Chapter 198 Aurélie #2
And it made me wonder. He’d never mentioned any of this before. Not about how much he knew about wedding traditions, fertility rituals, not the superstitions or pressed herbs or holistic healing or oatmoon voodoo. Why? Was it something he’d kept hidden even from himself?
Did he think I wouldn’t understand? Think of him as less? Tease him or shut him down like people had in the past?
Did he think I would… judge?
Dougal groaned again, throwing his head back. “Christ, Malina, let the bairns breathe.”
“Oh, stop. They’re fine,” she said, rolling her eyes fondly. “And don’t even get me started on the fennel seed sachets,” she added, wagging a finger. “Hung above the marriage bed for stamina. And it works too. Ask me how I know.” Her voice dipped secretively.
Callum made a strangled sound somewhere between a gag and a protest. In the little FaceTime square, his eyes flew wide, actual horror written across his face.
I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing.
Dougal let out a long-suffering groan and muttered, “Please tell me this is almost over.”
But it wasn’t. Because that’s when everything went sideways.
Malina suddenly stilled, narrowed her eyes, and leaned so close to the camera her forehead practically smushed the screen.
Oh no.
I recognized the expression instantly. It was the exact one Callum gave me when he was about to clock something I didn’t want him to.
“Oh for the love of Saint Brigid—is that an engagement ring I see?”
Time slowed. I froze like a deer in headlights. Callum’s head whipped toward me.
The realization hit me like a freight train.
THE RING.
I hadn’t even thought about the ring. I’d been so focused on scrambling for pajamas and making a good impression and not saying the word “oat milk” again that I hadn’t even remembered it was on my left hand. In full view. On FaceTime. With his very Scottish, very observant, very witchy mother.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “I forgot—oh no, no, no—”
Malina’s mouth had dropped open, then spread into a delighted gasp that could probably be heard across the whole damn island. “Callum Fraser, did you propose and not tell your own mother?”
“I was going to,” he said, defensively.
Fuck, I felt guilty. We’d barely processed it ourselves.
“When?” she cried out, hurt flooding her eyes.
Callum’s hand flexed on my waist, and I could sense his hesitation. “Soon! It just happened!”
“You absolute little shite—”
I was still spiraling. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to—”
Malina turned dramatically toward Dougal, flinging one arm in the air as the other clutched her chest. “Dougal. Our baby boy is getting married and he didn’t even tell us!”
Dougal blinked. “We’re on the call now, aren’t we?”
“Not the point!” she snapped, then whipped back toward us with a new wave of hysteria. “You didn’t open the call with that news? I’ve been sitting here babbling about oats and fennel like a fool when my only child is engaged!”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, clutching Callum’s arm. “I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t—Callum.”
“We’ve triggered the ancestral wedding protocol,” he muttered, glancing at me. He looked dazed as his mother continued her antics. “We’re in it now.”
“Look at her! Look at the way he’s looking at her! That’s my boy!” Malina crowed, practically glowing.
“Least we didn’t need the oats after all,” Dougal deadpanned.
Malina gasped again. “Oh my God. You’re asking about fertility.” Her eyes went round as saucers. “Are we gettin’ a wee little babay soon?”
My mouth dropped open. “What? No! We hadn’t even—oh my God—we hadn’t even decided who or when we’re telling anyone!”
“Well, the lavender balm clearly worked,” Malina announced to Dougal, who was just sipping something out of a chipped mug like this was a football match. “I told you they were destined! I’m going to need to find the christening shawl. Do you think it’s still in the attic?”
“Mum,” Callum said tightly. “This just happened literally last night.”
“Then you better get movin’, sweetheart.
That was yesterday.” Her eyes locked onto me through the screen, and her voice dipped to a reverent hush.
“Aurélie, my darling, you are already part of this family. But you give me a grandbairn with my son’s eyes and your strength, and I will die a happy woman. ”
I might’ve passed out a little bit. Just a touch.
Callum turned to me slowly, mouth twitching. “You okay?”
“I am deeply unwell.”
Dougal, in the background, said, “Aye, son. You did good picking her.”
Malina gasped again, clutching her heart like she’d just been hit by Cupid himself. “Wow,” she whispered, tears practically welling in her eyes. “I always thought my boy would be too much of a wee stubborn shite—pardon my French, Aurélie—but here he is. Engaged. To the most beautiful woman.”
She bounced. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” Dougal put his hands on her shoulders, hauling her backwards into him. She leaned back into him, eyes glittering. “Why wait?”
“Wait for what?” Callum asked warily, like he already regretted asking.
“To get married,” Malina explained, like this should be obvious.
None of this was obvious.
“You’re already on holiday. It’s a perfect location.”
“Wait, what?” Callum and I said simultaneously.
“You two could elope. Oh, I love that word. It sounds so romantic. Like something out of a movie! You’ve got the ring, you’ve got the backdrop, you’ve got the love of your life. What more do you need?”
Callum shook his head like he was short-circuiting. “Time. A plan. A—I don’t even know what’s happening right now.”
Dougal pushed her thick braid over her shoulder. “Malina, love, slow down. They both look like they’re about to bloody pass out.”
But she didn’t slow down. In fact, she revved up.
Malina flung her arms wide, beaming. “You’re in Greece!
My boy’s been dreamin’ of goin’ there since he was a teenager.
I’ve still got the postcard he taped to his wall, right next to the McRae poster.
Ah, look at all his dreams comin’ true…” She actually dabbed under her eye.
“Oh, I could just cry. Look at him. Look at you both. Life’s too short to not call it fate when it’s already called you home. ”
I couldn’t help it. My gaze drifted over his shoulder toward the massive windows framing the Aegean Sea, the morning light pouring in like a spotlight. The wind shifted the linen curtains. The waves shimmered just beyond the glass. Still in bed, still in silk, still reeling from the night before.
For a second—just a second—I saw it.
The two of us, walking hand in hand on the beach. Sunlight in his air, the breeze stealing our breath. The sea as our witness. Rings branding our fingertips as we slide them on each other.
And the instant it hit me, Callum froze, too. We looked at each other, and I knew he was seeing it too.
A wedding. Here. Just us, in our private little bubble, tucked away from the world in our own slice of paradise.
Malina sighed. “Oh, love, look. I see it all over their faces.” She pointed at the screen like she’d won the lottery. “They’re thinkin’ about it.”
Callum recoiled like he’d been electrocuted. “No. We’re not. I mean—no,” he said weakly, completely pale in the face now. “It’s been less than one day.”
I wasn’t sure what possessed me—maybe it was because I was catastrophically in love with this man and had just survived a lot of life with him.
Or maybe it was because I knew this was a big deal for him.
Introducing me to his parents meant something.
And if they were meeting me, they needed to meet me.
That meant my humor. My bite. My snark.
It’s what made Callum and me fall for each other in the first place.
So I sat up, shrugging out from under his arm, turned toward him, and lifted a brow.
“Oh, so you just asked if I would marry you,” I said casually, “but now you’re suddenly not sure? That desperate to avoid it, Fraser? You need more time to decide?”
His scowl was instant. “What? No.”
Dougal let out a loud bark of laughter like he’d just witnessed the comedy set of the decade. “She’s a sharp one, my boy,” he said proudly. “Finally someone who’ll knock some sense into ye.”
Malina was cackling. “I like her. Oh, she’s perfect. Witty and gorgeous and not afraid to put you in your place. That’s the kind of woman who makes a man better.”
Callum shot me a look that was somewhere between betrayed and utterly in love, but his voice was soft. “Mon amour, I assumed you wanted a big wedding. Probably in those lavender fields at home you love so much.”
“We’ll plan a bloody reception there later!” Malina interjected before I could respond. “You’ve got the love, the location, the lavender-scented sex magic right now.”
My jaw hit the floor.
She leaned closer to the screen, her tone suddenly gentler, wiser, like this part mattered more than anything else she’d said.
“Marriage is about you two. What you want. Not what the world wants from you, not what people expect. It’s about choosing each other again and again.
Through the hard times, through the doubts, through the things you never saw coming.
You don’t need a ballroom or a guest list or a three-hundred-pound cake.
You just need the one person you can’t imagine your life without. ”
Callum made a strangled sound in his throat and nearly dropped the phone. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, looking skyward like he was praying for deliverance. “We hadn’t even decided when or how we’re telling anyone,” he hissed.
“Either way, I suppose congratulations are in order.” She elbowed Dougal, who offered a gruff celebratory comment in return.
I stifled a smile, because Callum was like that, too.
Everything he said had purpose, so to most, he was a man of few words.
Broody, deliberate, always holding the best parts of himself back until he was sure you could be trusted with them.
But when he let you in? God, there was no safer place to be.