Prologue #2
“New Year is about new beginnings,” Mac answered, his deep voice rumbling through me in a way that made me shiver.
Nope. It was highly doubtful I’d ever be attracted to another man as much as I was attracted to Mackennon Galbraith. It was like everything about him had a direct line to my erogenous zones.
“And new beginnings cannot help but remind us of the past and what we’re trying to move on from.”
I exhaled slowly and forced myself to ask, “And what part of the past are you trying to move on from, Mac?”
I was so afraid it was a woman, selfish as that may be.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he pushed up from his chair, and my gaze followed him.
Mac was a large man, standing six feet four, broad of shoulder, his waist tapering into that perfect V film superheroes strive for.
The first time I’d noticed his biceps in a tight T-shirt, the mere sight turned me to jelly.
I hoped I wasn’t a deeply shallow person.
I’d never considered myself a woman who cared much about physique—my ex-boyfriends had come in all shapes and sizes—but Mac’s strength certainly did it for me.
It was the combination of that with his utter ruggedness.
He was so far from pretty-boy handsome; it was almost ludicrous how masculine he was.
From his bold brow to his aquiline nose to the defined line of his jaw that not even his perpetually unshaven cheeks could hide.
When you looked up the meaning of the word masculine in the dictionary, Mac Galbraith’s damn picture was right there next to it. As evolved as I liked to believe I was, something about Mac’s physicality spoke to something primal within me I couldn’t deny.
And maybe I could’ve gotten past my physical attraction to the potent bloody man, if he hadn’t also been the most wonderful and caring friend these past two years.
Mac gave me his back as he crossed the short distance to a sideboard on the opposite wall. His kilt swayed against his muscular calves. I bit my lip, trying not to think about easy access and all that.
Such a perv.
The man was clearly distraught, and I couldn’t stop thinking about sex.
Shaking myself, I tried to focus as he pulled a bottle of whisky and two crystal tumblers out of the sideboard. “Drink?”
I’d had two glasses of champagne, and those had made me brave enough to seek out Mac. Who knew what the whisky might make me brave enough to do? “Sure.”
As he approached with the drink in hand, I held his stare and commented as I took the glass, “You wear a kilt well, Mac.”
The corners of his very kissable mouth quirked up. “Thank you.” His gaze flicked over me and then danced quickly away. “You look very nice.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Thanks.” I think. I took a fortifying sip of Clynelish and enjoyed the burn down my throat, spreading warm heat across my chest.
“Why are you depressed on New Year’s?” he asked.
He remained standing, so I had to tilt my head back a little to look up at him.
I imagined sex with Mac was a little like being conquered, and while I was a fully independent woman outside the bedroom who chafed at the idea of anyone trying to control my choices, I enjoyed the idea of Mac holding me down to conquer me.
Mind you, I also fantasized about tying his arms to my bed frame and riding him until we both saw stars, so there was that.
I swallowed a larger gulp of whisky than I’d normally, needing the jolt back to reality.
“Arro?” Mac’s brow furrowed.
Remembering his question, I shrugged. “It’s just strange seeing the estate like this, filled with people …
none of whom are my dad.” Stuart Adair had been a difficult man to get to know, and truth be told, Lachlan had been more of a father figure to me during my early childhood.
But I’d known my dad loved me, and since returning to Ardnoch upon graduating from Aberdeen University, we’d grown closer.
It had been almost two years since he’d died of a heart attack. We’d been walking down the beach with his dog, Bram, a big Scottish deerhound he’d adopted while I was at uni.
I couldn’t help him.
I couldn’t save him.
The powerlessness was …
I swallowed another drink of whisky, biting back tears of remembrance. Of guilt.
“Hey.” Mac reached out to tip my chin up, forcing my eyes to his. His expression was tender. “You need to let the guilt go, Arro.”
“Are you a mind reader, Mackennon?”
He released me, his nostrils flaring as his full name echoed around the office. No one called him Mackennon, and it sounded strangely intimate falling from my lips.
I liked it.
Mac searched my face for a second while I stared into his ever-changing eyes.
Their color was technically hazel, but they changed dramatically with the light.
Under the stark illumination of his office, they looked a dark blue-gray.
“No. I just recognize guilt when I see it. I guess we’re two guilty people tonight. ”
“What do you have to feel guilty about?”
He sighed heavily. “If I tell you, you’ll think less of me, and I don’t think I can cope with that.”
I reached out to touch his arm. “I would never think less of you.”
The muscle in his jaw twitched before he turned and downed his whisky at the same time. I watched warily as he crossed the room to pour another. His mood was so mercurial, so unpredictable. It wasn’t like him, and I was sure I didn’t like it.
“Mackennon, please tell me what’s going on?”
He cut me a dangerous look over his shoulder. “Why are you calling me Mackennon?”
“Because it’s a beautiful name and I enjoy saying it.”
I waited for a response and got none. Instead, he poured himself another drink and leaned back against the sideboard. As if he was deliberately putting distance between us.
“You should go out and join the party, Arro.”
I slipped off the desk but didn’t make a move toward him. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“I have a daughter,” he blurted out.
I froze in shock.
Mac smirked unhappily. “Oh, aye, you weren’t expecting that.”
“What?” I huffed out, taking a step closer. “I mean … when? What? How?” Was this recent? I panicked at the thought of some woman coming into his life and taking him from me. Selfish, but true!
“I got a girl pregnant when I was fifteen.”
Oh my God.
“I’d not long moved to the States to work with my uncle.”
I knew his grandmother had sent him to live with his uncle in Boston to work as a mechanic, and that when he was old enough, he’d joined the Boston Police Department and from there went on to work in security.
But a daughter … “Mac?”
“Her name is Robyn. She’s twenty-three.”
Holy … Mac was only thirty-eight, but he looked like he was still in his early thirties, for Christ’s sake, and he had a daughter who was twenty-three? “How did I not know about this?”
“I haven’t had a relationship with her since she was fourteen.
Her mum made it difficult.” Mac ran a hand over his face.
“And I didn’t fight hard enough. All my letters, my gifts, were returned to me.
Now she’s a grown woman, a police officer.
” He shrugged despondently. “Her dad is her stepfather. I’m just the sperm donor.
” He threw back the rest of his whisky. “The arsehole who abandoned her, just like my mum abandoned me.” Tears glittered in his eyes, shocking me.
“She doesn’t know how much I love her, and honestly, I don’t deserve to love her. I don’t deserve for her to know.”
“Oh, Mac.” I crossed the room to him, set my glass down on the table behind him, and hugged him.
He buried his head in my neck, and his arms tightened around me. Feeling him shudder with his emotions, tears thickened my throat.
I had no idea.
Squeezing him close, I held on as tightly as I could.
Finally, he eased, relaxing against me, and he lifted his head from my neck to meet my gaze.
The torment in his eyes had softened around the edges.
I pressed my palms to his chest, feeling his heart beat fast against my touch.
I was so aware of him as a man, of his heat, his strength, his scent …
I tried to force away my awareness because it seemed so inappropriate, but every inch of me tingled and hummed with his proximity.
“I was a good dad,” he confessed. “When she was little. Her mum, Stacey, and I split up when Robbie was just a wee thing, but I was always there for her. Stacey was volatile and everything was a war. It was so difficult to be in her life, but I did what I had to, to keep Robyn in mine. Until Stacey married Seth. Things got better again. We all got along. Seth was my friend from the police department. I liked that he was the one who would be in Robyn’s life whenever I wasn’t.
And he never tried to force me out of the picture.
“But when I took the job in security, that meant being away more, and it all changed. Stacey was caustic and argumentative again. Then when Lachlan offered me the job with him, which meant moving across country, she wouldn’t even consider sharing custody.
I wanted Robyn out in California with me during school holidays.
I wanted to come to Boston whenever I had a break in our schedule. But Stacey made it all or nothing.
“And I was a selfish bastard who wanted the job. It paid well. I could give Robyn things she’d never have otherwise.
But I didn’t just take it for her. I took it for me.
And I took it because my pride demanded that Stacey couldn’t dictate my life to me.
I chose my pride over my kid, and no one can tell me any different. ”
“If you knew it would mean losing her, would you have chosen the job, your pride?”