30. KiltBe Kilt-ed
KILT OR BE KILT-ED
CALLUM
Seattle's September sunshine breaks through lingering morning fog as I dress for what might be the most important board meeting of my career.
The crisp autumn air brings clarity rather than chill, a welcome change from the sweltering emotional chaos of recent weeks.
The only thing left to do after this shit-storm of a sage?
Finalize the MacTavish acquisition on Abernathy Corp's terms, not Duncan's.
After weeks of viral humiliation, credential scandals, and family betrayals, I'm determined to reclaim control over at least this one aspect of my professional life.
What happens after the meeting—specifically, tracking down a certain former Marketing Director to deliver an apology approximately one week overdue—that's the part I'm still rehearsing in my head.
"For someone about to close a multi-billion dollar acquisition, you look surprisingly nervous," Gran calls out from my penthouse kitchen doorway, where she's watching me straighten my tie for the third time.
"I'm not nervous.” I straighten it again. "I'm focused."
"On your tie or on what you'll say to Karina afterward?" She sips her tea with infuriating omniscience.
"The acquisition is my priority," I insist, though we both know it's only partly true.
"Of course it is." She pats my cheek as she passes. "That's why you've been practicing apology speeches in the shower for three days."
“You—I have not been?—"
"The acoustics in this penthouse are remarkable. Particularly around 6 AM when you think I'm still asleep."
“Remind me to never ever sleep within five miles of you when you’re in town.”
Before I can formulate a suitably dignified response, my phone chimes with a message from Connor.
Have you seen it? The #TheRealKarina campaign? It's everywhere.
Frown deepening, I tap over to Twitter where my feed is suddenly dominated by posts with the hashtag #TheRealKarina.
I click the trending topic and find myself staring at Karina's face.
Not her polished professional headshot, but a candid photo of her laughing.
Looking gorgeous. And free.
Completely unguarded.
The caption beneath reads…
I’m Karina Peters, and this is my real story…
No filters, no embellishments, no fabrications.
Just the truth about class barriers, credential gatekeeping, and how I fell in love with my ex's brother. (Yes, THAT brother. #KiltedCasanova) Thread: 1/25
"Oh my," Fiona murmurs, reading over my shoulder. "The girl's got courage."
I scroll rapidly through the thread, heart hammering as Karina lays bare her entire history.
Her father's abandonment. Supporting her family as a teenager.
The systemic rejections that led to her desperate decision to falsify credentials.
And finally, the guilt and fear that kept her from telling me the truth until it was too late.
The final tweet in the thread stops my breath entirely:
So that's the real Karina Peters.
I know that I can be loved…that I am loved. Not for being the “right” arm-candy. Or the useful employee. Or the self-sacrificing sister or daughter.
But that I’m loved for being just who I am.
Sometimes fucked-up. Often resilient.
And totally and completely in love with a man who values integrity above all else—perhaps too much. @CallumAbernathy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. Not for who I am, but for not trusting you with the truth sooner. #TheRealKarina
"Well," Fiona says with suspicious moisture in her eyes, "what are you waiting for? Go get her."
"I have a board meeting," I remind her, though the acquisition suddenly seems vastly less important.
"The board can wait five minutes. Check your email."
I do, finding dozens of new messages in my inbox—most significantly, one from Luke with the subject line: "WATCH THIS BEFORE YOUR MEETING."
The attached video shows Duncan MacTavish in what appears to be an unguarded moment at a private club, bragging to associates about how he manipulated the viral campaign with Richard's help.
"I've already forwarded this to the board," Fiona says casually. "Along with Viktoria Peters' evidence packet. They're quite impressed with your handling of corporate espionage, by the way."
I stare at her. "You've been in contact with the board?"
"I own twelve percent of Abernathy Corp shares, dear. I've been attending emergency board meetings while you were sulking."
"I wasn't sulking, Gran. I was strategizing.”
"Call it what you will." She hands me my suit jacket. "Now go close your acquisition, then find that girl and apologize properly. With that lovely Scottish eloquence you pretend not to have."
* * *
Three hours later, I stand in the Abernathy Corp boardroom, surrounded by smiling executives and a signed acquisition agreement that secures our terms entirely.
Duncan MacTavish is conspicuously absent, having been removed by his own board after Luke's evidence went public.
"Congratulations, Mr. Abernathy," the lead counsel says, shaking my hand. "Quite a turnaround from last week's situation."
"Indeed," I agree, eyes drawn to the large display screens around the room, all showing variations of Karina's #TheRealKarina campaign, which has apparently exploded across social media in the hours since she posted it.
"Remarkable timing," one board member comments. "The Peters woman's campaign has completely reframed the public perception. We're now being hailed as champions of authentic corporate culture."
"Her name is Karina," I remind him, perhaps a tad too harshly. "And yes, her campaign is remarkable. If you'll excuse me, I have an important matter to attend to."
I leave before anyone can respond, already dialing Connor as I stride toward the elevator.
"Where is she?" I demand.
"Hello to you too," he replies dryly. "Acquisition go well?"
"Connor, focus. Where's Karina?"
"According to Ariana, who heard from Susanna, she's at her mother's house. Apparently she's gardening as a stress response to putting her entire life story on the internet."
"Address?"
I'm already in the parking garage, heading for my car.
"Sending it now. And Callum? Don't screw this up. The internet is invested in your love story at this point. I've already had to talk Luke out of establishing a surveillance perimeter around her mother's house."
* * *
Forty minutes later, I pull up to a modest bungalow in a working-class Seattle neighborhood.
The small front yard has been transformed into an impressive vegetable garden, where I immediately spot Karina kneeling in the dirt, her hair tied back in a bandana, completely absorbed in weeding a row of what appear to be cucumbers.
Beside her, an older gentleman I recognize as Dr. Finnegan is methodically staking tomato plants, keeping up a running commentary on their relative merits.
"You see, the heirloom varieties might look impressive, but they lack disease resistance. Much like certain tech CEOs I could mention—all flash and heritage, insufficient practical immunity."
Karina laughs, the sound hitting me in the chest with unexpected force. "Are you comparing Callum Abernathy to a tomato?"
"Not at all," Dr. Finnegan replies seriously. "Tomatoes are far less stubborn. And they don't wear kilts."
"Some of them are Scottish, though," she prods. "Black Scotch is an heirloom variety."
"Ah, but does it have the thighs to crush a whisky barrel? That's the real question."
I clear my throat, unable to endure another moment of vegetable-based mockery.
They both look up, startled.
"Callum," Karina breathes, straightening so quickly she knocks over a watering can, sending a small flood across the garden path.
"Speak of the devil," Dr. Finnegan remarks . "Or should I say, speak of the tomato?"
I step carefully around the puddle. "Neither, ideally.”
Karina stands frozen, garden trowel clutched like a weapon, her expression cycling through shock, hope, and wariness.
There's soil smudged across one cheek and her ancient t-shirt bears the faded logo of a laundromat.
Nothing like the polished professional I've worked with for months.
She's never looked more beautiful.
"I saw your tweets," I say when it becomes clear she won't speak first.
"All twenty-five of them?" she asks, voice small but steady.
"Every damn word," I answer, taking a slow step toward her. "Including the last one."
Dr. Finnegan clears his throat with all the subtlety of a freight train. "I believe I hear your mother calling me," he announces, disappearing inside with surprising speed for a man in orthopedic loafers.
We’re alone now. No one left but the battered tangle of our history, and the wreckage of everything I should have said sooner.
Karina clutches her garden trowel like a weapon, standing there barefoot and stubborn in her dirt-smeared jeans, the faintest smudge across one cheek. She’s never looked more beautiful to me—raw, real, incandescently human.
"I'm sorry," we blurt at the same time.
"You first," I say gently, not moving closer yet. She looks like a cornered animal, and I’ll be damned if I scare her now.
She sets the trowel down with deliberate care.
"I'm sorry I lied," she says, voice breaking on the word.
"I'm sorry I didn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth when it mattered most. But I'm not sorry for surviving the only way I knew how.
And I'm not sorry for being exactly who I am—dirt under my nails, screwups and stubbornness and all. "
"You shouldn't be," I say, and this time I do step closer, needing to see her face more clearly. Needing her to see mine.
"I owe you an apology," I say, voice low, raw.
"For holding you to some impossible, polished ideal that no human being could ever meet.
For not seeing, from the very beginning, that the woman in front of me—the woman with fire in her blood and dirt on her hands—is already so far beyond perfect, it makes me fucking ache. "
She blinks up at me, stunned, and I realize I'm not done.
"I should have seen you," I rasp. "Really seen you.
The way you took care of your family. The way you fought for your career with nothing but stubbornness and brilliance when the world told you you weren't good enough.
The way you stayed when anyone else would have walked away.
" My throat tightens painfully. "I saw it.
I just didn't let myself see it until it was almost too late. "
Her eyes fill, shining like polished amber.
"And I have been an idiot," I add roughly. "An arrogant, stubborn, terrified idiot."
She lets out a shaky laugh. "At least you're consistent."
"Consistently in love with you, yes."
She freezes. Staring. Breath catching like I've knocked the wind out of her.
"I love you," I say again, surer this time.
The words rip out of me, unstoppable. "Not the polished version you thought you had to be.
Not the one hiding behind degrees and resumes.
You , Karina. The woman who drives three hours for the right doughnuts, who calls cucumbers by Armenian names, who curses like a sailor when she thinks no one's listening. "
Her lips part, but no sound comes out.
"And if you let me," I go on, voice thick with the weight of all the things I've never said aloud, "I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you just how fiercely, how completely, I love every goddamn inch of you."
A shaky breath escapes her. "You... you’re serious?"
"Deadly." I reach out, cradling her dirt-smudged face in my hands like she’s made of something infinitely precious. "I want every messy, brilliant, infuriating part of you. I don't want perfect. I want real. I want you. "
The front yard around us seems to fade—neighbors peeking, phones raised, the whole absurd circus of our public life—and there's only her. The only home I’ve ever needed.
Tears spill over her lashes as she surges into my arms, nearly knocking me off my feet.
I catch her easily, holding her as tight as I dare without crushing her.
"You’re a bloody miracle," I whisper into her hair. "And you’re mine, if you’ll still have me."
She leans back just enough to look at me, her smile a blinding thing even through tears.
"I love you," she says, laughing through her sobs. "God help me, Callum Abernathy, I love you so much it hurts."
"Good," I murmur, grinning like an absolute fool. "Because you’re stuck with me."
And then she's kissing me—wild, hungry, reckless—and the watching world can bloody well go hang, because nothing else matters but the feel of her mouth on mine, the way she fits against me like she was made to be there.
When we finally break apart, breathless and grinning like lunatics, I wipe the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs.
"I've got a lifetime of making this up to you," I vow. "Starting today."
From somewhere inside the house, I hear Dr. Finnegan bellow: "Nadine says get inside before you scandalize the neighborhood! There's coffee and nazook!"
Just the mention of the Armenian pastry has my mouth watering. I glance down at Karina who snorts, hiding her face in my chest.
“God, welcome to the madhouse,” she mutters, the words muffled against my shirt.
"Wouldn't have it any other way," I murmur into her hair. "I didn’t just fall in love with you, Karina. I fell for the whole damn circus."
"And you still want in?" she teases, tilting her head up to meet my eyes.
"Forever," I promise, sealing it with another kiss, the cheers of the nosy neighborhood kids echoing around us.
And for once in my life, I don't give a damn who’s watching.
Because for the first time, I have everything that matters.
And I’m never letting her go.
From the street, a child's voice calls out: "Awesome! Wait till I show my mom I got the Kilted Casanova's autograph AND saw him kissing the hashtag lady!"
"Hashtag lady," Karina repeats against my lips. "Is that going to be on my business cards now?"
"Only if you want it to be," I reply. "Speaking of which, there's an opening for Marketing Director at Abernathy Corp. I hear the CEO's a bit difficult, but the benefits are excellent."
"I don't know," she teases. "I've received a very compelling offer from Ariana Reeves."
"I'll double it."
"It's not about the money."
"Then what would convince you?"
She pretends to consider, eyes dancing. "Well, I have heard the CEO looks magnificent in a kilt..."
I groan, but there's no real dismay behind it—only the lightness of finally, finally being exactly where I'm meant to be.
"For you," I tell her, "I might consider it. But only for very special occasions."
"Deal," she says, sealing it with another kiss—this one witnessed by her mother, Dr. Finnegan, and what appears to be half the neighborhood, all documenting what will undoubtedly become the next viral moment in our unexpectedly public love story.
And for once, I don't mind at all.