Chapter 21
‘Thirty-two.’ Bex dropped her head into her hands.
She was at the office, having just finished her first meeting of the day, and the embarrassment of the incident with the schoolteacher was yet to fade.
Even slightly. ‘Thirty-two children. That’s how many nearly saw me, in my underwear, kissing Duncan in the hallway. ’
Fi tried to suppress a smirk, but in Bex’s opinion, she didn’t try hard enough.
‘You said they were all outside. That Nat was in the doorway?’
‘That doesn’t mean there weren’t some peering around her,’ Bex replied, burying her head in her hands.
‘And honestly, Nat’s face when she saw Duncan and me…
I was straddling him. And he was in his boxers!
She went bright red. Of course she did.’ A low groan rattled from the pit of her stomach.
‘She probably thinks I’m some kind of pervert.
Oh God. I feel sick. I actually feel sick. ’
How the hell she hadn’t had a panic attack right then and there was beyond her, but thankfully, Fi was right.
The moment Nat had realised what she’d interrupted, she had swivelled back around, slammed the door shut, and hurried the children across the lawn to inspect some oversized plant pots as if they were the most fascinating things she’d ever seen.
By the time Bex came out to apologise, the children were all talking excitedly about rare birds and plants, while taking bark rubbings from nearby trees.
‘It’s my fault. I should have knocked louder,’ Nat had said at least half a dozen times. ‘I shouldn’t have just tried the door.’ But the more apologetic she was, the worse Bex felt.
‘You should have told me to put it on your calendar,’ Fi said.
‘I don’t know. I thought I did, but I guess everything’s got me so stressed at the minute. I’ve been avoiding my phone. Avoiding wedding themes and messages from Amanda. Although my friend Daisy thinks she might’ve found a replacement for the veil that Rosie chewed up.’
‘Chewed up a veil?’ Fi’s eyes widened. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘Did I not? Just another item on the list of disasters. But it doesn’t matter now.
Daisy thinks she’s found the same one. She’s going to order it for me and send it next day delivery which means it should get here in time for the photoshoot.
If it doesn’t, I’ll just have to lie. Say I packed it up in one of the rooms or something.
’ Bex pondered how difficult it would be.
After all, she could just leave the box empty, then say that she’d tried it on upstairs and forgotten about it.
That would give her a few days, surely? Unless Amanda wanted to show it to another of her clients.
‘How long do you think a photoshoot will last?’ Bex had asked Duncan a couple of days before, but only received a noncommittal shrug as an answer.
‘I was hoping it would be done by midmorning so I could get back and do some more work. I don’t want to get behind.
And we’ve got so many potential new clients wanting meetings, I’m not sure how we’ll fit them in otherwise. ’
Rather than responding about the photoshoot, Fi tipped her head to the side.
‘I thought you’d got enough new clients?’ she asked. ‘I mean, we’ve got enough to keep us busy and paid, right?’
‘Yes,’ Bex agreed. ‘But the first year of a business is so important. Even if we can’t take them on now, it’s important they know we’re here in the future, so that we can reach out to them when we expand.’
‘But is there really that much of a rush to expand? It’s not like you and Duncan need the money, is it?’
Bex looked up, not sure if she’d heard a ripple of jealousy in Fi’s voice. Yet her face was purely questioning.
Still, the question was enough to cause a niggling weight to settle in Bex.
She couldn’t blame Fi if she was jealous of their situation.
It wasn’t like Duncan had done anything to earn his money.
Sure, he worked incredibly hard and was as deserving of a windfall as any good person, but she’d never really thought about how hard it would be for someone like Roddy until now.
After all, he and Duncan had been so close, on par with their work ethic for so long.
Different roles of course – Duncan had grown up in the life of a groundskeeper, with the man he thought was his grandfather, whereas Bex didn’t know how Roddy had ended up working for the laird.
But if anything, Roddy had been the more entrepreneurial of the two, what with his makeshift taxi firm, nights working at the pub and his home brews.
But then in a blink, all that had changed, and now here was Duncan, with a level of stratospheric wealth that others could never achieve, and his friend was there, struggling to pay for his wedding.
Duncan would have been more than content just to live in the lodge surrounded by nothing but nature his whole life and never have wanted for anything.
And despite what Duncan had said about the entire village being more than happy to ask him for things, deep down, they both knew that Roddy was one of the few who never would.
‘I know. It’s not about the money; it’s about me being happy here. You know, forever. And for that, I need a business I’m really proud of. Which I am right now, but it’s going to have to evolve too.’
‘I get it, but,’ Fi said, though the ‘but’ lingered in her voice. ‘Forever is a long time. You’ve got decades to build up this company together. Decades to find new clients. If you burn out now, you might not get that far.’
Bex squirmed a little. It was a good point, and even more annoying that it had come from somebody substantially younger than her.
But the mindset Bex’d grown up with was more like Roddy’s.
Keep working. Keep hustling. Keep pushing yourself to do better.
She wasn’t even sure she knew how to slow down if she was honest with herself.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Bex said. ‘I just have to get through the photoshoot on Friday, then the gala on Sunday, and then it’s clear sailing from then.’
‘Clear sailing apart from all the wedding planning, with two hundred people you don’t know, right?’ Fi replied.
‘Shush. I hate it when people are logical,’ Bex replied, eliciting a grin from Fi.
‘And what about a honeymoon? You two are going to take a honeymoon, right? You’ll have to have time off then.’
Bex’s insides twisted even tighter. Claire had mentioned honeymoons to her more than once, but Bex had always skimmed over the subject.
After all, she lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
The type of place that other people came to for their honeymoon.
Going anywhere else seemed ridiculous. But at the same time, she knew that if they were even in the vicinity of LochDarroch, then both she and Duncan were likely to get pulled into work, even if they didn’t want to.
Still, that wasn’t something they needed to think about now.
Not until they’d got a date and a venue sorted for the actual wedding.
Though when the heck that would be, she had no idea.
Her dad had sent her another message of him in running gear that morning, and her mother had sent her a list of old family friends she thought she might like to invite, too.
More people she didn’t know – or at least, didn’t remember.
‘Ignore me,’ Fi said, her voice breaking through Bex’s now tumbling thoughts.
‘I’m just projecting, that’s all. Trying to think through everything I’ve got to do.
You and Duncan will sort it all out, I know you will.
Now come on. I need you to go over these assets and liabilities stuff.
I’m not sure I’ve got it 100 per cent. You need to teach me. ’
Once again, Fi finished an hour before Bex, but there was something about the quiet and space of the empty office that she enjoyed.
It had been a long time since she’d worked in a communal space, having had her own office in the firm for several years, but it had been far from impressive.
In fact, it was so small that she’d had to take any meetings in one of the larger spaces.
She’d been promised a corner office. A corner office with a window looking out at the city, and for so long that had been her dream.
But this… this large open space where her name hung above the door was greater than any dream she’d let herself have.
And it didn’t matter that she didn’t need the money.
What was that saying? There were some things money couldn’t buy, and her firm was exactly that.
Drawing in a deep breath, she felt the twisting ease by just a fraction before she got to work, looking through the accounts of some of her new clients.
It was the kind of work she lost herself in.
Calculating one number after another. Flicking between screens on her computer, double-checking tax laws for different products.
And her intention was to keep going for as long as possible.
After all, it was only two days until the photoshoot, and she suspected her nerves would be rife the next day.
At half past five she messaged Duncan to see if he minded her staying late when a bellow cut through the quiet.
‘I’m gonna kill ye. You an’ all your rats!’
She jumped to her feet, her heart pounding, no need to even glance outside to know who was doing the yelling. It was Roddy, and Roddy, as far as she knew, never yelled. Which meant that something was very, very wrong.