Chapter 13 #2
She’s got subcategories. Like she’s conducting a goddamn feasibility study on who she wants to fuck.
“Lighthouse keeper?” I mutter to the empty kitchen.
The only lighthouse keeper on Skye is Duncan MacPhee—seventy years old, missing half his teeth, and smells like he bathes in fish oil. Good luck with that romantic fantasy, sweetheart.
I’m… what the hell am I? Furious that she’s planning to screw her way through the local population while half-assing my IT implementation?
“Athletic sex,” I growl.
The idea of Georgie writhing naked beneath some sheep farmer with dirt under his fingernails while he undoes her bra with a fishing knife makes me want to put my fist straight through the nearest available surface.
A sharp intake of breath behind me makes me turn.
She stands frozen in the doorway, changed into dark jeans and a jumper. “You weren’t supposed to see that!”
“This is what you’re here for then?”
“No! It’s not like that—”
“This is a work trip,” I snarl. “Not your personal fucking sex safari.”
Her mouth opens. Shuts again.
“Number one priority is ‘athletic sex.’” I glare at her. “Any farmer will do, apparently. You’ve got contingency plans. Fishermen. A fucking lighthouse keeper, for Christ’s sake. What’s next, the village postman? The bloke who collects the bins?”
Her face is scarlet, but I’m nowhere close to finished.
“And meanwhile, the one thing you’re here to do? That’s sitting at number seven like an afterthought. Though I notice ‘make Patrick choke on his words’ rated high enough to make the cut.”
“This is completely”—she swallows hard—”inappropriate. I’m not … this isn’t a topic I’m comfortable discussing with my boss.”
“I’m telling you right fucking now—tick everything else off that list, sample all the whisky you want, pet every damn sheep on this island, but you’re not ticking off item one.” The words rip out of me. Her eyes widen. “Not on my watch.”
“This has absolutely nothing to do with you.”
“Well, it’s plastered across your kitchen wall now, isn’t it? Right in my face. We have professional standards here. I don’t fly staff up from London so they can shag their way through the island like it’s bloody sex tourism. That’s not exactly a good look for company reputation.”
As the words leave my mouth, I realize how pathetically thin they sound.
But I can’t stop myself.
“In my defense,” she stammers, “you came to my cottage uninvited.” She sucks in a shaky breath. “It was just me… trying to step outside my comfort zone for once. I never—work is all I ever—”
“Like I said, it’s not happening.”
She stares at me. “You’re actually forbidding me to have—to have—” Her hands flap helplessly.
“Yes, I bloody well am.”
She blinks like she’s trying to wake up from a nightmare. “I really, really want to drop this subject, but I have to point out—oh God—there’s nothing in the company travel policy that says I can’t… do… things.”
“I just made it policy. Effective immediately.”
The room goes silent except for her ragged breathing.
“You can’t possibly think you have the right to—”
“I’m your boss. And Jake’s mate. Which means I’ve got every right.”
I can hear how ridiculous I sound. But I can’t seem to stop myself.
She takes a shuddering breath. “But that’s double standards. I can’t imagine you stopping yourself from doing whatever—whoever—you want.”
“That’s different,” I grind out.
“Why?”
“Because I bloody well say so.”
Christ. I’ve absolutely lost it.
Only then do I realize I’ve backed her up against the table, crowding her space like a territorial caveman marking his domain. She cranes her neck to hold my gaze, and the height difference makes her look small and vulnerable.
What the hell am I doing? Looming over a junior employee, trying to control her sex life like she belongs to me? I’m obliterating every professional boundary that exists and inventing new ones to violate.
“Get your coat,” I say, forcing myself to take a deliberate step back.
“What?”
“We’re going to dinner.”
“I can’t go to dinner with you now. Not after this whole catastrophe.”
“We’re going. We’ll tick something off your precious list.”
Her eyes go wide with alarm.
“Not that,” I growl, and an obscene image of me taking Georgie against her kitchen table forces its filthy way into my mind before I can stop it. “The haggis. You’re going to try the best haggis in Scotland.”
“I don’t think I can stomach anything right now, let alone haggis. No pun intended.”
“You need to eat. The haggis will be a side dish in case you hate it.”
“Okay,” she says in a small voice, like she doesn’t have the energy to fight anymore.
I nod curtly, not trusting myself to say anything else that might make this situation even more fucked up than it already is.
I put my hand on her back to indicate for her to go first.
At the door, I stop. “The one about making Riri proud—she was your aunt, right?”
“My great-aunt. She left me this video message telling me to stop being so afraid of everything and try to enjoy life for once.” Her voice gets quieter.
“Try new things. I guess I’m trying to honor her wishes.
” She lets out a nervous laugh. “She’d have found this whole situation hilarious.
She’d have said it was the most Georgie thing imaginable. ”
I almost smile but I’m too wound up.
As we walk toward the hotel in tense silence, I try to make sense of what the hell just happened. And more importantly, why I’m trying to stop my friend’s sister from having consensual sex with random men when it’s none of my business.
Next thing I know, I’ll be demanding they bring me the severed heads of any lighthouse keepers who dare look in her direction.
The fact that I’m not entirely sure I regret any of it probably says something alarming about my current state of mind.