Chapter 12
TWELVE
THE FINAL KISS
Beth
Sunday morning crept in after a disturbed night.
Alasdair, one of the McRae twins, a fun-loving and boisterous sixteen-year-old, had gone missing after the big party our friends had attended.
The whole area had turned out to find him.
James and I had heard the alarm from the pit of our sick bed and showed up in time to see the young man’s rescue.
The grim-faced laird had carried the boy back into the house, and James had spent time with the brothers, returning to me in the early hours. Either side of that, we cuddled, talked, and slept in a comfortable tangle of arms and legs.
Following his fever-borne confessions, I had an even bigger problem with James. Not only did I like him, not only was he hands down the most gorgeous man on the planet, but little tendrils of hope had risen in me. I feared for him. I wanted to hug the heck out of him.
When he’d left the room to get me food, I’d shed a tear for him, alarming Mattie no end with my random display of emotion.
More than a crush.
No one had ever been so caring to me, not even Belle whose time and attention stretched across multiple others. I’d realised it as he stood in my bathroom, checking the damn water temperature for me. Like you’d do for someone you worried for.
And James and I fitted. Our limbs slid into place like I was designed to map onto him, our hands sought the other’s. Sleeping on his chest, the steady thud of his heartbeat in my ear, became as natural as breathing.
I knew the softness of the nape of his neck, the corolla of green within the blue of his irises. Far, far too much had become familiar.
Now, while I watched him ready the Land Rover to take Mattie and me to the airport, all manner of panic flew at me.
James wasn’t for me. We both knew it. So what was I to do with all of this…what, want?
On the spot, I constructed a wall against him, keeping him in the friend zone. Someone I’d once met. Liked a little too much. Had to shoo away.
No, not a friend. Friends continued talking to one another. Sought each other out. To quell this pain in my chest, I’d need to go cold turkey on the guy.
He caught my eye across the carpark, and my breath jammed in my lungs. Left me staggered.
The wall trembled but held.
At the airport, Mattie’s plane left first. She’d hugged me hard and said she’d be home soon, but I wondered. She had to take this trip to London to see her folks, but her luggage remained at the castle.
If she and Callum made any permanent plans, she’d move here, no doubt. I’d need to find a new place to live. That, on top of being unsure whether my restaurant job still existed, gave me the shakes.
I held back from touching James again.
But during the wait for my flight, he didn’t leave me, and I could tell there was something he wanted to say.
We sat in a corner, away from the small crowd waiting on the few flights that served the Highlands. I tried dozing to handle the pressure of his presence but failed miserably.
The loudspeaker announced my flight number. Thank God. I grabbed my bag from the seat.
“There’s something I want to tell you.” James sat forwards, his elbows on his knees and his expression burning. “I don’t even know how to start. I’m choking on it.”
Announcements that started like that normally ended in protestations of love, or someone being pregnant, at least in the films Mattie and I watched. Or cheating, that was another.
Wait.
I hadn’t even asked.
“You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”
James paled. “No!” Then he added, “But in a matter of weeks, I will be married.”
I rocketed to my feet. “You’re engaged? You kissed me. We shared a bed. You better tell her—”
“Wait! There is no ‘her’. Stop, Beth. Listen.”
That made no sense. I bounced on the balls of my feet. It was back, my energy. The stress-driven urge to run or flee or drive. I hadn’t even noticed the lack of it, that I’d had two days without wanting to hurl myself about.
The impulse to run from James exploded.
He’d already stood and, now, he grabbed my arm. I froze. The cheat. The liar.
“Don’t look at me like I’m the Devil. I’m under obligation to marry by my twenty-first birthday. My father did it, and so did my grandfather. So on and so forth. It’s a term of my inheritance. A legal covenant on the will. It has been for all Fitzroy men.”
I shook him off with the intention of walking away, but instead I stood there, gaping. Still reeling from the adrenaline and no clearer on what his situation was.
“You’re not engaged?”
“No, and I don’t have a bride chosen.”
“But you have to get married. How can that still be a thing?”
He dragged his hands through his hair, leaving it elegantly ruffled. “It’s just a fact. It is what it is. Right now, I wish I could be any other man than myself because I’d have a choice.”
What difference did this moment make? “A choice over whether to marry?”
“A choice over the bride.”
My mini freak-out lifted, and I took a breath, trying to understand. I knew James was different—it had been plain from our conversations, as well as the fact we’d just spent two days in bed together and he’d not made one quip. Not made any suggestions about sleeping with me.
I knew he was attracted to me, I enjoyed the way his gaze skirted over my curves, but the true gentleman in him overrode his instincts.
He was decent. Honest. My instincts were not wrong.
“You’re for real?” A question barely worth asking, but I did so all the same.
James inclined his head.
“Did you ever try to change it?” Before he could answer, I rushed on, because of course, he would have. I needed to get to the point. “You feel guilty about this weekend because you’re getting married? Because you are already committed to someone else, even if they’re notional?”
He nodded once more.
Weird. I liked his fidelity, even if it was to a stranger. Lucky her.
“It isn’t your fault. I got into your bed.”
“I kissed you.” He watched my lips.
Curiosity woke. “Why did you invite me here this weekend, really? We never made it out to see any cars, but you don’t seem to care.”
“I don’t care about the cars. I wanted to see you.”
I bit my lip. A second announcement sounded for my flight, and the crowd thinned. “I’m keeping your t-shirt. It’s packed in my bag so you can’t have it back. I told myself I didn’t want to remember you but I kept it anyway.”
An expression crossed his features, and he looked like he wanted to say so much more.
“I thought we solved the problem of you talking to me,” I said.
“We have. Talking wasn’t on my mind.”
“Were you thinking about kissing me again before I leave?”
“Yes.”
Except he couldn’t. All the little pieces fell into place. The reason for the strange first, and only, kiss we’d shared. The standoffishness he’d shown. He’d been conflicted over me.
At least that part was easy. Hundreds of miles of distance and no more phone calls would do it. So why did my stomach crunch at his torn expression? Why did the pure want in me threaten to blow up and eclipse everything else?
The intensity of his gaze almost hurt.
Needing to get away from the mounting pressure, I shouldered my bag once more and dragged in a breath. “It’s going to be hard forgetting you, James Fitzroy.”
Then I did the stupidest thing of all.
I trespassed in his space, and he didn’t budge an inch.
Then I pushed up onto my toes and forced my lips onto his.
This time, James kissed me like I’d wished he had the first night.
He ran his fingers into my hair and slammed his mouth onto mine, moving with me, hard and fast. Wet and dangerous.
Still not perfectly aligned, but so passionate it didn’t matter.
The noise of the airport drifted away, and all my senses became immersed in James.
His taste in my mouth. His heat and his fierce grip on the back of my head and around my arm.
My body lit up. All other senses obliterated.
If it had been like this on the first night, and if we hadn’t got sick, the weekend would’ve been the hottest of my existence.
We kissed like nothing mattered.
At last, we slowed, the final kiss so fucking tender I wanted to…
Go. I wanted to go.
Without meeting his gaze, I pushed off him and walked away. Dragging my body despite every cell pulling in the other direction. Back to him.
There was only so much I could take, and my limit had been blown to bits.
Atext message arrived on my phone as I buckled into my plane seat. James.
I’d never been the sort to deny myself. I’d been deprived too much in my life already, so if I wanted something, if it was going to make me happy, I let myself have it.
But I knew when to draw the line. When the indulgence was so unhealthy it would cause more hurt than pleasure. Like getting drunk, or racing along the motorway in the middle of the night.
Like James Fitzroy. Earl of a big house and owner of an untested heart.
I deleted the message. All the messages he’d sent. His phone number.
Anything else would’ve been a cruelty I couldn’t afford.