Chapter 35 Monroe #2
Brodan nodded, panic turning quickly to irritation, as he threw the phone on the side table with a hard clatter.
“You’re right. If you were in contact with men you’d had a sexual relationship with, it would bother me.
I never want you thinking I’ve got one foot out the door in this.
I’m in this with you, Monroe. You know how hard it was for me to get to this point, but I’m here …
and you can run here or run all the way to fucking Timbuktu …
and I will follow you. I will never give up on you without a fight. ”
I nodded, feeling silly now for my outburst. “I ran to the one place you knew I’d run, Brodan. Hardly speaks of any real intention to run away from you, does it?”
The corner of his mouth tugged up. “I noticed that.”
“I try to be rational about it, but it hurts to think of you with all those glamorous women. But I know you never loved any of them. I do know that. I’m sorry too.”
“Don’t be.” He grinned, pulling me into his arms. “Things were getting a bit monotonous around here.”
Feeling something hard prod into me, I let out a huff of disbelief. “Are you turned on by this fight?”
Brodan smiled shamelessly. “So hard right now, I want to bend you over that chair and fuck you senseless.”
My breath caught as tingles exploded to life between my legs. “Then why don’t you?”
At my challenge, heat flared in Brodan’s eyes and, seconds later, I found myself bent over a chair with my dress pushed up.
Cool air caressed my skin as he ripped down my underwear until it hit my ankles and then I heard his zipper.
A crinkle of foil. My chest heaved against the chair as I glanced over my shoulder at him.
Wicked, stark need stared back at me.
Then I felt the thick, hot push of him inside.
His thrusts were fast and furious, his grip bruising on my hips.
But it was what I needed. What he needed.
Our passion couldn’t be replicated. I knew he’d never had this with anyone else. This overwhelming need to be a part of the other. To claim something that no one else had of us.
I was his, and he was mine.
My jealousy abated as we climaxed together and he stayed buried inside me, pressing kisses to the back of my neck and murmuring his love for me over and over again.
Once the paparazzi left Ardnoch and I was assured of my place in Brodan’s heart, I could breathe again.
Sort of.
There was the small matter of me hiding my morning sickness from Brodan.
The morning after our heated encounter in the turret, I was sick again … and realized that my period was late. Since we’d been using protection (because birth control made me ill, so I couldn’t take it), it hadn’t occurred to me that the sickness was anything but nerves. Until I missed my period.
It turned out it might not have been panic that made me throw up at school. The paparazzi were gone. Life was returning to some semblance of normality, and I was still sick every morning. Thankfully, unlike some women I knew, my nausea only hit in the morning.
There had been no opportunity to buy a pregnancy test without someone at my side, but now that Jock had returned to Ardnoch Estate, I was going to drive to a pharmacy a few villages away and buy one.
I didn’t want to think about how Brodan might feel about me falling pregnant so soon.
Or at all. I didn’t think it would happen so easily, considering my age, but there I was …
possibly pregnant. A huge part of me was giddy with excitement and gratitude.
However, I also didn’t want to ruin what was building between us.
So I wouldn’t think about it until I knew for certain.
First a pregnancy test and then a trip to the doctor.
The kids had left for the day, and I was just crossing the emptying car park to my car when someone called out to me.
I turned, yanked from my worries, to find Michelle Kingsley standing at the driver’s-side door of her car. Her son, whom I taught, was already in the back of the Ford, not paying attention. “Ms. Kingsley?”
She smiled, but a gleam in her eyes made me wary. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about all the nasty things people are saying about you online.”
I stiffened. “I wouldn’t know about that.” And I wouldn’t, because I’d promised Brodan I wouldn’t google our names.
“Oh, people are vicious,” Michelle said, taking great delight in telling me. “I mean, just because you’re not a glamour model doesn’t mean you can’t be appealing to someone like Brodan. Attraction sometimes isn’t apparent to the rest of us.”
Bitch.
“I don’t believe them when they say a small-town primary school teacher can’t keep Brodan Adair entertained for long.
It’s not like he’ll get bored and run off with a jet-setting beauty who fits his lifestyle better, is it?
You’re not worried that he’ll leave you.
Again? Are you?” She couldn’t hide her smirk.
Shaking my head, I felt nothing but pity for her. “You never understood Brodan. Or what was between us. You didn’t when we were kids, and you don’t now. And that you find pleasure in trying to upset me just makes me feel sorry for you, Michelle.”
Her expression slackened with surprise and disbelief.
“Have a good evening.” I got in my car and wasted not another thought on her. Or anyone else who allowed their jealousy to control their words and actions.
Shaking off the unpleasant encounter, sure it might not be the last, I drove through Golspie and onto Brora to pop into the pharmacy there.
My phone rang, connecting to my car, and Brodan’s name came up on the screen.
I hit the answer button on my steering wheel.
“Hello, handsome,” I answered, smiling just at the thought of him.
God, I made myself sick with how loved up we were.
“Hello, my love,” he answered in that deep voice that made me tingle all over. “Are you on your way home?”
Home.
My grin deepened. “Not yet. What are you making for dinner?”
“I was actually thinking we could eat at the Gloaming tonight, now that the paps are gone.”
“Aye, that’ll work.”
“I’m just heading home from a meeting in Inverness with Thane about the house. I can’t wait to share the new drawings with you.”
Excitement bubbled inside me. “Me too.”
“So, where are you now? Will you beat me home?”
“Um …” I didn’t want to lie totally, so noting the package on my seat I’d collected from the post office during my lunch break, I replied, “I’m driving to Brora.
The gift I got you for your birthday that didn’t show up in time was delivered to Brora’s post office instead of ours.
” It was a half lie. The truth was that I had ordered a gift for Brodan’s birthday (January 3) before Christmas, and it had taken weeks to arrive.
I’d had his first script turned into a book, leather-bound and everything.
There had been some interest from a director, but nothing solid had come of it yet.
But I still thought his writing it was momentous and should be celebrated.
“So, you’re on your way to Brora?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, I will probably be home first, then. See you soon, Sunset.”
“See you soon, handsome.”
I will not feel guilty, I told myself as I hung up. There was no point telling Brodan my suspicions until I knew for certain.
Once I parked in Brora, I shoved my hair under my knit wool hat, feeling paranoid after the last week. I didn’t want anyone to recognize me and leak it to the internet that I’d bought a pregnancy test. Bloody Nora, I should have called Sloane and asked her to buy it for me.
Well, I was here now.
The pharmacy had a few people in it, but I kept my head low, found a couple of tests, and brought them to the counter. Thankfully, the young man at the till was so bored he didn’t even look at me as he rang me up. I left the store breathing easy that I hadn’t been seen and got back into the car.
It was growing dark as I drove back down the A9 toward home.
The traffic had been fairly busy on the way here, but it had thinned out, and my headlights were the only ones on a stretch of road.
There was a field on my left and the sea beyond that and a low stone wall set before woodlands on my right.
Headlights suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the road. I thought nothing of it.
Until the lights swerved onto my side.
My heart leapt in my throat as the vehicle raced straight toward me.
“What on—” I cried, instinct making me yank my wheel to the right to avoid a head-on collision.
My body jolted, head slamming backward as the airbag burst from the steering wheel.
A bang exploded in my ears, followed by a crunching sound and a loud hiss.
Dazed, shaking with adrenaline, pain radiating down my neck, I tried to make sense of what had happened.
Before I could, my door was yanked open, and I felt the cold press of metal to my temple. Disbelief filled me as I glanced up and saw a masked figure peering into the car. The metal at my temple belonged to the muzzle of the gun in their hand.
Terror cut through my discombobulation.
“Get out of the car,” a male voice demanded. Was that voice familiar?
What the fuck?
“Now!” he barked.
Trembling, I unclipped my belt and pushed the airbag out of my way. My upper body groaned with pain from the crash, and as I staggered out of the car, I saw the front of it had crumpled when it hit the stone wall.
Headlights beamed in the distance, and I felt a surge of relief …
Until pain shot across the back of my head and everything went black.