Chapter 30
THIRTY
One word that took forever
Georgie
I didn’t sleep a wink last night. Tossed, turned, counted sheep, even attempted to bore myself unconscious by mentally reciting HTML tags.
Nothing worked. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could think about was the guilt that Riri hasn’t been gone six months, and I was so busy flirting with Patrick, so caught up in feeling special for five minutes, that I lost the one thing she gave me to keep safe.
I’m at work by 8 a.m. anyway, even though my heart’s screaming at me to be up the Old Man of Storr on my hands and knees, scouring every rock and sheep turd for a glint of gold. Logically I know Patrick’s right. Needle, haystack.
At least IRIS is behaving today, which is more than I can say for myself. I bury myself in code all morning, but the hollow feeling in my chest won’t shift.
By 5 p.m. I leave my office feeling like there’s a rain cloud hovering above me.
There’s a missed call from Patrick on my phone from earlier. I ring back but it goes straight to voicemail. I don’t leave a message because what would I even say? Sorry for being emotional about jewelry yesterday? Thanks for the reality check about it being just a chain?
I tell myself to get over it. People lose things all the time.
Still, I wish he could’ve been just a tiny bit sympathetic yesterday. He’s not Steve-the-shit levels of cruel, God no, (he’d have tutted, told me ghosts don’t live in jewelry, reminded me that Riri is six feet under). Patrick wasn’t cruel like that. He was just… cold. Or practical.
Maybe that’s worse. Cruelty you can fight back against. Coldness just leaves you frozen too.
I stride through reception, attempting to look like someone who didn’t cry into her cereal this morning, and stop by Mary’s desk. I give her my best “professional Georgie” smile. “Just wanted to check the new features I added are running okay.”
“Great, love!” She beams.
“Mary,” Louise calls over, phone pressed to her shoulder. “I can’t get Patrick on the 9 p.m. flight. Everything’s booked.”
“Oh dear.” Mary clicks her tongue. “Put him on the next available then.”
I frown. “Didn’t—um—Mr. McLaren leave this morning?”
“He delayed it. Now he’s flying the helicopter to Inverness in the dark, which he usually avoids.”
“Oh.” My chest tightens. “Why’d he delay?”
“Some urgent work task apparently. Not sure what exactly.”
I shrug like this is completely uninteresting information, but my heart squeezes. Flying in the dark? My anxiety immediately supplies helpful images of rotor blades versus Scottish mountains in zero visibility. “Is he... safe flying at night?”
Mary smiles. “He prefers daylight but he’s very experienced. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Right. Of course. Well, good night.”
I trudge home with a different knot in my stomach now. I can already see tomorrow’s headline: “Hotel CEO Dies in Helicopter Crash.”
No. Stop it, Georgie. He’s an experienced pilot. He knows what he’s doing.
Fee’s belting out something unidentifiable in the bath when I push open the door. I contemplate whether eating an entire sleeve of biscuits counts as dinner.
There’s a package wedged through the letterbox with my name written in neat capitals.
I rip it open and—
My legs go completely useless. I actually have to grab the wall. Tears spring up so fast I can’t even pretend they’re not happening.
It’s my chain. Riri’s chain. Sitting in my palm like it never left.
Oh my God. It has to be Patrick. Which means—
Did he delay his flight—his big, important CEO life—and climb all the way up there himself?
Searching through rocks and heather for a needle in a haystack that he said didn’t matter?
For me?
If he did… then that’s not casual. That’s not fling behavior. That’s a man showing me he’d climb mountains for me.
Which is insane. Obviously. He didn’t do that. That would be completely ridiculous.
Right?
Outside, the distant thud of rotor blades cuts through my spiral. I run into the front garden.
The helicopter appears like something out of a film—a dark shape against the stars, navigation lights blinking red and white against the purple sky. It banks left toward Inverness, and I stand there clutching Riri’s chain while Patrick flies away.
I’m dying to contact him but I know he’s on the flight to London.
I send a message anyway:
Do you have time to talk?
Then I spend two hours staring at my phone like an idiot, scrolling through nonsense just to distract myself.
At 11 p.m., my phone finally lights up. Patrick. Calling.
“Hello?” My voice comes out high and breathy.
“Georgie.”
Everything spills out at once. “Did you find my chain? Did you actually go up the Old Man of Storr?”
“I found it. It was in my car, wedged under the gearstick.”
“Oh!” I laugh, relief spilling out of me.
“Oh my God, thank you! I’m so happy. Honestly, I can’t believe it was there the whole time.
And sorry I didn’t check properly myself.
I was so flustered. Mary mentioned you delayed your flight this morning and then I found the package with my chain, and I had this completely ridiculous idea that you actually went up Storr, which is—” I snort at myself —“ridiculous, obviously.”
Silence.
The kind of silence that makes my stomach flip.
“Did you go up Storr?”
There’s another pause.
“No.”
Just one word but it took him forever to say it. My heart thumps harder.
“Right. Of course not.” My laugh comes out thin. “But seriously, thank you. For finding it. It means everything.”
“My pleasure.” His voice has that gruff quality, like I’ve just thanked him for holding open a door instead of returning the one thing I’d thought I’d lost forever.
I hear footsteps echoing. “Where are you?”
“Just getting to my apartment.”
“How long will you be in London?” I ask, trying to sound breezy. Like the answer won’t matter.
“All week.”
My chest deflates a little. It’s strange, picturing him there instead of here.
In Skye, he’s this rugged outdoorsman—carrying me up mountains, conjuring lost necklaces from thin air, kissing me against shower tiles.
In London, he’s probably... I don’t know.
My brain unhelpfully supplies images of sleek women with glossy hair and legs up to their ears, slinking toward him in cocktail dresses.
Women throw themselves at him. And it’s not like he and I… well. We’re not anything. Not official. Not exclusive. Not even logical.
We’re just… Skye. A bubble. And bubbles burst. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to watch this one pop around me.
On Skye, I think he respects me enough not to rub salt in the wound. Not to hurt my feelings. But back in London? Back in his world? I’d be stupid to think he won’t…
“Georgie?”
Shit. He said something. “Sorry, what?”
“I said don’t spend every night working late. And remember to eat dinner every day.”
“I am working hard, obviously.” He’s still my boss—I need to suck up a little. “But Thursday night, Fee and I are going to your distillery. To finish my list.” I smile even though he can’t see it. “I’m getting down it, but I haven’t ticked everything off yet.”
“What’s left?”
I think of the work ones.
Make IRIS implementation a success.
Prove to Patrick that I’m a competent employee.
Have I managed either? I’m too scared to ask.
“Oh, you know. Item number one, the one about cute fishermen,” I tease.
“Ah.” His voice drops an octave. “That.”
The pause stretches so long I wonder if the line’s gone dead.
“I’m joking!” I blurt. “I’m not actually planning—”
“I should go,” he cuts in. “Night, Georgie.”
“Night,” I whisper, but he’s already gone.
I lie there clutching my returned necklace, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe London Patrick doesn’t want the mess of Skye Patrick following him home.