Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Iwas not looking forward to a conversation with Ethel, and the length of time it took me to choose one pair of jeans from another was evidence of that.
I felt peaceful now; there was no need to dig around my brain and sort out why I was having the dreams. I did want to sort out getting the cairn knoll growing again.
Or, the rebirth that Holly’s mom had mentioned.
But it all sounded like I might need to get in touch with my Ormr side.
Something I did not want to do. So, when a call came in that Charmaine had scheduled a sit-down in the castle with the bank representative, Dick Murdoch, I took the opportunity to delay and instead join Rowan.
Not that meeting those two squirrel-brained idiots would be fun.
Actually, maybe it would be.
Rowan was confident as we dressed. He’d get the Rembrandt back and switch banks, even though that meant breaking a centuries-old tie with the Scottish bank.
The whisky business, the gold, and the long-good name of the MacLaoch clan had already garnered interest from other financial institutions.
Something Rowan had worked on while waiting for his bank to call him back.
And he now was no longer gunning just to torpedo their careers—he aimed to bury them at sea.
There was so much at stake, on both sides, that it felt to me like a modern-day clan battle. And if we lost, it would be equal to burning the castle to the ground.
Rowan, reliably, was dressed for the part of a twenty-first-century warrior.
His crisp midnight-colored suit pants were tailored to his exact measurements, leaving enough room through his rear and thigh so they didn’t tear when he sat but also leaving little to the imagination of his athleticism.
More than once, the fabric had felt my hands as I came up behind him and checked, then rechecked, by running my hands over his lean hips and into his pockets that the tight weave indeed included some silk.
The pockets were lined with cotton, sturdier than the silk blend, and more forgiving to my probing fingers that fluttered around his penis, asking it if it was as excited about those tight pants as I was. As it always turned out, he was. Very.
I resisted this routine since I had to dress as well, though it was difficult to stay focused on myself when Rowan’s dress shirt was open by two buttons, showing the dip below his Adam’s apple where his clavicles came together in beautiful unison.
With his matching suit coat, he looked like a fashion model who had stepped out from the pages of Scottish Prince Digest.
I made a show of wearing a silhouette-hugging pencil skirt in MacLaoch plaid. As it turned out, the distraction went both ways.
“I’ve never loved the clan tartan more,” Rowan said, grabbing my ass as he followed me from the cottage to the castle.
When I kicked off my wellies and slipped on my heels at the castle’s back door, his eyes went wide with wonder and lust, like a kid happening upon a candy store at the moment he felt a ten-dollar bill in his pocket.
Going up the rear stairs was difficult in the constricting skirt, and my hips swayed to make room for my knees.
Rowan sounded as if he were having heart trouble behind me.
“Holy fuck,” he said the moment my hips tilted at the second stair, “ye are a MacLaoch wet dream.”
Over my shoulder, I saw him looking wide-eyed at my rear. He put his hands on me, his mouth to my back, and breathed me in. “I don’t think I’ll get over you in tight MacLaoch plaid, heels, and revealing white shirts.”
“My shirt is revealing?”
“It is,” he said and moved around me. With his nose on my neck, he looked down into my shirt and exposed lace camisole.
“I see,” I said and smiled, turning into his embrace. “So if the banker puts his face against my neck, he’ll—”
“Be dead before his eyes know what they’ve seen.”
“Right,” I said, kissing his lips. “I think we’re good, then.”
A few minutes later, as I sat across the table from Murdoch’s obstinate form, I thought he was the kind of man who didn’t go in for human contact of any sort—but if a dollar were hidden in a dumpster, he’d dive in to get it.
Most bankers I’d dealt with were sticklers for regulations—following the letter of the law was what drove them.
The man in front of me seemed different.
So many wealthy people had bowed to the power of the institution that towered behind him, and now he erroneously believed that power was his.
And doing good by his customers, or clients, as we were, hadn’t even entered his narcissistic mind.
Enter Rowan; he neither bowed to nor was humbled by the power of this one man.
He knew the institution was in charge, and it was their rules he respected, but he also didn’t lose sight of the fact that the bank was making a fine profit off him.
So much so another institution was willing to take the MacLaoch estate on as a client, helping the MacLaochs through the threat of foreclosure and ultimately bankruptcy.
Murdoch, from where I sat, had the unpleasant persona of someone who’d lost sight of reality, and Rowan’s refusal to see him as all-powerful in this potential foreclosure situation made him irrational. Which he applied to a vendetta a vengeful uncle taught him.
Dick, as I began to think of him, looked to be doing his best impression of a sweating eggplant in an overlarge black suit shiny with a purplish sheen.
Or maybe he was a fresh bruise. His hands were leaving slimy smudges on the well-polished table.
Rowan settled him with a dram of whisky, a finger of golden amber liquid that I thought should have been lit on fire prior to serving, before asking if he had the Rembrandt with him.
“No,” Dick said.
After that, the three of us sat silently in the long upstairs dining room that served as the meeting room these days.
Waiting for Charmaine’s arrival, I decided we needed to cleanse that room spiritually.
Too many times, Charmaine had driven me nuts in there.
I recently had to shoo her out of it, and here we were again, expecting her arrival.
I was a piss-poor negotiator on my best days, and there was something about the man that brought out my inner Ormr. The Viking wanted to slip a rope about the man’s neck and kick him out the third-story window behind him.
I snapped the hair band on my wrist and focused on the view, out over the cliffs to the loch and the sea beyond.
It didn’t have the zing of a rubber band, but it went better with my outfit.
Eventually, Rowan pressed him. “That piece you have in your position was ill-gotten. That must trouble you, Mr. Murdoch.”
“The piece was not ill-gotten, and once your solicitor arrives, she will explain it all. You will not receive it, or like funds in return, until the back payments are paid in full.”
“We’ll see about tha’,” Rowan growled.
I was incredulous. “You’re kidding. That’s highway robbery to demand the entirety of back payments before you’ll give the Rembrandt back.
The last paperwork you sent us showed that back payments had climbed to five million dollars.
Half of which seem to be in fees and interest. You can’t be serious about demanding that kind of cash right now from us.
” We had the gold, not appraised, so we could only assume it would cover that, but mostly, the principle of the matter made me irate.
The man sniffed and looked at me. “What did you say?”
This was an annoying tactic he had used more than once with me when I’d taken his calls.
And the one time I’d called him, trying to get a pound of flesh from the man for the nasty messages he was leaving for Rowan while he was in the hospital.
I felt protective and on defense. I’d taken my rubber band off for that call.
Now, however, I tried not to take it as a sign that he was a misogynistic prick or that Charmaine had bad-mouthed me to him but rather that my American accent was too strong for him to understand what I was saying.
I snapped my band and reiterated slower while Rowan studied his side profile.
His eyes had become hard gemstones laser-focused on Dick’s face.
I recognized his old self, though it was one I’d never met, the RAF pilot who was used to managing a multimillion-dollar aircraft at speeds that I could only dream about; he was plotting where to put a missile.
The man wiped the sweat off his forehead with his plain white pocket square. He dodged my reiterated question. “Where is your counsel?”
I looked at my watch, wondering the same thing, when I heard a commotion at the front doors.
Then muffled heels on the carpeted stairs, and Charmaine breezed in.
I still thought the constable should have been there, but Rowan wanted a metric for measuring the depth of her betrayal, which, I assumed, he knew was deep.
Rowan wanted to see what these two did on their own.
Except we weren’t alone with them. My brother was just behind Charmaine. I was about to ask what he was doing there, but then I realized he only had eyes for her, giving her back a look that was somewhere between longing and seasickness.
I looked at Charmaine too. Her mood was buoyant and gorgeous.
There was pink in her cheeks, her eyes were bright, and she wore a clean, casual linen suit that whispered its color might be peach.
She also wore delicate leather-strapped sandals.
She set her bag down, an airy thing made of cloth that would look right at home at a yoga retreat for celebrities.
And then she smiled back at Tee. Had they arrived together?
All three of us got the answer to my unvoiced question as she walked back to the doorway, gently laid her hand on his chest, and kissed him, not so gently. “I told you I was late,” she said.
“I’m going to miss you. I need something to carry me through.”
“This”—she kissed him again—“will have to do.”
“One more.”
She smiled and gave him another kiss that was like two mouths fucking. I heard myself retch, and “What the actual fuck” spewed out.
With a Cheshire grin that spoke volumes about the bombshell Tee knew he’d dropped, he saluted Rowan and gave me a wink, and to the banker, he said, “You’re in deep shit,” before leaving.
I was half out of my chair to chase him, my mind whirling, when Rowan rose, cleared his throat, and pressed into my mind, Not now.
Oh my god, I pressed back.
Agreed was all he managed before Charmaine floated over to him and gave him a double-cheeked kiss that he winced through.
“Rowan, it’s a pleasure to see you again.
My apologies for my previous behavior. I felt lost when your Nicole subverted my goals.
I can see now that what I really desire is to fulfill my need to salvage ancient structures, and Tiberius has shown me that I can still do that.
My actions jeopardized my true intentions with Castle Laoch.
He’s also taught me that love can’t wait a year. I didn’t love you. Ever.”
Rowan’s eyes were wide.
Dick crowed, “Ms. Chevalier! We have business to attend to. This is not a personal session for airing our feelings and wild displays of indecency.”
Her eyes went cold. “My kissing my boyfriend was obscene?”
“Oh, he’s your boyfriend now?” I interjected, not buying any of her horse manure.
Her gaze still held a chill. “You bring out the worst in me, Nicole. Tiberius says we can someday be friends, but—”
“I need you as a friend like I need another hole in my head.”
“Exactly.”
“There, look at us getting along.”
“You will always be present to test my patience, and Tiberius will be there to remind me that with him, my patience is infinite.”
“He returns to base in a week. I hope you learn all the lessons you can before he’s out of your life forever.”
“I’ve purchased a home near the base in Germany and will run my businesses from there. Anything else?”
I was about to ask how she’d like living on a peach farm in South Carolina when he wasn’t on a tour of duty. Instead, I blurted, “You bought a home in Germany?” How many days had passed? Time felt meaningless anymore.
“Come now,” the banker whined.
Charmaine looked resigned. “I love him.”
“You just met.”
She glanced at Rowan, then at me. “And you? Your love is any less because of how swiftly it arrived?”
Now I was out of my chair. I felt my lip curl back. “That’s real different. Destined-for-centuries different. I don’t know what you have planned—”
“I love him. I feel like a fool for the way I behaved toward you. Especially now that my focus is on him and chasing something that gives me joy.”
I caught Rowan’s gaze, and he was slowly shaking his head. He wanted me to table it.
“Let me be clear,” I said to Charmaine, “if you hurt him—”
“I realize that trust will be a difficult thing for me to earn back with you both, but let me try.”
Rowan gestured to an open chair.
Charmaine gave him a polite smile as the banker said, “Thank goodness. Let’s get this over with.
The Rembrandt has been furnished for the good faith payment but has satisfied only that our bank will not pursue foreclosure at this time.
If the back payments are not made in the next thirty days, we will foreclose on this asset, and you will need to vacate the premises. ”
“You—” Rowan lost all of his cool all at once. His fist slammed down on the table, making Dick jump. “This is theft! Plain and simple. What is it about this castle tha’ makes ye think ye can have it, Murdoch? Yer uncle didn’t take us to our knees in ’89, and ye’ll not take it now.”
His voice was still booming through the room and making me itch to go to war with someone.
“Chief MacLaoch, please,” Charmaine said, her voice cool and unimpressed.
She was still unloading her folio and writing utensils, lining them up just so.
Charmaine pulled her hair back, and I expected her to secure it with the rubber band she’d been using of late, but instead, her pewter clip was back, and suddenly, she was the woman I’d first met.
But this time, her ire wasn’t aimed at me.
“Mr. Murdoch,” she snarled, “let’s get something out of the way directly. The Rembrandt was taken without consent. You cannot receive stolen art as payment. Or at least not once you’ve been notified the art is stolen. Consider yourself notified.”