21. Isla
ISLA
Iwaited in the hallway, hearing the last of the conversation between Locke and his father. My heart flip-flopped, Locke’s final words ringing in my ears.
I have my priorities straight…They haven’t shifted one bit.
I hadn’t intended to eavesdrop on them. They knew I’d only popped down to use the bathroom and would be coming right back.
I hadn’t deliberately hid. But the closer I’d gotten, the more the conversation had sounded…
heated wasn’t quite the right word. They weren’t angry at each other, but there was certainly an awkwardness there I hadn’t wanted to intrude on. So I’d paused.
Only now I’d heard more than I wanted to. An embarrassed flush bit at my cheeks, and a strange, uncomfortable heat twisted into my gut. Something nagged at me, even though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about their conversation that made me so uneasy.
Locke had defended me and our relationship to his father. He’d said things were good between us, and that he had his head on straight. What more could you ask from the guy you were having a baby with?
But that priority comment rubbed me the wrong way. They haven’t shifted one bit…
That bothered me. Because…well, we were bringing this small life into the world. That baby would require his love and attention and focus. That should change his priorities, shouldn’t it? At least a little.
It had certainly shifted mine. From the moment I found out, I wasn’t just making decisions on my behalf, I was making them for the both of us.
That’s why I’d opened up my heart to Locke to see where a real relationship could take us.
And why I’d started to slowly let my father back into my life again.
I’d also worked damn hard to make sure the distillery property wasn’t torn down so I could make sure I could share that place with the baby one day.
Would I have fought for that for my own sake, because I loved the place?
Definitely. But I fought harder for my baby’s sake.
The baby came first now. Was that…not the same for Locke?
I knew Locke was a workaholic. I knew how important the business was to him and the lengths he was prepared to go to ensure Fraser Developments was successful. But a child needed more than a business empire to inherit.
No one knew that better than I did.
I batted away the fears as they surfaced.
Sometimes, the best response to a nagging parent was telling them what they wanted to hear, even if you didn’t entirely mean it.
Hadn’t I done the same thing from time to time?
Besides, Locke wasn’t my father. He’d been as present as he possibly could since the moment he found out about the baby.
There was literally no reason for my unease.
I sucked in a settling breath, banished the butterflies, and plastered a smile on my face, deliberately scuffing my feet on Locke’s fancy hardwood floors.
I didn’t want to surprise them. Locke’s eyes immediately flicked in my direction as I emerged, the corner of his mouth curling. “Thought you might have gotten lost.”
There was that half smile I adored. Everything was perfectly fine. “Just admiring your artwork,” I said. “My mother would have loved that landscape in the bathroom.”
Locke held his arm out for me, and I crossed the living room to settle against his side, one hand pressed to his chest, the other wrapped around his back.
It comforted me being this close to him, even as I watched his father’s expression shift to something like intrigue.
It was as if he wasn’t used to seeing his son so openly affectionate.
I smiled softly at Graeme, wondering how he’d feel knowing he was about to be a grandfather. “Any luck with the work situation?” I asked.
Locke sighed. “I’ve run into a bit of a roadblock on one of the properties. A local heritage group claims we’re about to build on land of archaeological significance.”
“Oh, wow.” I blinked in surprise. “Isn’t that something that should have been disclosed to you before you bought the property?”
Locke laughed. “Ideally, yes. But sometimes these things come to light after the fact and cause me all sorts of headaches.”
“It shouldn’t take us long to talk through the problem,” Graeme said, holding up the file he’d brought. “Once you’ve got a gameplan, you can go back to the heritage group and the local council and start replotting timelines for construction.”
That sounded like it was going to take forever. Maybe I shouldn’t have sprung a visit on Locke after all. I glanced up at him, lip caught between my teeth, giving him a sheepish shrug. “If it’s easier, I can just head off. You’ve clearly got a lot going on.”
Locke’s arm tightened around me. “Just give us half an hour.”
“And then,” Graeme piped up, “if you two really don’t have any plans already in place, maybe I could take you to dinner?” He tilted his head in my direction. “I’d love to get to know you better, Isla.”
The promise of food immediately had my stomach growling. Locke shook with silent laughter, clearly amused at my current inability to turn down a good meal. He didn’t seem opposed to having dinner with his father, so I smiled and said, “That sounds wonderful.”
We’d gone to the Tap Room, a chic, upscale restaurant in Edinburgh where I was told Fraser Developments often entertained their business partners.
I wasn’t dressed anywhere near as fancy as the other diners, and on a normal day I would have been chased out by the hostess.
But the woman at the door had barely started to frown at me when she caught sight of the men on either side of me.
Instantly, the frown turned into a beaming smile.
Dinner with Graeme was far less stressful than taking Locke to meet my father. Where Dougal had been prickly and wary, Graeme was warm and kind, if a little bit awkward. We’d chatted about everything from my mother to growing up in the US to Locke’s big plans for the Braeburn hotel.
Of course, the circumstances were rather different. For one thing, we weren’t dropping an engagement bombshell on him. I’d taken my ring off when I went to the bathroom at Locke’s to wash my hands, and I thought it would be best to leave it off.
I wasn’t sure Locke had been in the mood to stumble through an explanation, either owning up to the fake relationship or having to double down in order to save face.
After dinner, we said goodbye to Graeme then returned to Locke’s place and immediately fell into bed together.
The desire thrumming between us had been almost palpable, and it was all I could do to hold myself together as we’d stripped out of our clothes.
Now though, I was cozily stretched out beside him on his massive king bed, reliving bits and pieces of the evening.
“I liked getting to know your dad,” I said, running my hand along Locke’s bare chest. “It was sweet how interested he was in my photography.”
Locke kissed my temple. “I think he got a little starstruck finding out you were Aileen MacRae’s daughter.” He stroked his hand down my arm, and the motion felt strange. Almost…distant.
It was the same feeling I’d gotten from him at dinner.
The more I’d told Graeme about our time together in Braeburn—exploring the trails near the waterfall, the shenanigans that came from babysitting Aisling, hanging out at the estate with Weston and Lena—the more stand-offish Locke had become.
His arm had curled away from my shoulders, fidgeting instead with a stray thread near his knee.
The affectionate squeezes I was used to all but disappeared, and whenever he participated in the conversation, he kept steering it back to business.
Which had felt a little odd.
Part of me wondered if he was embarrassed. Perhaps he didn’t usually share details about his dating life with his father, and me talking so freely about our relationship had been awkward for him. “Do you and your dad spend a lot of time together when you’re in Edinburgh?” I asked.
I knew from our previous conversations that Locke had worked side by side with his dad for years, and that they still chatted about the business frequently.
But was there anything more to their relationship?
I remembered him saying he wasn’t exactly close with either of his parents, but Graeme had seemed to really care about his son—to want a closer relationship.
All the time Locke spent turning the conversation to business, Graeme kept turning it back to us, wanting to hear more.
“Not a lot,” Locke admitted. “We go out for the occasional drink when I need to pick his brain. Sometimes I’ll invite him out to lunch with a long-standing client. But I’m usually so busy coming and going that fitting in the occasional call is the best we can do.”
“Were you closer when you were a boy?” I wondered.
Locke stuffed one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling in the semi-darkness of his bedroom. “I suppose I was more my mother’s son back then. Dad and I weren’t really tight. Probably because he was on the work grind all the time.”
Work grind. I hummed. The two of them shared more than just looks.
“Anyway,” Locke continued, “we didn’t really have anything to connect over.
We were never one of those father/son pairs who go camping all the time or travel all over to catch their footy team’s games.
He was all about the business, and I wasn’t all that interested in talking about market demand or construction challenges when I was a kid. ”
“No,” I teased. “You were more interested in figuring out how to climb a tree faster than Weston and Alistair.”
He huffed a laugh, the sound turning hollow at the end.
“But after Mum ran off with that younger guy, Dad and I sort of gravitated toward each other. Her midlife crisis pushed us together, and once I was out of uni and started working with him, the business became the glue. So I suppose in that regard, we’re closer now than we’ve ever been. ”
“You don’t seem to share much about your private life with him,” I noted. I was gentle with my probing, trying not to tread too heavily while also trying to understand what made their relationship tick.
Locke sighed. “I guess I just want him to know I’m taking things seriously. That he left Fraser Developments in good hands when he retired, and I’m not going to mess it up.”
How would he mess it up? There’d always be deals that fell apart and PR nightmares with heritage societies. That came with the territory of running a property development business, didn’t it? But that didn’t mean he wasn’t doing a good job.
“Dad taught me a lot,” Locke said. “About life. About weathering a storm. About maintaining your course and staying focused even when the world is falling apart around you. My mum’s betrayal must have killed him, but he held it together—he never let it get in the way of doing his job, being responsible, making sure everything was taken care of. ”
I swallowed hard, feeling a pang of sadness for Graeme.
What he’d probably needed most during that time was someone to tell him it was okay to take a step back.
That it was okay to hurt and mourn the loss of his relationship—and, moreover, that opening up to his son about what he was feeling might help them both grieve and move on.
He probably thought he was protecting Locke by acting like everything was fine, business as usual, but I couldn’t help thinking that keeping up that facade had probably done some real damage to them both.
“It’s important to me to keep that legacy going.” Locke’s hand shifted beneath the covers, seeking out my belly.
I nodded, smiling as he mentioned legacy. “You sound like Weston when he talks about his grandad’s legacy.”
“It’s a lot like that,” Locke agreed. “Fraser Developments is a company built on hard work and dedication. And that’s what I want to model for the next generation. I want this baby to see me putting my all into this company, making its success a priority, just like their grandad before me.”
I opened my mouth, and for a beat nothing came out.
Locke picked up on the fact that I was uneasy, because he was quick to reassure me.
“I’m not going to insist on the baby joining the business.
I want them to have a good work ethic, but I’ll support wherever that takes them.
And my work now to keep the business strong will ensure our baby has all the resources they need to…
I don’t know. Be an astronaut or cure cancer or design boats or something. ”
I smiled and tried to relax. It was good to hear that he wasn’t going to force our kid into real estate if it didn’t interest them—but was that what he really saw as his role as a dad?
To provide financially—full stop? Sure, that was important, but there was more to being a parent than buying things.
What about rescuing them from monsters under the bed, and teaching them to ride a bike, and never missing a performance of their deeply terrible school plays?
What about showing up as a parent in a way that went beyond a checkbook?
My smile fell away as I realized how different that was from the way Weston talked about legacy.
Yes, Weston ran the business he inherited from his grandfather, but he knew that the true legacy the man left behind was in the lives he touched.
That was why Weston focused so much on things like the Highland camp and the summer festival.
He fostered relationships with the community and showed up for the people he cared about.
Locke’s priorities sounded…all business.
My hold on him fell slack, and I sagged, wondering if there was really any room in his life for both the business he saw as his legacy and me and the baby.
That thought plagued me as he turned the lights off, and despite the comforter pulled up to my chin, I couldn’t shake the cold dread that clung to me for the rest of the night.