the morning. Catching the same transfer. So, you know, I hung around.”
Ella gave a wan smile, appearing far more composed than before. “I should’ve guessed you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Taylor flapped her arms. “Like I said, you know me.”
“Fine. We’ll talk.” Ella swung her gaze around the hall.
I leapt from my seat. “Talk here. We’ll go into the den.”
Later, I’d grab time alone with her. I’d acted badly when she’d arrived here, and that I could rectify, along with all those wrong ideas she had in her head.
First, she had Taylor to deal with, and there was nothing I could do to help with that.
Ella gave me a small chin lift and descended the stairs. Taylor passed me, her confident smiles gone now.
I gave them their privacy and ushered the twins into the den.
Ally dropped into an untidy sprawl on the couch, lost in his phone for a few minutes.
Wasp fidgeted, glancing between the door, us, and his screen, an expression on his face I’d never seen on him before. Some mixture of excitement and nerves.
Finally, he decided to share his thoughts. “How pissed off do ye think Ella will be if I sleep with her friend?”
My mouth dropped open.
“Fuck! Are you serious?” Ally’s eyes bugged out. “No, ye can’t. She’ll be cut up.”
“Or she won’t care.” Wasp pulled at his collar. “Either way, I don’t think I have a choice. The lass practically pinned me to the wall earlier.”
Ally turned his gaze on me. “Why are you glaring at Wasp like that? Like you carefully choose who you sleep with. You’re our idol. He’s just copying what you do.”
“No. God.” I scrubbed a hand over my head.
Callum and I had talked to the twins about sex, their mother happy to hand the job over to us since she’d moved in with her new husband and had another baby.
We’d told the boys to wait and find someone they cared about, and counted ourselves successful as, unless something had changed recently, neither boy had gone… there.
The same rule hadn’t applied to me. Wasp wasn’t wrong. I went there whenever I had an itch that needed scratching. I’d never needed a girlfriend. Sex was a pastime like running or climbing, and finding a willing partner was easy.
“I can’t believe you’re going to lose your virginity before me.” Ally picked up a cushion and flung it at his brother. Then he grabbed his phone from the coffee table. “Fine. The race is on.”
“What are you doing?” Wasp squinted at his twin.
“Finding a lass to come screw me tonight.”
“Christ! Stop it, the pair of ye.” I knocked the phone out of Ally’s hand, wishing Callum was here to manage them.
He would yell orders, and eventually they’d listen.
I was so far away in my own problems and worrying about Ella that being a good role model wasn’t coming naturally.
I had to force my brain back into the room.
“First,” I looked at Wasp, “aye, Ella might be upset if you sleep with her friend. She’s family and deserves our loyalty.
Think about that before you get too far to think straight.
And you,” I turned my attention on his twin, the lad busy retrieving his phone from the rug, “what I get up to is none of your business. It’s definitely not an example to follow.
Go on dates and find a girlfriend. Having someone you care about is better than screwing a stranger. ”
The twins looked at me with identically baffled expressions.
“Didn’t you sleep with the bartender at Lachlan’s party a wee while ago?” Ally peered at me. “Are you in love with her and planning on proposing?”
How the fuck did he know about that? It was true, but I’d been drunk and upset. Lachlan, our relative, had made a deal to sell his home and land to property developers. The place I’d dreamed about owning since I was a boy. Not that I had a hope in hell of affording it.
“Who’s proposing?”
In unison, we swung our heads to the door. Ella waited in the frame. Alone.
“Gordain. To a barmaid he’s in love with,” Ally helpfully filled in.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I leapt to my feet and closed in on her, examining Ella’s face for signs of tears or upset. “He’s talking a load of balls. Ignore him.”
She wore an inscrutable expression. “I’m going to bed. Wasp, Taylor said you offered her a room for the night?”
Ally choked on a laugh then coughed to cover it up.
“Aye. I made up a spare room. We’re on the same flight from Inverness, so I’ll see her away safely,” Wasp replied.
“Bet you will,” his twin said under his breath.
“Great. Thanks for taking care of her. I appreciate it. Sorry for the disruption.” She gestured, encompassing us all in her apology.
I gave a long look at Wasp then followed Ella out of the room. Her friend sat on her own across the hall. Whatever they’d said or agreed, it wasn’t apparent in either of their faces.
At the stairs, Ella didn’t stop, and I kept up with her, not sure what I was doing. Then at the door to her room, Ella halted.
“You walking me to my door, G?”
G. She’d called me that before. The nickname the twins used for me. “I am. Are ye upset?”
Ella rolled her shoulders. “No. So when’s the wedding?”
“The what?”
“You and the bartender?” A smile tweaked the corner of her lips, but it appeared forced.
My bloody brother. “Listen, what you said before, about me not liking you because you’d been emotional…” My chest ached, and I rubbed my knuckles over the pain. “That isn’t true. I have a world of problems—”
“With your job. I know.”
But she didn’t. Nobody did.
“Want to talk about it?” she added.
“No. Want to talk about your friend?”
She held my gaze, her silence telling me everything I needed to know. Stalemate.
“What I mean is that my mood was nothing to do with you. I was caught up in my own head.”
“Uh-huh.” Ella’s gaze dropped.
“I like you just fine. We’re friends, aye?”
“Great.” She drew a heavy breath, still not making eye contact, then bobbed her head and disappeared into her room.
While I considered all the ways I could smack sense into my own head and make Ella smile again.
In the early hours of the next morning, I drove Wasp and Taylor to the airport. No one chatted through the dark drive, and the two of them seemed exhausted.
I didn’t want to know why.
At the drop-off point, Wasp bear-hugged me goodbye and wrangled the luggage from the car. Taylor stopped in front of me, her arms crossed over her body against the chilly predawn air. In my t-shirt, I wasn’t cold but I was made from hardier stuff than most.
“You’re a pilot, right? Did you know Ella had a fantasy about you flying to our school and taking her away?”
I blinked at her. “What?”
“Before she even knew you, when you were just a guy her brother told her about. You became her symbol of hope.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I had a feeling Ella wouldn’t want this shared. Even so, my pride sat up and paid attention.
“Because you kept her going. That boarding school was a shitty place to grow up, and we clung on to our little daydreams. But when I asked her about you last night, she just looked sad. How can that be? You’re her hero.”
Taylor lifted her pert chin. “I fucked up my friendship with her but I will get it back again. If you screwed her over, undo it. She can count on one hand the people who truly care about her. And there’s even fewer who she’s sure would step up for her.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” The lass was starting to piss me off but only because the truth hurt. I had messed things up with Ella and the guilt cut me to pieces.
Wasp joined us and glanced between our faces. “Our flight’s boarding. We better run.”
“Safe journey,” I forced out.
“See you again, Gordain. Hopefully under better circumstances.” Taylor turned her shoulder and walked away.
My brother blew out a breath, made a poor attempt at a salute, and fell in at her side.
Idrove home with my mind churning over everything I’d done and said. It wasn’t like Ella and I had ever been friends, not really. Desiring her had put paid to that. But I had that under wraps now. She was too young, as well as my best friend’s little sister.
There was a line to walk, and I’d find it. She needed a friend far more than I needed to kiss her.
Dawn broke as I parked up outside the castle, a pale light straining through a fog that had descended, obscuring the mountain. I’d planned to go for a run—sleep impossible now—but maybe I’d stick to the gym situated on the floor beneath my rooms in the tower.
The gravel crunched under my boots, and I stuck my hands in my pockets, striding over to the oak door.
It swung open ahead of me.
Ella appeared in the gap, adjusting a headphone in her ear, her other hand holding the heavy door. At first, she didn’t notice me.
But fuck, did I notice her.
Her tight shorts and cropped sports bra which left her belly bare. Her arms. Her lower legs. The kit showed off her curves and left little to my imagination.
Ella didn’t usually wear revealing clothes.
All plans I had to stop thinking of her in a sexual way flew out of the window. Every male instinct surged.
“Gordain?”
“What?”
“Why are you staring?”
“What?”
She chuckled. A beautiful sound. The first genuine laugh since she’d arrived.
“I’m not— Fuck, I was. Sorry.” I scrubbed my hand over my eyes, stumbling over my words. “Where are you going?”
“For a run. I couldn’t sleep.” She pulled on a long-sleeved top and zipped it up halfway.
“Wait a minute? I’ll come with you.”
I finally met her eyes, and Ella was giving me a curious once-over. “I’ll start slow. Catch me up.”
I’d never ran so fast in my life. Across the great hall in seconds, I belted into the corridor that led to my tower, taking the spiral stairs two at a time.
I half fell through the door into the hall, dragging off my t-shirt and kicking off my shoes as I went.
In my bedroom, I dropped onto my bed and shucked off my jeans and boxers, then grabbed my Under Armour kit and pulled it on.
Usually, I’d wear a loose military-issue PT kit, but the Under Armour was tight. Form-fitting over my muscles. It showed off my body to best effect.
I had a moment at the door, pushing my feet into my running shoes, where I wondered what the hell I was doing, what message I was trying to give. Look at me, all big and strong.
But I wasn’t about to stop, and I descended the stairs with a grin lighting my face.