Chapter Eight
Sophie…
The sad truth is that I’ve loved Michael MacTavish since the day I saw him standing on the porch with his father as I crawled out of their koi pond, dripping wet.
It was a childish crush at first, and even Maisie saw it, teasing me about it once until she saw how mortified I was.
She never brought it up again, but I’m sure my pathetic infatuation was obvious.
I have many skills, but concealing my emotions isn’t one of them.
I thought I’d grow out of it as I got older, as boys from school started asking me out but I never did. Who could compare to Michael? He stood head and shoulders over everyone, not just from his considerable height but his authority and confidence.
I dated a bit until nervous kisses turned into sweaty attempts at groping and I’d shove the boy away. I heard all the names they started calling me.
“Frigid.” Two idiots chuckled behind me as I shut my locker.
“Bitch.” Kenneth Murray after I got out of his car and walked home from our date.
“Cocktease.” A group of girls in my Honors Biology class after I turned down the boyfriend of their Queen Bee. You’d think she’d be appreciative, but no.
Jack, Maisie’s twin, heard a conversation about me one day at rugby practice and kicked the shit out of Malcolm Stewart and Ross MacDonnell. That stopped most of the nasty comments until we graduated from secondary school.
When I started college, I tried. I really did. I didn’t want to be the pathetic girl mooning after someone she could never have. It didn’t matter how kind the MacTavishes were to Mom and me. The future Chieftain of the clan was not going to be marrying the housekeeper’s daughter.
Which is why I feel like the ground just disappeared out from under me as our silent car ride takes us into West End, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Edinburgh and onto a private lane that ends at a cobblestone driveway, blocked by a large black iron gate, it swings open, then shuts behind us with a terrifying finality.
I already know there’s four houses there, two on either side of a green space, facing each other. The other houses belong to Michael’s cousins, Kai and his wife Luna, Mason, who’s married to Afton, and the house with the bell tower belongs to Logan and Arabella.
When Ian pulls up to Michael’s house, he looks in the rearview mirror at us. His face is carefully expressionless, but I know what he’s thinking. Why did Michael save Mom and me? By marrying me, of all things?
Sorry, Ian. I don’t know, either.
Michael walks through the downstairs, turning on lights as he goes. It looks the same as I remember, beautifully decorated, plush oriental rugs, wood wainscoting, lots of windows. A little cold and rigidly spotless.
“Are ye hungry?”
The sound of his voice is so abrupt that I jump a little. “No. Thank you,” I add quickly.
He loosens his tie, putting away his phone for the first time since we left the estate. I can vividly remember Mom’s heartbroken expression as she waved goodbye to me, standing in the driveway, flanked by two guards. My eyes sting and I turn away, not wanting Michael to see me cry.
“I’m just tired. Do you mind if I go to bed?”
Oh, god. The wedding night. Was he planning to have sex with me tonight? Did that just sound like I was hinting at it?
“Follow me.” He could not sound less interested, and I’m alternately relieved and a little insulted.
I remember the guest room he offered to Maisie and me the night he rescued us from that godawful party.
It’s just past the master bedroom at the end of the hall.
He opens that door and nods. “You’ll sleep in here. ”
Rubbing my sweaty palms over my leggings, I nod rapidly, stepping into the room. “Okay. Sure. I’ll just… Goodnight.”
He doesn’t bother saying it back, shutting the door in my face. My heart drops into my stomach when I hear the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock.
Note to self:
Never fall asleep crying. Ever again.
Oh, my god.
Apparently, crying yourself to sleep is about the same as getting shitfaced when it comes to giving you a brutal hangover the next morning.
I roll over, burying my face in the pillow.
The morning sun is shining aggressively through the tall windows in the room and drilling through my weak and fragile cerebellum.
I fell asleep on top of the silky mint green comforter in my clothes.
There are mascara stains on the expensive cotton pillowcase and my eyes are puffy.
The whole nightmare of yesterday comes flooding back and I put the pillow over my face.
Maybe it’s just better to smother myself.
The knock on the door ruins my plans for the moment. “Mrs. MacTavish, are ye awake?” It’s a woman’s voice, light and kind-sounding.
It takes me a full minute and another polite tap on the door to realize whoever is knocking is referring to me.
“Um…” I slither off the tall bed, shoving back my hair. “I’m awake. Give me a moment, please.”
“Not to worry. Take your time.” I hear her unlocking the door and I blush an unattractive brick red, humiliated that whoever this is knows I’m a prisoner. Not to be trusted.
Washing my face, I try to straighten my snarled mass of hair and pull down my sweater. There’s nothing else I can do, so I leave the opulent bathroom and trudge toward the door. Should I open it? Does she have to open it? Whoever it is solves the problem by knocking again.
“May I come in, Mrs. MacTavish?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Again, it takes me a second to realize she means me.
The woman has a pleasant smile for me, she’s older, maybe late forties, early fifties.
She has dark hair, cut in a no-nonsense bob.
“I’m Davina, Mr. MacTavish’s housekeeper.
I wanted to let ye know that Ian has brought your belongings.
If you’d like to come down and have breakfast, he can bring everything up for ye. ”
Slowly putting one foot over the threshold and then the other, I stand there for a moment, feeling odd, and out of place. “It’s nice to meet you, Davina. I’m Sophie. Is Michael- Mr. MacTavish here?”
An uncomfortable expression flits across her face before she goes back to her pleasant mask. “He headed out early today, he left instructions to make ye comfortable.”
I didn’t get the sense Michael was at all interested in making me “comfortable,” but okay.
Davina keeps up a pleasant stream of chatter as we head downstairs and into the kitchen, which is already my favorite room in this house.
Skylights let in sunshine from the slanted timbered ceiling, with a long slab of white and grey granite for the island and more for the countertops.
There’s a dark blue Aga stove and black wooden cabinets.
“If ye’d like to sit down, I’ve got some eggs and sausages ready, and some bread I baked this morning.” Davina looks as uncomfortable as I feel, pulling out a chair at the table and fussing with the silverware.
I guess she’s not used to wives that get locked in the bedroom, either. I realize she probably knows exactly what happened and who I am.
A traitor to the clan. Alive, but no one understands why.
I spend the rest of the morning and afternoon putting my stuff away.
The guest room has an enormous walk-in closet, unheard of for a house that has to be two hundred years old, so I suspect Michael did some extensive renovating.
I’m grateful though, that he kept the large number of fireplaces throughout the house.
The one in this room has a beautiful jade green tile with an ancient silvered mirror.
The intricate parquet floor gleams with decades of being lovingly polished and the bed is enormous, with a mattress high enough that it requires a running start to get on top of it.
My favorite spot is a lovely cushioned window seat with lots of pillows that looks out over the green square separating the houses.
Surrounding all of them, though, is a solid brick wall topped by iron spikes.
There’s a guard house much like the one at the MacTavish estate by the gate.
Michael’s house is beautiful. But it’s still a prison and I’m fighting a constant, anxious nudge at the base of my spine that’s urging me to run. But there’s no getting out of here.
Where would I go?
Mom and I are guarantors for each other’s good behavior.
It’s late afternoon when I finally knock on the door, hoping to creep down to the kitchen and find something for an early dinner. It’s quickly unlocked and I find Ian leaning against the wall.
“Are you here to keep an eye on me?” I blurt out.
His bland expression doesn’t change. “Aye.”
“Okay, then…” I shift from one foot to the other. “I’m just going down to the kitchen.”
He follows me down the stairs like the world’s most awkward shadow and I feel his stare on the back of my neck. How do people tolerate having a bodyguard? Of course, Ian’s not here to keep me safe, so much as to keep an eye on me.
Davina’s gone for the day, so I open the fridge and find a tidy stack of pre-made dishes. Glancing back at Ian, I ask, “Do you want me to heat one up for you?”
“I’m here to work, not eat, Mrs. MacTavish.”
Flushing red, I turn around, shaking my head slightly. In all my silly teenage dreams, when I thought of being called Mrs. MacTavish, it sounded and felt a lot better than this.
Eating my lonely dinner of salmon and wild rice, my hand itches with the desire to hold my phone again.
They took it from me yesterday, along with my laptop, so I have no way of checking on Mom.
Is she okay? Have they locked her in the cottage like Michael did with me here?
Are they interrogating her? Scaring her?
I think of everything she’s done for me, all the things she’s given up and my heart twists in my chest. I may not have known that I came from a mafia family, but I knew growing up that we did pretty well; nice cars, a big house.
Mom didn’t fall apart when we lost Dad and Jordan, she took the first job she could find when we arrived in Italy.
I’ve never heard her complain about losing her luxurious lifestyle.
I linger in the kitchen for as long as I can, slowly washing the food container and wiping off the counter. Reluctantly turning back to Ian I ask, “Is Michael going to come back tonight?"
“I dinnae know,” Ian says. “But I am instructed to take ye back up to your room when you're finished.”
“I see,” I struggle for the right thing to say. “Could you please ask Michael if I could call my mother?" The look he gives me is not encouraging but I force myself to smile. “Please, it would mean a great deal to me. You can listen the entire time.”
He shakes his head silently, and now I’m getting pissed off.
“You’ve been in my mother’s kitchen a million times, taking off with all her baked goods!
I understand why you’re cold and paranoid right now, but you have no right to treat me like crap.
I don’t think for a second that Michael instructed you to act like this. ”
Actually, it’s entirely possible that Michael might have.
A flicker of discomfort flashes over his face and I go in for the kill. “I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“I’ll call him,” he mutters. “I need to get ye situated back in your room first.”
After making a brief detour into Michael’s lavish library - bookcases rising to the ceiling with one of those cool rolling ladders - for something to read, I gloomily head back upstairs, Ian following a polite distance behind me.
Before he can lock me back in the bedroom, I stick my foot in the doorjamb, blocking him. “You said you’d call him. Please?”
“Aye,” he says tiredly, and I’m a little proud that I’m weakening this man’s resolve. “In ye go now.”
Settling in my comfortable window seat, I stare unseeingly at the same page for an hour before a knock on the door sends me off the chair with a little yelp.
“Mrs. MacTavish,” Ian calls through the door, “Mr. MacTavish says ye can speak to your mother tomorrow. He instructed me to tell ye that she is fine and unharmed.”
Resting my forehead against the door, I don’t fight the stream of tears running down my cheeks. “Okay,” I say hoarsely. “Thank you, Ian. Good night.”
“G’night, Mrs. MacTavish.”