Chapter 3
THREE
FIRE
Mathilda
The ear-splitting sound of a horn fractured my dream. I bolted up in bed, clasping the blanket to my chest. Then I clutched my hands to my ears instead because oh God that was loud. The fire alarm?
The long, piercing siren wailed from the hall and repeated through the building. Above my hotel room door, the emergency exit poured green light into the dark. Footsteps drummed outside.
Ugh, I was going to have to get up. I’d been having such an interesting dream, too. Of a wonderfully tall man who threw me over his very broad shoulders.
Nng.
Throwing on a long sweater over my sleep shorts and camisole, I jammed my feet into my winter boots, grabbed my key card, and left the room.
People in various states of undress tied on white hotel robes or shrugged on coats as they entered the stairwell.
I trailed after, debating turning back for a coat.
But it was too late, and the flow of the crowd was against me.
Chilled air crept over my bare legs as I descended the internal concrete fire escape. At least if there was a fire, it couldn’t be burning that hard. The emergency exit led me into the bitter winter night, and I shuffled along with the crowd, cursing myself for not grabbing warmer clothes.
Hotel staff ushered us to an open pavilion between tall office buildings. The wind whipped my hair and numbed my legs. I buried my chin in the collar of my sweater and hugged my arms tight around my body, but there was no avoiding that cutting, needle-like wind.
“Mathilda?”
That accent… I looked up to see none other than Callum McRae approaching, his friend at his side. My mouth dropped open. The men were fully dressed but obviously part of the evacuation, Callum’s hair tousled on one side like he’d just leapt from his bed.
My dream loomed large in front of me, and he stared back like I was a mirage. “You. You’re staying here?” I uttered.
“We are. Of all the hotels in the city…” He blew out a breath then twisted around and beckoned forward the dark-haired man. “James, this is Mathilda Jones. Mathilda, my friend James Fitzroy.”
The younger man waved a hand. “I hope your ankle is improved?” he asked. His accent was only faintly Scottish, and well educated. I didn’t know why I expected another Highlander. Maybe I’d heard Callum’s gentle rolling Rs and decided all men should speak that way.
I nodded, still slightly stunned under my layer of cold. A shiver rippled over me. “And you’re staying here,” I stated again to Callum, like I needed it confirmed for the record. The hotel was only a few streets from the venue, but even so.
At the front of the crowd, a hotel staff member made an announcement, though it was impossible to hear over the whine of the wind.
I’d seen the panicked-looking night manager hand over her walkie-talkie and disappear down the hotel’s side alley a moment ago, and I gnawed my lip, guessing we might be stuck here a while.
Callum’s friend made a gesture then strode over to hear the news, leaving us alone.
Callum moved closer. “When your cab left, I thought I’d never see you again.”
“You wanted to see me again?”
“Aye. Regardless of what we said. The alarm woke me from a dream about you.”
Was it as racy as the dream I just had?
This was so strange. We watched each other. I shivered, violently this time, and Callum’s eyes narrowed. In a swift move, he stripped his jacket from his shoulders and swung it around mine.
“Oh! You don’t have to do that,” I squeaked.
He pulled the lapels in then took a step away, his lips pursed. “It’s three in the morning, and you’ve been forced from your bed by some arsehole pushing fire alarm buttons. The cold doesn’t bother me, and you’re half frozen. It’s the least I can do.”
Actually, I could huddle into your huge frame, rub my cheek against your ribbed sweater, and purr like a kitten. That would do nicely.
I snuggled down into the warmth of his coat and breathed in the scent of him. This was better than the dream.
“I don’t like that you’re cold,” I murmured, my rigid muscles loosening as warmth crept in.
Callum blinked, as if surprised someone cared how he felt. “Did you manage to eat?”
“Um…” I wasn’t one for missing meals, but after the event, I’d sat on the bed in my hotel room and, instead of ordering food, called my sister. At the dinner earlier in the evening, she’d been quiet to the point of withdrawn. I knew why, but we hadn’t talked about it around the table.
A few days before, Scarlet had been caught shoplifting from a London boutique. Such an obvious cry for help, because she didn’t want for anything. My parents gave her money, clothes, and whatever she needed.
Except for love.
Luckily, the store attendant knew Mom—a frequent customer—so Scarlet hadn’t gotten into serious trouble.
“I love you,” I’d told her on the phone. She’d still refused to talk about the incident, probably because I wasn’t the one she’d try to make listen. “Everything will be all right.”
“The day I’m old enough, I’m moving in with you.”
How could I answer that? It only made my resolve to help her stronger.
James returned. “A false alarm. They’re waiting on the fire official to approve the stand-down and let us back in.”
Behind him, waiting by the trio of fully lit fire engines, a bulky-suited firefighter tapped a clipboard.
My gaze narrowed in. The woman would need to speak to the night manager before we’d be allowed to return to our beds.
The night manager who I’d seen vanishing down the side road, heading toward the front of the hotel.
I couldn’t ignore this hotel’s disastrous planning.
“I’ll just be a moment,” I murmured and crossed to where the fire official stood. The hotel receptionist waiting beside her had wide eyes and hopped from foot to foot.
“I really don’t know what to say,” he squeaked.
The fire official huffed. Over my shoulder, I sensed Callum sticking close.
“Excuse me.” I smiled at the receptionist. The man glanced at me, above me, then away, his gaze searching the crowd.
“We can’t let you and your husband back in yet. I apologise for the wait. We’re doing everything we can.”
“I’m not married, but are you looking for your night manager? Presumably, we’re all waiting on her.”
The guy’s attention snapped to me. “Yeah. She’s not answering her radio.”
“One of your colleagues has the radio. Your night manager walked that way a few minutes ago, perhaps to check the front exit.” I pointed in the right direction. “I suggest to speed things up, you could go and retrieve her yourself?”
The man blinked, relief replacing the anxiety on his face. “I’m just going to—” He took off down the side street.
I nodded at the grumpy firefighter—at work, I coordinated with emergency services all the time, so I knew the drill—and turned to Callum. Standing right behind me, as I’d suspected.
“Wouldn’t want you to be cold for longer than necessary,” I murmured.
A smile curled his lips.
See, when I gave up on the notion of being rescued, when that childhood dream was obliterated by real-life experience of how hard the world could be, I learned that every single person has to shift for themselves. Take responsibility for their own success within their individual circumstances.
In my own tragedy, I would be the one to sweep in and slay the dragon, and I didn’t need anyone else’s help.
After a minute, the receptionist returned, the flustered night manager in tow. She babbled about waiting in the wrong place, but the crisis was over. A paper was signed, she waved us forward, and the frozen, miserable crowd moved.
Callum fell in beside me, and we travelled back into the light and relative warmth of the lobby. Inside, I slipped the heavy jacket from my shoulders and returned it to its owner.
“Have breakfast with me.” Callum ran his hands over the collar of the coat as if he’d enjoyed me wearing it, and my stomach gave a pleasant flip.
“I need to leave early. To get home to Bristol.”
“Please, madam, sir, return to your room, we need to keep clear movement through the lobby,” a different receptionist said, making the same assumption that Callum and I were a couple. Perhaps we looked good together.
“I’ll be here until nine. Change your mind.” Urgency crossed Callum’s face, and I liked it, the effect I had on him.
God, I wanted to agree. But I needed to nip this in the bud.
No matter how much I liked his manners, his competence, his face, and his damn scent.
It had soaked into my clothes, and I smelled of him.
Like I’d been marked and claimed. I liked too much too quickly, and it was obviously a stress response.
The chemistry he made me feel. The rush in my blood and the ache in my centre.
“Goodnight, again. I’m going to bed.”
“Fine, woman. You do that. Dream of me,” he called in that sexiest of accents. “You can pick up where I left off.”
Well, wouldn’t that thought keep me warm for weeks?
The next morning, I stood, poised, in the Continental Hotel’s lobby, the scent of brewing coffee from the breakfast service no distraction from the fresh hell of the digital notice screen’s scrolling message.
No trains.
The derailment of an empty passenger train in the early hours meant all rail services to Bristol had been cancelled, and my rapid check of the coach websites told me their seats were fully booked.
I was stuck in London. After my rude awakening in the night, luck was in short supply.
Guests busied in and out of the revolving doors, breaking around me in a frothy, frowning tide. No sign of Callum McRae, but that was good.
Probably.
To avoid being jostled, I stepped aside and perched on a leather chair, resigned to calling a cab though not relishing the exorbitant price they would charge. I’d been raised in the comparative lap of luxury, but I lived on a budget I earned myself and disliked frivolous spending.
As I unlocked my phone’s screen, my device buzzed in my hand. ‘Beth’, the screen read.
“Saw the news. I’m already on my way. Borrowed your car,” my friend chirped after I accepted the call.
A grin crept over my face, and I patted the handle of my wheeled suitcase.
It was 7A.M., and Beth’s Friday night job in a fast food restaurant usually kept her out until late.
I’d discounted the idea of calling her to come get me as she hardly slept as it was.
“Didn’t you work until the early hours?”
“It rained cats and dogs all night. The place was dead by ten, and Kendra sent me home. What a crock, because man do I need the money. Listen, I’ll be an hour and a half, so text me the hotel address and have a luxurious long breakfast until I get there.
We can sing songs from musicals all the way home. Even the creepy women-stealing one.”
She meant Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I loved that movie. It might have had something to do with my obsession with mountain men.
“Wow, you must really have missed me.”
“Or maybe I just want an excuse to drive the Audi? I’m burning up your tyres on the motorway as we speak. You said it was due a new set, right?”
We both snickered, and tension eased from my shoulders as we said our goodbyes, but when I hung up the call, my phone vibrated again, somehow more aggressively this time. ‘Dad’, the screen read.
Oh, boy. The yelling started as soon as I uttered a cautious, “Hi?”
Dad commenced. With hardly a breath drawn, he covered how embarrassed he was to hear about my accident secondhand.
Then he got down to business. “Worse, Mathilda, is that you took silly risks! You left with a stranger. Did I raise you this way? You should be looking to settle down and be respectable, not—” He continued on about my mystery man.
That confused me for a second—as much as I loved my dad, he had set ideas on dating which he’d force fed to me since I’d become old enough to notice boys.
Then I worked it out. His floor staff would have mentioned me leaving with the big Highlander.
Heh, let him chew over that description.
No wonder he was rattled, as a matter of principle, Dad always hated men bigger than him.
My father’s words remained distant in my ear while I recalled the acutely pleasant sensations of being taken care of by Callum McRae.
My father finally calmed and asked, “And where are you now?”
“My hotel’s lobby.” I bit my tongue, but it was too late.
“I see. Since you’re still in the city, you will come to my office. Dominic Hanswick is here for a meeting this morning. We’ll be discussing the marketing of the new label, and I want you to be a part of it.”
Storm Force was a new line of spirits Dad had dreamed up.
His next big thing. Expensive, top-end single malt whiskies, boutique vodkas; classic tastes, select distilleries, exclusive prices.
He wanted me to work on the marketing, but I’d need to leave my current job to have the time.
He hadn’t approved of my events coordinator career choice, which I adored.
Dad assumed I’d join his company at some point. It was getting harder to say no.
I dreamt of creating my own business, but I needed to keep Dad happy for Scarlet’s sake.
“Storm Force’s portfolio has changed since I told you about it. Dominic has lost investors, following his troubles, so we’ve reduced the expenditure. You’ll find it a challenge, and I know you can help. What time will you be here?”
I opened my mouth, but no excuse was forthcoming. The very last thing I wanted this morning was to sit opposite Dominic, with my father in the room, talking strategy but being secretly cajoled into a marriage by one man and a career I didn’t want by the other.
Dominic’s troubles made me pity him, but I also thought him a fool and a single-minded, selfish man.
Yet I had no reason to refuse Dad. No alternative came to mind.
Then a warm, pleasantly scented breeze hit me, and I raised my head to see the glass door to the gym swing open.
A man emerged—James, the dark-haired man who’d been with Callum last night—then a hot and sweaty Callum oh-would-you-stop-it-with-the-muscles McRae loomed large behind him.
Fate, if I believed in it, was trying to tell me something. This time, I was going to listen.