Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
EILIDH
Although all the treats were sold out by the time we got to Callie’s Wee Cakery, Callie and Sloane ushered Millie and me into the back of the bakery where they had some malformed desserts that still tasted delicious.
Millie tried to grab Callie’s take on a French Fancy out of my hands and grew pretty pissed off when she saw the entire thing disappear into my mouth.
Her wails filled the kitchen and Callie whipped off her apron and lifted Millie out of her stroller.
“Oh, it’s okay, sweetie. Take a wee walk with Aunt Callie.
Hmm. When you’re a bit older, you’ll get to try a treat, eh?
Aw, hush, baby.” Callie bounced her gently as she paced up and down the kitchen.
Millie’s cries gentled. I wasn’t surprised.
Millie got over her grumbles if someone cuddled her.
“So, has Fyfe worked out permanent childcare?” Callie’s mum, Sloane, asked as she wiped down the marble-topped prep counters.
He’d told me he was in the middle of trying to. I hadn’t responded with anything but a grunt. After my talk with Mum, I understood him better. I maybe even believed he thought he truly wanted me, but I couldn’t quite trust that. And I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it just yet.
“There aren’t a lot of people looking to take on full-time nanny positions in a remote Scottish village.” I shrugged with more casualness than I felt. “I think Millie will end up at my mum’s daycare.”
“How does that make you feel?” Callie asked.
Millie was snuggled against her, but her big blue eyes were trained on me.
My heart squeezed. “I will miss the hell out of seeing her every day. But … I suppose we need to get back to reality.”
“So … things between you and Fyfe?” Callie was wide-eyed with curiosity.
I glanced between her and Sloane, who had stopped cleaning to hear my answer.
“He got jealous over Cameron—who, by the way, giant red flag—and decided he wants me after all.”
Sloane frowned. “Go back to the red flag.”
I told them about Cameron and how Dad had more than likely already called all my uncles plus Walker to go scare him off.
“You didn’t sleep with him, did you?” Callie grimaced.
“No, thank God. There were some orange flags. I thought it was Fyfe who was holding me back from sleeping with Cameron, but maybe it was my instincts.”
“Great. So now we have a doctor with possible behavioral issues.” Sloane grimaced too, looking so much like her daughter it was uncanny. “Just what Ardnoch needs.”
“We’ll figure that out later. For now, back to Fyfe.” Callie brought Millie over because she was straining for me. I took her warm weight into my arms as she babbled. I nodded at her, smiling brightly so she’d smile back. At her baby giggle, I melted.
“Fyfe?” Callie insisted.
“I need some time.” I bounced Millie on my knees and she giggled harder. “Don’t I, Millie Billie? Auntie Eilidh needs some time to figure out if your daddy even knows what he really wants. Isn’t that right?”
“Ae!” Millie clapped her hands. “Ae!”
I laughed softly but looked up to see Callie giving me a look.
“What?”
She sighed heavily. “Please don’t waste time like I did.”
“Don’t even think about interfering like I did,” I said, referring to the fact that I’d deliberately brought Lewis and Callie together at a party in London because I was convinced they were both still in love with each other. I was correct.
Callie shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, it would only be fair. And that worked out great, FYI.”
“Callie …”
“Fine.” She threw her palms up. “Waste time dancing around each other instead of banging out your issues.”
“Charming.” Sloane threw her daughter a wry look.
Callie grinned unrepentantly. “What? Isn’t your problem that you’re worried Fyfe is only physically attracted to you and clinging to you because you’ve been such a help with Millie?”
“Stop reading my mind, woman.”
“Sleep with him. You’ll know after that if it was just an itch you both needed to scratch. Plus, you should have sex before you make any important relationship decisions. What if you’re not compatible in the bedroom?”
“There’s more to a relationship than sex,” I tried to argue.
Callie and Sloane exchanged a look and Sloane offered quietly, “Of course there is. But sex is a big part of intimacy with a partner. If you don’t have chemistry, things might get stale fast.”
Shit.
I never even considered Fyfe and I might not click in the bedroom. Maybe because of that infamous sex dream in which he was a phenomenal lover. But that wasn’t real. That was all in my head.
Oh my God.
Callie patted my shoulder. “Maybe something to think about.”
As soon as I pushed Millie’s stroller out of the bakery, I spotted Cameron exiting Flora’s with a to-go cup of coffee in hand. I ducked, veering a sharp left in the opposite direction.
“Eilidh!”
Shit.
Inwardly sighing, I glanced back and saw Cameron looking left and right before jogging across the street. His lanyard bounced against his stomach while his coffee valiantly held on.
That dread I’d felt yesterday during our altercation increased tenfold as he bestowed a white, charming smile on me.
“So glad I caught you before I return to work.” He slowed to a stop, searching my face happily like we hadn’t seen each other in years. His gaze dropped to Millie in the stroller. “She’s so adorable. Out for a walk?”
I gaped at him.
Like … what the actual fuck?
At my nonresponse, Cameron leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
I reared backward. “Whoa, okay.”
He laughed softly. “Sorry. I, uh … yeah, yesterday was odd. I thought we could just forget about it and start again. Why don’t we go for dinner Saturday night?”
True concern crawled down my spine in an unpleasant shiver. “I think I made it clear yesterday, Cameron, that I’m not interested in pursuing a relationship with you. Any kind of relationship.” I pushed the stroller to walk away, and he clamped his fist around the handle to stop me.
The warm, cordial doctor was gone. His expression was hard.
Seriously, he was like a real-life Jekyll & Hyde. I shivered again.
“You might want to rethink giving me another chance,” he said quietly, a tinge of menace curdling his tone. “After all, I am Millicent’s doctor. One call from me to social services and Fyfe loses his daughter.”
He did not just …
Rage clouded my mind.
He was attempting to blackmail me into dating him?
A cold laugh huffed from between my lips as I stared up at a man I’d thought attractive a mere week ago. Now I thought he was one of the scummiest things I’d ever laid eyes on. And I called him a thing because he was not a man. “You think you can threaten and blackmail me?”
“No one would dispute the word of a doctor.” He shrugged, taking a casual sip of his coffee.
Chuckling at his naivete, I watched his face flush with rage. Oh, he didn’t like a woman laughing at him. Safe in the knowledge there was nothing he could do to me in the middle of the street, I scoffed, “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“A once-famous actor?” He guffawed.
Something snapped in me at that moment.
For years, I’d allowed my power to be taken from me. Allowed others, friends, strangers, to have power over me. Someone had planted a fucking camera in my home and watched me, had stolen power from me, and I didn’t even know it.
And I was done.
“No. I’m an Adair. You think we’re just a family with some money, a few businesses …
You’d be wrong. Our estate isn’t some fluffy club for the rich and famous.
There are powerful people in that club with connections that would blow your mind.
And through them, my family has connections that reach the highest level of government.
In multiple countries. One phone call and I could have your medical license stripped from you.
Your car license revoked. Evicted. Credit score annihilated.
In other words, Dr. Phillips, you mess with me, my family, or Fyfe, and I will fucking ruin you in every way that matters.
You might have gotten away with threatening women in the past, but this time you chose the wrong one.
Because I know my own power. And this part’s really going to enrage you since you’re a little, little man who clearly gets off on making women feel weak …
but I have so much more power than you, that wee threat you just made is a joke my family will be dining on for years to come. ”
He lunged toward me, teeth bared, like he might hit me.
“Do it,” I hissed. “I dare you.”
Cameron caught himself, his expression blanking. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching. Then he leaned in and vowed quietly, “This isn’t over, you little bitch.”
“You’re right. It won’t be over until you’re out of Ardnoch.”
“Problem here?”
I looked to my right to find Walker standing outside the bakery. He was parked in the no-parking zone, his piercing eyes fixed on Cameron. When he looked at me, whatever he saw on my face had him striding forward to stand at my back.
“Hi, Walker. Cameron, have you met my sister-in-law’s father? Ex-Royal Marine Commando, head of security at the estate. Walker, I was just telling the new doctor here that maybe it’s best he find a job elsewhere. As in not in Ardnoch or anywhere near us.”
“Oh aye, your dad called me this morning. So this is the prick?”
“Excuse me?” Cameron straightened his shoulders, appearing affronted. “I don’t know what she’s told—”
“He just threatened to call social services on Fyfe so they’ll take Millie from him unless I agreed to date him,” I told Walker with a casualness I didn’t feel.
The atmosphere instantly turned ice cold as Walker took a step toward Cameron, towering over him at six and a half feet.
“Oh, I think it’s definitely time you moved on from Ardnoch, Doctor.
Or I might just have to investigate you.
I’m sure there are a few skeletons in your closet just rattling to get out and destroy your life as you know it. ”
“I see threats are a common currency in this village.” Cameron glowered.
“Uh, pot meet kettle.”
His eyes narrowed on me. “You think I’m afraid of you? After this, you should be afraid of me, Eilidh. I don’t take kindly to threats.”
Walker stepped right into Cameron’s space, not touching him, but his menacing expression was clear. “Neither do I. Don’t even think about breathing in her direction because the next time you do … by the time me, her father, and her uncles are done with you, there won’t be a body to find.”
This time Cameron was smart enough to show a little fear. Without another word or glance in my direction, he strode off.
Walker and I watched him until he’d turned the corner out of sight.
Then Callie’s dad looked at me, concern written all over him.
“I’m tired of making that threat. Hopefully, that’s the last time I have to.
But I don’t think that problem is over. Until me and your dad finish this, you go nowhere alone.
I’ll walk you and Millie back to your car. ”
“Do you think that’s necessary?”
“Aye. I’ve dealt with enough abusive narcissists to recognize one when I see him.”
“Bloody hell,” I muttered under my breath as I turned the stroller toward the car park. “A few weeks. That’s how long I’ve known the arsehole. How did it escalate to this?”
“With people like him, a fixation can happen almost instantly.”
“Wonderful.” I had a mystery stalker planting cameras in my old apartment and now a new one who wanted to make my life a misery because I had the audacity to say no to him. “You know, coming home was supposed to be about slowing down.”
“This is Ardnoch. We were due a wee bit of danger,” Walker replied dryly.