Chapter 5
Five
“How’re you doing there, Milly Mouse? Looking quality as always.”
I inwardly cringed when Lachlan and Magnus Scotswolf appeared in front of my desk.
I liked Iain’s father, Lachlan well enough—even if his Highland accent was so thick, at times it was nearly unintelligible to my American ears.
But my boss’s professional rugby player brother, Magnus, had nicknamed me “Milly Mouse,” the very first time he’d dropped by to visit Iain after I’d been hired.
And now the entire staff of AlgoFortune, save Iain, called me this.
Magnus Scotswolf could get run over by a Lothian double-decker bus for all I cared.
Sadly, nobody else at AlgoFortune seemed to feel that way. Beyond the glass wall, I noticed a collection of female and male employees openly staring at the Edinburgh Rovers’ star winger.
Magnus stood a few inches wider and taller than Iain, and I supposed he was somewhat handsome in a rough, grizzled way.
Honestly, rugby was a sport I barely knew existed before moving to Scotland. But apparently playing this pad-less version of football for the city’s very own Edinburgh Rovers was enough for people to make a big deal about it every time Magnus swanned through the AlgoFortune offices.
And swan he did. Magnus planted both hands on my desk and all but struck a pose for all the people staring on the other side of the glass.
Which was why I made it a point to look right past him to his graying father.
Iain and Magnus might have inherited their olive good looks from their Italian mother, but they had their Scottish father to thank for their height and rugged handsomeness.
Lachlan looked like a slightly more rural version of Sean Connery in his silver fox prime. And, he also wore the Faoltairn kilt.
However, his was paired with a light sweater as opposed to Iain’s preferred white button-up or the clingy henleys Magnus often opted for when he was out of uniform—no need to guess if this Scotswolf brother was packing muscles. He always kept them on full display.
“Hi, Mr. Scotswolf!” I said, purposefully ignoring Magnus to focus on the man standing slightly behind him.
“Milly, hoositgaun?” The older Scotswolf returned my greeting with a cheerful nod and words I could only hope I was translating right as “How’s it going?”
“Good, good,” I answered. “Have a seat, and I’ll let Iain know you’re here.”
Lachlan quickly took me up on my invitation and settled onto a dark couch in the outer office’s sitting area with an architectural magazine. He didn’t share Iain’s staunch anti-sitting ethos, and he knew this would be his last opportunity to take a load off his feet.
“Thank you for the offer, Milly Mouse,” Magnus said as if I was talking to him and not his father. He leaned in even closer. “But I’ll stay right here with you until my brother decides to grace us with his presence.”
Ugh, Magnus did this every time he dropped by to visit Iain.
Instead of waiting in the seating area with his father, he’d hover around my desk making overtly flirtatious small talk.
As if he was James Bond and I was Miss Moneypenny.
When really he was the Smirking Pompous Athlete and I was the Beleaguered Assistant who had to put up with him because he was my boss’s brother.
Other women in the office often described Magnus as “incredibly hot,” and the men who followed the Edinburgh Rovers like it was their second job insisted he was “incraedibly gifted.” He hadn’t burdened any of those other admirers with office nicknames they couldn’t shake, though.
I just found him “incraedibly annoying.”
Especially today. Unlike, all the other times he’d come by the office, I could smell him—way, way too distinctly. Pine, moss, and crisp air, similar to Iain.
But it struck me as … wrong somehow. In a way that made me wish even more fervently than usual that he’d go take a seat beside his father.
Unfortunately, he decided to linger at my desk, watching me with his smoky gray eyes as he asked, “How’s the arm, then? Iain mentioned you’d been injured when you popped round to his cottage the other night.”
I started. Iain had bothered to discuss me with his brother?
“Um, I’m fine. It doesn’t even hurt anymore,” I answered. “Like I told my roommate, the bandage makes it look worse than it really is.”
Magnus’s eyes narrowed. “Your flatmate … that would be the lass who hugged you after you went to the hospital?”
I crooked my head to the side. Because …wow, that was a very specific detail for him to know, let alone bring up. “Uh … yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
I shook my head at him, totally bemused. “Why do you want to know?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to meet a friend of yours, Milly Mouse? Especially if she’s as quality as you.”
“Don’t call her that.”
Both Magnus and I looked up to find Iain standing inside the open doorway of his office, glaring at his brother.
“What? Milly Mouse? You’ve a problem with my little pet name now?” Magnus asked.
His tone sounded light and jokey. But he drew himself up to his full height and turned to face Iain in a way that looked an awful lot like squaring off.
“Millicent doesn’t like being referred to in that manner, Rí Faoil.” Iain rolled his neck and took a hard step forward. “So, you’ll stop calling her that this instant.”
“I see.” Magnus’s voice became low and dangerous. “Not only did you extend this outsider an invitation to our village, but you’re also of a mind to command me now?”
My eyes ping-ponged between the two brothers. Even though Iain was a tech billionaire who had to make at least ten times what Magnus did playing rugby, Magnus was looking down his nose at his brother. As if Iain had crossed some invisible line of protocol—one I couldn’t see.
But if Iain registered a threat, his cold, blank expression didn’t show it. “In this matter, yes. You’ll refer to Millicent as she prefers, or you won’t refer to her at all.”
“Are you serious right now?” Magnus took another step forward and bunched his fists like he was gearing up to take a swing at his younger brother.
But then their father, who I’d almost forgotten about, got in between them and spoke to both his sons—first Magnus and then Iain in a harsh string of Gaelic I couldn’t decipher.
However, the two brothers must have understood every syllable. They both stepped back when Lachlan was done talking.
And even though they continued to glare at each other over their father’s head, they relaxed their shoulders and unbunched their fists.
I eyed Mr. Scotswolf in a new light, feeling—not for the first time—that there was something oddly formal, even hierarchical, about the Scotswolfs’ family dynamic … something I wasn’t quite getting.
Another tense moment of silence passed. Then Magnus suddenly swung his smirk back to me.
“I’ve a feeling we’ll be seeing more of you in Faoltairn, Milly.” He over pronounced the two syllables of my name to the point that it felt like a mockery. But at least those exaggerated syllables didn’t come with a “mouse” attached.
I threw Iain a grateful look as Magnus walked out without a further word to his brother or father. Like a king who expected his subjects to follow.
Which Lachlan did. Iain too.
“The Edmunson pitch is up to standard,” he called over his shoulder as he followed behind his father. “Send it on.”
Both his tone and expression were all business. As if he hadn’t just stood up to his super-imposing brother on my behalf.
“Oh—okay. Will do—” I started to answer, only to break off when the sliding glass door whisked shut behind him.
Leaving me alone in his outer office, struggling to figure out what had just happened.
And why it felt so significant.