Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
WALKER
Life was empty. It hadn’t felt that way before her, before them, but now it felt cavernous and lacking.
Sunday I took a bracing run on the beach and then worked out at home. The rest of the day I wandered around my too big house wondering what they were up to.
Monday morning, I drove onto the estate and parked next to Sloane’s car. It happened as Brodan had promised. I couldn’t think of anything else but her, and it was infuriating and uncomfortable and—
I needed her.
Staff members practically leapt out of my way as I marched into the castle that morning. They seemed to take one look at my face and turn on their heels to avoid me. Good. That was my preference.
However, avoiding all human contact was impossible, and I was called to a meeting with Aria and Jock.
Lachlan was still preoccupied at home with his wife and child and plans to launch a whisky distillery with Brodan, which meant Aria was taking on more and more of the everyday running of the estate.
She’d called us into her office first thing.
As Jock and I entered the opulently furnished room, Aria rounded the table and held out a tablet to us. Jock took it, and I read the screen over his shoulder.
It was a news article on North Hunter.
Jock muttered a curse under his breath as we read it.
Apparently, when North was thirteen years old, he and his friends were responsible for the death of a homeless man. Details were vague, but it painted North in a very bad light.
“He’s here,” Aria announced as we looked up from the tablet, her expression decidedly unhappy.
“Mr. Hunter has chosen Ardnoch as the place to hide out during this scandal and, as a paying member, he has every right to do that.” She sounded like she wished he didn’t.
“He arrived at the crack of dawn, and I can only assume it won’t be long before the paparazzi descend at the gates. ”
“We’ll add extra security at all entrances,” Jock said. “We’ll also test our drone perimeter.”
“Good.” Aria exhaled heavily. “More members will arrive soon for Christmas, and having the tabloids as a welcoming party wasn’t really on my gift list this year.”
“Some people,” Jock huffed, staring at the tablet before he handed it back to her. “But he’s a member, so we have to protect him.”
I frowned at that, remembering the man who willingly dove in to help me protect Sloane when it wasn’t his job to do so.
“North was a child,” I reminded them both.
“A thirteen-year-old child, and the tabloids have provided no detail. What we do know is that North Hunter helped me protect a woman who means a great deal to me from a predator when it was not his responsibility. As far as I’m concerned, I owe him.
I’ll protect him because I’m paid to, but also because of the man he’s proven to be now.
We of all people should know not to trust everything we read. ”
Jock and Aria both look sufficiently chastened and stunned.
“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say in one go.” Amusement curled Jock’s lips. “And you’re absolutely right.” He turned to Aria. “We’ll take care of this.”
I moved to follow him out of her office, but Aria stopped me. I glanced back at her.
She narrowed her eyes. “A woman who means a great deal to you?”
I tensed. “Aye.”
She shook her head slightly, expression somewhat exasperated. “Maybe you should tell her that.”
“Maybe I will,” I retorted without thinking.
Her eyes flared, but I marched out of the room to follow Jock.
Then I stopped, pulse pounding in my ears.
My problem had always been my inability to release myself of the blame I carried for an action that was not mine. Was I really willing to be miserable for the rest of my life because Sloane might look at me differently once she knew?
“I need your trust …”
I hadn’t thought it was about trusting Sloane. But she was right. It was. And I’d done her a disservice by not trusting her.
“Jock.”
My boss turned at the top of the hall and gave me a questioning look.
“Do you need me for this, or can you do without me for a bit?”
Sensing the urgency in my voice, he waved me off. “Go do what you need to do.”
So I did.
Fear and anticipation thrummed through me as I tracked down Sloane’s boss, Mrs. Hutchinson. She seemed bemused when I asked which room Sloane was working on right now, but she gave me the suite number she reckoned she’d be in, and I tried to move through the castle with patience.
Not wanting to draw the members’ attention, I forced my steps to be unhurried as I made my way upward and then down the hallway toward Sloane. Another housekeeper, Frannie, I think Sloane called her, was outside a suite dumping rubbish into their cart.
“Sloane in there?” I asked her abruptly.
The older woman straightened and blinked at me owlishly. “Aye, she is.”
“Can you give us a minute?”
Her brow furrowed. “You the reason she looks ready to burst into tears every five seconds?”
Fuck.
An ache flared like an old wound in my chest. I nodded stiffly.
She considered me. “You don’t say much, do you?”
I scowled.
Frannie chuckled humorlessly. “Fine. On you go. Tell Sloane I’m moving on to the next room.”
She’d barely said the last word and I was slipping into the bedroom, closing the door behind me.
“Frannie, you would not believe what I found in the—oh.” Sloane appeared out of the bathroom, her features slack at the sight of me. “What are you doing here?”
Once I was decided on something, I didn’t beat around the bush. “I want to tell you about my past.”
The rubbish bag in her hand fell from her trembling fingers. “Walker?”
“I miss you.” The confession was rough with emotion. “I miss you so fucking much.”
Tears brightened those warm brown eyes. Eyes I could drown in. “I miss you too.”
“Will you sit?” I gestured to an armchair.
Her gaze darted to the door. “What about Frannie?”
“She’s working on your next room while we talk.” I sat down and, seeming unable to take her eyes off me, she watched me the whole time as she backed into the armchair and sunk down as if her legs had given out.
“You were right,” I admitted. “I didn’t know at the time, but I didn’t trust you with the truth.
I was blinded by how I feel about the truth.
And I …” I scrubbed a hand over my face because I wasn’t used to talking about these things with anyone but Rich.
“Fuck, I … There’s a part of me that will never forgive myself, and I thought if I told you and you looked at me …
differently … that it would royally fuck me up. ”
Sloane leaned in, her beautiful face soft with sympathy. “Look at you differently, how?”
“You … even after I messed up with Andros … you look at me like I can fix everything. I like the way it makes me feel,” I confessed gruffly. “I like that I’m that man for you. That someone as strong as you, as capable, wants me to be the man at her side.”
“Walker,” she breathed, tears brightening her eyes and slipping slowly down her cheeks. “You are. I do. You make me feel like even if bad things happen, they can’t touch me. Not really.”
Jesus. I felt winded by her words.
“Why would you think the truth would change that?”
“Because I failed someone in a way there’s no coming back from.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Tell me.”
There were very few people in the world who knew the truth.
Not even Brodan knew. Rich did. Sully too.
I licked my suddenly dry lips but held Sloane’s gaze.
“I grew up in Portobello, just outside Edinburgh. Right on the water. My dad was an architect, a very well-paid one. We had a nice home, and I had a mum who didn’t have to work and she showered me and my sister with attention. ”
“Sister?” she whispered.
The thought of Iona was a pain unlike any. I’d been shot and stabbed and almost drowned and suffocated. Burned and bombed. More than most men had ever experienced.
None of it compared to grief.
“My big sister.” My voice was quiet, words thick with memories.
“We were close. She even opted to stay at home and attend Edinburgh Uni. When I was sixteen, she was twenty and had just finished up her second year at university. She was premed.” Intelligent and caring.
And funny. Christ, she’d made me laugh. But I was a different person then.
“She started seeing this guy who was older. His name was Tommy Dingwall. My parents didn’t like him.
Neither did I. He was always touching her inappropriately in front of me.
Pawing at her. I hated the way he looked at her, like she was a pet he owned.
I had a feeling something was going on that I didn’t know about because Iona was arguing with my mum a lot.
But I was focused on my own stuff, you know. I wasn’t paying enough attention.
“Then one day, I cut school because I was in the middle of this video game and I’d rather be playing that than sitting in a geography class.”
Sloane subconsciously leaned closer, as if she could hear that my heart rate had sped up.
“I knew Mum wouldn’t be home because she went to painting class every week on that afternoon. But when I got to the house, I could hear Iona yelling at someone upstairs. Then I heard Tommy’s voice.” I exhaled shakily as the memory flooded over me. “Then … her scream.”
Sloane covered her mouth as if she knew what was coming.
“I raced upstairs and the bedroom door was blocked. So I rammed against it, hearing her …” Emotion threatened to choke me. “Hearing her scream my name for help.”
“Walker.” Fresh tears slipped down Sloane’s cheeks.
“I got in. He’d shoved her dresser across the door. But he … he came at me as soon as I slipped into the room. I felt a burning pain in my gut, and I looked down and saw he’d stabbed me.”
Her breath caught. “The scar on your stomach.”
I nodded. “I tried to attack him, but I was losing consciousness. The last thing I remembered was Iona begging him to help me.” My breath shuddered as I dropped my gaze to the floor.
“Walker, if this is too much …”
I shook my head. Determined to tell her. She wanted all of me? Well, this was it. “I came to when the paramedics lifted me onto a stretcher … and Iona on her bedroom floor … dead. He’d cut her throat.”
Sloane cried silently.
“He killed her while I was in the room. And I couldn’t save her.” I laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “The first thing my dad said to me when I woke up out of surgery was that I failed him. I failed her. He hated me for not saving her.”
“No.” Sloane launched out of her chair and fell on her knees at my feet.
She reached for my face, and I leaned into her touch, only then realizing there were fucking tears on my cheeks.
She wiped at them, eyes blazing. “You were a boy and you tried. It was no one’s fault but the sick bastard who killed Iona. He almost killed you.”
With a sob, she clambered onto my lap and I pulled her close, tight, burying my face in her chest as she held me. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said over and over. “You didn’t fail her. You didn’t fail me.”