Chapter 12
TWELVE
CUT IN TWO
Gordain
Ella had been a long time alone in the den. I stood across the hall and waited, only half listening to my brother receive a briefing from his estate workers.
“Gordain.” Callum summoned my attention back. The men had left.
“Aye, sorry. What?”
“Angus couldn’t complete the cabling work as the parts hadn’t been left for him.”
I racked my brain. Callum had given me two instructions, and I’d carried both out. Then I remembered a last-second comment he’d sent my way. Fuck it. I’d been too lost in Ella to remember everything. How unlike me. What a screw-up.
“You asked me to run to the DIY store. I didn’t do it.”
“Ye didn’t. It doesnae matter.”
Good thing he was the laird and I was not.
“No. I’m sorry. That’s entirely my fault.”
Callum looked between me and the den door. Then his gaze narrowed. “Mathilda and I will be seeing wee Ella home this afternoon.”
“Right. Or I can do it.”
“Aye, ye could.” His gaze turned shrewder still. “What about after that? I have work to plan and I’ll either include you or I won’t.”
Callum was hedging the question of what was happening with my job. It wasn’t like him to be indirect. It was time I told him.
“I’m going to leave the RAF.” The words fell from my mouth. I stood in the great hall, my brother’s castle, almost on the very spot where six years ago I’d told him I was signing up, and watched my life fall apart.
“That must have been a hard decision.” Callum hesitated, stuck, perhaps, between giving me the arsekicking I needed and being a good older brother. “What will ye do instead?”
“Private pilot training. I’ll fly civilian. I’ll probably have to leave the Highlands for a while.” Ella had been right—the course Mack offered was a good choice for me now, but the jobs in that area were mainly in England, serving the bigger cities.
I was being cut in two.
“And the lass?”
There was no one in hearing range, Mathilda being busy with the twins, but I shot a fierce gaze at Callum. He knew me too well. Understood my staring at the den door too well.
“She’ll go home and to university. That’s all there is to it.”
“Aye.” My older brother inclined his head, his bafflement and frustration now clear. “Then it’s best if ye dinna see her home.”
That was it, my humiliation was complete. My brother didn’t trust me anymore. Our family had suffered the worst kind of shite, and as a consequence, we were so close, so attuned to one another. His slight affront floored me.
Even so, he was right. I gave him a curt nod and strode away, calls to make and a life to dismantle.
The hardest part surprised me. It wasn’t my job or leaving home—I’d worked away for years now so that didn’t matter.
It was Ella.
Because my lust had turned into feelings for her.
And they were wrong, and pressing, and would be a fucker to overcome.
I couldn’t see her again.
Ella found me in the garage, where I was keeping out of the way until she’d left for home. She knocked then leaned on the doorframe, her expression cautious. She held a piece of paper in her hands. Fluttered it.
“I passed,” she said. “My driving test. Mathilda went with me.”
It should have been me who’d taken her, but it was better for all if Ella and I spent the least amount of time together before she went. Not that my heart didn’t swell to see her.
“I knew you would.” I dropped my wrench and straightened from my crouch at the bike.
“I’m about to leave. I’m going to drive home on my own. I’ve persuaded Mathilda and Callum.” She waved her hand. “Don’t make me have to persuade you, too. It’s daylight, and the roads won’t be busy. I’ve passed so am legal. I’m going to do it.”
“It’s too long a drive,” I groused.
“I’m going to do it anyway.”
We stared at one another in a sort of showdown. She swallowed, and I tried not to see how achingly beautiful she was.
“There’s something else I wanted to ask you,” Ella added, taking a step inside the garage. She glanced over her shoulder then brought her big eyes back to me. She spoke in a rush. “I had a call with James’s lawyer earlier. He told me that if I was married, I could be free of Richard.”
I drew back. “Married?”
“It’s that or it’ll take months and stress James out more because he’ll have to take over my guardianship. With Beth being sick, I thought…” She trailed off, and her cheeks pinkened.
I took a steadying breath. Because marriage? How could she get married? “Why are you telling me this?”
“I wanted to ask you…” She shook her head, her black hair tumbling over her shoulder in pretty curls, then tried again. Strain apparent in her expression. Every word forced. “Will you marry me, Gordain?”
I’d never thought I’d hear those words, never had any interest in using them myself. But now, from her, they felt so different than I’d imagined.
Pretend. Say yes and have her.
But there was only one answer, because she didn’t mean them the way my fucked-up brain wanted her to. “No.”
“No?” She widened her eyes. “It wouldn’t be real. Just in name only—”
“Yeah, I got that.” I folded my arms, my fucking heart bursting.
“Still no. Right.” Ella’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry, it was stupid of me…”
I wanted to reassure her but if I opened my damn mouth, I’d tell her how I felt, and that was so messed up. None of it was real and, in a few weeks, it would be gone. I’d be in a new job and over this.
She’d have long forgotten about me.
“I’d better go. See you around.” Ella gave me one last look, trying and failing to hide her hurt. Then she walked away.
I didn’t even say goodbye.