Chapter 3
THREE
I NEED ANSWERS
Ally
A bairn? Not possible. My shoes drummed on the stairs, and I bolted to my room. I needed to call my brother. I needed a whole shiteload of more information.
I really needed Scarlet, her Dad, and whoever the fuck Devon was to not have heard that conversation.
Out of breath, I reached the right floor and strode along the corridor.
“Alasdair? Stop right there.” Jennie, my agent, materialised from a doorway. “I’ve been calling and calling you. Why is your phone off? You need to be ready and out of here in ten minutes. I’ve lined up another booking for this evening—”
“No time now. I need to phone my brother.” I skidded to a halt in front of my room then wrestled with the key card, missing the slot on my first try.
“Do it on the way. You can’t turn down this job, I’ve already confirmed you. They’re paying double your hourly rate.”
My door opened, and I darted inside. “I might not make it.”
Jennie followed me in, her hands on her hips while I plugged in my phone. “Something’s happened. Talk to me.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I’m your agent! You have to tell me.”
“Christ, give me a minute!” I yelled. I was already pissed off at Jennie for putting me in that situation last night, not that she knew the details yet, and now I needed to sit on my fucking hands for five minutes until my phone had enough charge to make the damn call.
Still, I shouldn’t have shouted.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sorry. I really just need to work out what’s going on. I’ll find ye.”
Jennie’s features drew tight, her polished middle-aged exterior cracking. She jabbed a finger at me. “Take your time over the call. Take all evening if you want. I’m giving the gig to Paul.”
Ah fuck. I didn’t want the job, but losing the money hurt. “I understand.”
“Don’t be late in the morning. It’s your first catwalk of the season. Don’t you dare let me down.” My agent spun on her heel and marched away, slamming the door behind her.
I sank to the floor, driving my shoulders into the side of the bed. After an excruciating wait, my phone screen lit, reactivating.
Dozens of messages and missed calls loaded.
Squinting, I dismissed them all then carefully selected the icon that I knew contained my phone numbers. My brother’s stern face sat at the top of the list. It was set up using photos so I didn’t need to read the names to dial the right person.
With my heart in my throat, I listened for the ringtones.
Callum picked up almost immediately. “Alasdair.”
“Talk to me.”
“I’m here with Wasp. It’s just us, and you’re on loudspeaker. Are you alone?”
“Aye. Talk. Who the hell gave ye that message? This can’t be right.”
“Ally, I’m so sorry to do this over the phone, but think it might be true,” Wasp’s voice came on the line. “Ye remember what ye told me about Kaylee?”
My blood ran cold. “You saw Kaylee?”
The lass I’d slept with.
The one who’d never called me back or replied to my messages.
“Taylor and I were in Inverness. This older woman accosted me, making all these wild claims about me getting her niece pregnant then abandoning her.” He drew a breath.
I clamped the phone in my hand.
“Then she said your name and Kaylee’s name, and we worked out she thought I was you. Then she showed us a picture.” Tension played out in my brother’s voice. “The wee bairn is the absolute image of us as newborns. I’m not exaggerating. It was like looking at a picture on Ma’s wall.”
Ice slid down my spine.
I wanted to deny every word, but I couldn’t get over the coincidence.
There was a small chance this could be true.
“I need to call Kaylee,” I managed. “I’ll try her now.”
Wasp choked on his next words. “Stop. Wait. Ye can’t.”
I knew my twin brother better than I knew myself. Wasp was steady and decent. Smart and wise. His integrity streak ran a mile wide. When we’d been born, he’d got all the good where I was made up of the bad. So I knew there was something else coming.
Something terrible.
“Why?” I whispered. “This can’t get worse, can it?”
Because that poor child was already screwed if I was his or her da.
“It can. I’m so fucking sorry, bro. Kaylee died.”
The plane juddered, and the bright lights of Inverness airport glowed against the pitch-black Highlands night. I’d taken the first flight out of Milan to the UK then hopped on the late-night jet home. At past midnight, I was buzzing.
Fear, disgust, and misery had all taken turns tormenting me during the long hours of travel.
My phone rang the moment I switched it back on in the arrivals terminal. Jennie, responding to my texts. I ignored the call. In the thin crowd of faces on the other side of the barrier, I found my twin immediately. Thank fuck, he was alone. Callum was going to shred me for this, no bones.
I rounded the divider, and Wasp grappled me into a hug.
My shoulders remained rigid, my head too full of questions.
“I’m glad ye came straight back,” he said into my shoulder.
“What else would I do?”
Wasp went to take my carry-on bag, but I brushed him off. We left the building, emerging into the cool autumn night. Ahead, Wasp’s Range Rover waited in the short-stay car park.
I stopped dead on the tarmac.
“I need answers,” I forced out.
“Aye, we all do.”
I winced at that. “First, is this woman legit?”
“I’d say so. You couldn’t fake her level of anger and hurt.”
All of which had been aimed at him. “Ah fuck, I’m sorry. In front of Taylor, too.” I could only imagine what his poor new bride must have thought.
“Don’t. It’s better that we know about the bairn.”
Now I was on home soil, emotion I’d been restraining crashed down on me. I’d called myself Kaylee’s friend, but we’d only ever been in each other’s company twice. Both times for sex. I hardly knew her, really, but she’d… She was…
“How the hell did she die?” I spluttered to my brother. I couldn’t say my friend’s name. The woman I’d knocked up.
Pity and hurt warred in his features. “Her aunt said something about her heart.”
Memories of brief conversations and messages resounded in my head. Had she once told me her da died of heart failure? I could barely remember.
I rubbed my cheek, new stubble rough under my fingers.
My next question had haunted me. “Lad or lass? Did Kaylee have a boy or a girl?”
“I was too shocked to ask. On the street, getting details out of her was like trying to get blood from a stone. The woman is grieving hard. After I spoke to you, I called her on the number she gave me. I said ye were coming home and you’d want to talk to her.
The woman was furiously cross. She gave me the number for social care and said you’d have to go through the courts. ”
Courts? Christ. My head swam.
My brother palmed my shoulder and shook me, once and hard. “But believe me, that bairn is yours. I knew it the second I lay eyes on the wee thing. Fucking hell. You’re a dad.”
At the castle, I stumbled into the great hall. Callum and Gordain, my older brothers, waited by the fire. Under their scrutiny, I crossed the flagstones to join them. I stood tall, though God knew I had no right.
The heavy oak door thumped closed behind me, and Wasp slid the bolts in place.
Firelight flared, illuminating Callum’s severe expression. “Alasdair,” he started.
I ducked my head, automatically a lad again, getting read my rights. At ten years my senior, Callum had raised me. He had a loud roar and a severe tongue, worse when frustrated.
And Christ knew, I’d frustrated the shite out of him over the years. None of that compared to this.
“I know,” I told him. “I know everything you’re going to say.”
At his side, Gordain blew out a breath. Both men had bairns on the way. Callum already had five-year-old twins with Mathilda, and their third child was due in a couple of months. Gordain’s wife, Ella, had just started to show. Wasp and Taylor were desperate to join in the fun.
And then there was me. Still jangling from taking drugs the previous night. Still reeling from kissing my fucking gorgeous sister-in-law. Single, irresponsible as fuck, and the last man any kid would pick to be their parent.
“In the morning, I’ll speak to Kaylee’s relative.” I stumbled over Kaylee’s name. “Then I’ll work out what to do next.”
“What to do?” Callum queried.
“Aye,” I bit out, meeting his gaze. I blanked out the disappointment and forced my feet to move. “Take a paternity test and work out how the fuck this happened.”
“Bit late for that.” Wasp grimaced.
Aye, it was. “Just let me be, will ye?” I stomped up the stairs that ran up the inside wall of the great hall, leading to my room. “This is my problem, and it’s up to me to resolve it.”