Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Stella
The windscreen wipers were working overtime to clear some sort of path in front of us. The roads were ridiculously narrow around here, but it didn’t seem to faze Beck, who was at the wheel of the Land Rover he’d rented.
“You think we should turn around?” I asked as I gripped the papers I was carrying.
Beck shot me a look, then patted my leg, his hand staying a little too long on my thigh for it to be a friendly reassurance.
Up until last night I’d doubted things between us—unable to understand what was real and fake.
But last night was real and I had the bruises, the bitemarks, and the near-constant buzz under my skin from being with Beck that proved it.
“It’s fine. Just rain. I can slow down if you’re nervous.
” I didn’t know if it was the words or the tone, but I believed him when he said it was fine.
Still, he lifted his foot off the accelerator a little and we slowed without me having to ask.
At every opportunity, he showed me that he thought about my feelings, my desires, my needs.
Being with him was a revelation. “It’s meant to clear in a couple of hours, so the journey back should be easier.
At least we’re not going to Inverness. A helicopter would be more difficult in this visibility. ”
There was no way I would have gotten into a helicopter in this weather, but thankfully there was a shop in a village about twelve miles away that would have most of the stuff we needed.
Not that buying things was going to help.
What I really wanted was to get to the bottom of what was driving Beck.
He was smart. He’d had money long enough to know how these things worked—it didn’t matter what world you came from, people did deals with people they liked and trusted, yet Beck was doing his best to not fit in.
“We have a trip to Fort William next,” I said, looking at the detailed itinerary we’d been given when we arrived. “That should be relatively easy to dress for. We have that hike—we need to deal with that. And then the shooting. It’s too late to get you a dinner jacket—”
“I’ve brought a perfectly nice dinner jacket.”
This guy had a thing for Tom Ford, and who could blame him? He looked spectacular in everything he wore, but old money went to Saville Row. And they could tell the difference.
“Just because I don’t have a tailor that my family has been using for four generations doesn’t mean my dinner jacket isn’t a perfect fit.”
“You need to stop focusing on how things should be and just figure out how they are so you can get what you want.”
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
“Why are you so determined to stand out from everyone around you?” I said, sliding my hand onto his leg.
Beck’s comments about people with money still weren’t making sense to me, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
I wanted to know him better. I wanted to understand exactly what made him tick.
I’d thought I’d known Matt and it turned out I’d been living with a stranger all these years.
I wasn’t going to settle for what Beck told me.
I wanted to dig deeper. Not least because we were sharing a bed.
Last night had been . . . unexpected. It was impossible to deny that Beck was attractive.
But he wasn’t my type—well, physically, he was everyone’s type, but Beck was so .
. . brash wasn’t the word. But he had a confidence about him that Matt had been missing.
Matt was confident on the outside and comfortable in the world of public school and old money, but he didn’t have the core of steel Beck did.
He also didn’t have the penis Beck did.
But it wasn’t just Beck’s dick that had made last night so memorable.
It was the way he’d made me feel. Like it was me, rather than sex, that he wanted.
I couldn’t ever remember feeling like that with Matt.
Being with Beck was . . . liberating. It allowed me to stop focusing on where I was and what had happened, and I’d been forced into the present.
But it wasn’t as if Beck was going to be part of my future.
As much as Beck and I were enjoying each other’s company, as much as I’d been convinced that things between us were real, we were both in Scotland—together—for a reason.
And it wasn’t to start a serious relationship.
The corners of Beck’s mouth twitched as he fought a grin as he faced the blurred road in front of us. I wasn’t sure if it was what I’d said, my hand, or whether he was thinking about last night, too.
Beck cleared his throat, caught my wrist and placed my hand on his thigh. “The hike won’t be difficult,” he said. “We’re not going up Ben Nevis. We don’t need poles and shit. I’ve brought some gray hiking trousers.”
I’d bet they were brand new. And I’d bet his arse looked fantastic in them. “Yeah we can probably solve that with a nail brush and some scissors.”
“I have no idea what that means, but I know you’re not cutting up those trousers. I went up Scarfell Pike in them last year. There’s nothing wrong with them.”
That sounded promising. At least they wouldn’t still have their label on and crease marks on the legs from the packaging. That was the thing with old money—nothing was new. Nothing looked as if you’d just spent money on it. But Beck knew this. He wanted to stand out. But why?
“You went up Scarfell?” I liked the idea of Beck out in the wilds, his hair a little tousled, a smear of mud across his perfect jaw. I’d witnessed Beck a little sweaty and it looked good on him.
“Yeah, some charity thing that Dexter was doing.”
“So you sacrificed your pristine, expensive gym for the outdoors? I thought you left that behind when you got your Duke of Edinburgh?”
The road veered to the right and some signs of life came into view. “Looks like where we’re headed,” he said, nodding at the buildings up ahead. “And I have no problem getting outdoors. Never have, never will. I might live in the city—”
“In a penthouse in one of the most expensive postcodes in the country, in Europe even.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t like getting out. I grew up in the country. And you’re the one getting wiggy because it’s raining.” He took my hand from his lap and pressed a kiss to my wrist as if it was totally normal. His lips were like a shot of lust injected right into my veins.
I pulled away, unsure of how long I could withstand the intensity of his touch.
“Oh, this must be the village,” he said. “Can you spot the shop you want to go to?”
I glanced to either side of the street as Beck slowed down. “There on the left,” I said.
“You sure we’re going to find what we need?” he asked as he pulled in front of a shop with dark-green window frames and a cream sign on the front that said Cameron James-Gentleman’s Outfitters. “It looks like a ghost town.”
“It’s not Saville Row, that’s for sure. What I do know is that I didn’t bring an umbrella.” It was only about three meters between the car and the door to the shop, but it was enough distance to drown in this weather.
Beck pulled his jacket from the backseat. “Use this.”
Before I could say no, he’d stepped out of the car and instead of making his way to the store he rounded the bonnet and opened my door.
I could get used to a man doing that for me, although I couldn’t tell him that. “I can open my own door. You’ll get soaked.”
I slid from my seat, holding his coat over my head, enjoying the scent of him as it surrounded me. “Here,” I said, trying to share the shelter of his jacket.
He ignored me and took my hand, pulling me forward.
The bell was still tinkling as we closed the door behind us and let the rain drip onto the mat in the entrance.
I looked up at him and my stomach did a deep dive from a mile-high cliff.
I wondered if I’d ever come up for air. The rain had emphasized his beauty.
His face was splattered with raindrops and his hair was slick with water, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.
“You’re . . .” I traced his brows with my fingertips and he lazily shut his eyes.
A man behind us cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”
Beside me, Beck scrubbed his face with his hands and slicked back his hair.
“Yes, we need something for Beck to wear when he goes shooting.”
“Very well. My name’s Angus. Please follow me.”
The shop looked tiny from the outside but seemed to go back for miles.
We were the only customers, but the place was stocked as if they were expecting a sudden surge of people to descend on them at any moment.
From the floor to the admittedly low ceiling were built-in, aged-oak cabinets and shelving stuffed full of shoes, shirts, jackets, walking sticks, boots, coats, trousers, kilts, wellingtons and binoculars.
Every so often there was an island cabinet showcasing socks or cravats or ties.
It was as if it had been airlifted from Saville Row right to the highlands of Scotland.
We were bound to find everything we were looking for right here.
“Miss, if you’d like to take a seat.” Angus indicated a small, buttoned, red velvet chair to the side of a cabinet full of blue ties of differing patterns.
“Sir, if you want to make your way into the changing room, just there.” Angus nodded toward an oak door right beside me.
“I’ll bring you some things,” he said, then scurried away.
“What? He doesn’t want to know my size or what I like?”
“This guy is what? Sixty? My guess is he’s been doing this job about forty-five years. He’ll know your size from looking at you and will know what you want better than you do.”
“What I want is Henry’s signature on those papers.”
“Exactly.”
Beck sighed, then his face cracked into a grin. “Wanna come in and make out with me before Angus comes back?”