Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Iona
It’s time I finally summoned the courage to tell my family I’m getting married to a Syndicate lawyer.
If I put the news off any longer, they’ll have a rude awakening via social media tomorrow.
Skye, Lachlan, and I are having a late dinner with Lowden and Maw at a small bistro in the Southside to celebrate Lowden’s company merging with Metallicon, an environmentally conscious, socially responsible corporation that provides management systems to smaller metallurgic companies.
Though I hate to steal my stepfather’s thunder, I need to drop the bomb sooner rather than later.
I pause in front of the restaurant to take a photo of the gorgeous lights showcasing the place’s name. Then I share it to Insta, captioning it, About to dine with family at an old Glasgow favorite.
Chewing my lower lip, I open the door, spotting the group at a far table.
Here goes nothing.
I square my shoulders and head over to them, saying a silent prayer to Hera, goddess of marriage. Without an actual fiancé to show for my claims, I’ll be winging it.
“She’s here!” Lowden rises and opens his arms. “Now the festivities can begin.”
After we’ve embraced, Lachlan engulfs me in a warm hug. “Sis-in-law, I saw your interview with Leith Cargill. Pretty impressive.”
My laugh has a nervous edge. Somehow I’ll have to transition to the fact that an interview became an engagement. “He’s impressive. All I had to do was feed him questions.”
Skye is next, enfolding me in a loving embrace. “They all came to hear you. He was just the icing on the cake.”
“You’re sweet to say so, sis.” I kiss her cheek. “Though my following skyrocketed overnight when people watched it, so . . .”
Maw wraps me in her arms. “Sweetheart, you look lovely.”
“Thanks, Maw. So do you.” I take a seat beside her at the round table.
Lachlan pours me some white wine and lifts his glass. “To the unbridled success of Lowden and his company!”
As we echo his toast and sip our wine, the energy in the room shifts. A shiver runs up my spine and raises the hairs on the back of my neck. A formidable presence has entered the room, and my body is reacting as if it knows what comes next.
Heat unspools in my lower belly, and a prickle shoots up to my throat, leaving my nipples erect.
My breath catches as the presence surrounds me from behind and my family lift their gazes to greet it.
I’m feart?1 yet curious. Aware yet in denial.
There’s no way!
The shock on my family’s faces suggests a phantom is in our midst.
A hand rests on my chair back. “Good evening. Sorry to arrive late.” Leith leans over and presses a kiss to my forehead, searing my skin. “Iona, I was able to get away from the case after all.”
Shit, he must’ve seen my Insta post.
In one graceful motion he pulls a chair up beside me and folds himself into it.
Once again I marvel I can be so near him without getting triggered. What is it about him?
He arches a brow. “Well, Flame, are you going to make the introductions?”
This is really happening.
I swallow my amazement. “Uh, Lowden, this is Leith Cargill.”
Leith extends a hand across the table. “Her fiancé.”
Lachlan splutters his wine, and Maw coughs into her serviette. Skye’s eyes blow wide, and her jaw slacks.
Lowden opens his mouth, closes it, then finally recovers enough to say, “We hadn’t heard yet . . .”
“No?” Fanning an arm over my chair back, Leith throws me an amused look. “That’s Iona, saving the best surprises for the last minute.”
I grit my teeth, forced to play this game he’s orchestrated and pissed at how he’s controlling me right and left. “Aye, we’re . . . getting married.”
“Since when?” Skye finds her voice at last, her tone hurt.
Damn Cargill and his infernal surprises.
He turns his wicked smirk toward me, leaving me to flounder alone. My face heats, as much from rage as embarrassment. “Since Saturday. I was going to tell you all, but I didn’t want to make tonight about me—us.” I correct myself just in time, balling a fist in my lap.
“Tell them the proposal story, Flame,” Leith urges, a sadistic note licking at his velvety voice.
“Aye, do,” Maw seconds, to my dismay.
At a loss, I reach for the most fanciful story I can fabricate on the fly.
“Ehm, we were out at Drumpellier Country Park, you know, walking around one of the lochs on a trail.” I turn away from Leith so I don’t lose my focus under his intense gaze.
“We took a selfie atop a log at the edge of the water, and when Leith turned around, his foot snagged on a root. He fell head first into the loch.” As smiles break out around the table, I decide to go for broke.
“The water is very deep around the shore there, so he didn’t get hurt, but he came out shivering and soaking wet.
A passing couple took pity on him, and the woman gave him her bright-pink raincoat.
I snapped some pretty hilarious pictures of him.
” Suddenly I recall I have to bring this yarn back to the proposal.
“Midway back to the car, Leith drops down on one knee, dipping his wet head. Iona, I had planned to propose to you back there, but nature had other plans, he began. Here I am, soaked to the bone and wearing a fuschia raincoat. If you’re willing to take me like this, I’ll know you love me, and I’ll consider myself the luckiest man in the world. ”
“What did you say?” Maw asks, breathless.
I giggle. “I said, You’ll be dry again and wearing your own claes?2 soon enow. What then? Must I break up with you?”
Everyone but Leith laughs.
Skye rolls her eyes. “My sis, ever the joker.”
Avoiding Cargill’s death glare, I go on. “Eventually, his teeth were chattering so, and his lips were so blue, I took pity on him and said, Aye, you are the luckiest man in the world, and as long as you dinnae forget it, I’ll take you.”
Beside me a dangerous energy radiates from Leith.
“She was so over the moon about our engagement she promptly wove me a basket to signify how our hearts were eternally twined together.” He pulls something up on his phone and slides it across the table.
Even upside down it looks like the sorriest excuse for a basket I’ve ever seen.
A groan goes up around the table, and Maw chirps, “Iona is gifted at other things. She never was one for arts and crafts.”
Skye reaches across and covers my hand with hers. “It’s the thought that counts.”
As Leith coils a tendril of my hair about his fingers and gives a tug, a damp spot forms in my panties. I hate that my body lights up at his merest touch.
“The worst part was I lost the engagement ring in the loch,” Leith informs everyone to their murmurs of disappointment.
“But the jeweler was able to make another by today.” He produces a black box, cracks it open, and plucks out the most breathtaking ring I’ve ever beheld.
An emerald perches at the center surrounded by a halo of diamonds flaring outward like a sunflower.
The gem reflects the light as if deep, green waters fill the stone.
Robbed of speech, I can only watch as he takes my left hand and slips the ring on my finger. He’s once more stolen the show, making them forget my ridiculous story in the face of his grand gesture.
With each passing moment I’m more surely bound to him, and it’s beginning to make me panic. Scraping my chair back, I excuse myself.
“I’ll just nip to the loo.” I stand and make a beeline for the corridor on the opposite end of the bistro.
I haven’t even reached the ladies’, when the vision kicks up like a cloud of dust.
* * *
The tattoo curls up from his shirt and twines about his neck. A lizard? A dragon? A horseshoe? It’s too dark in the room to see. He’s not very big, but he’s strong. He pins me down on the hard table and holds a knife to my throat. The blood in my veins congeals, and chills skitter up my arms.
Slapping duct tape over my mouth, he presses his stoner into my belly. “Don’t you sluts love being gagged?”
I scream beneath the tape, but the party outside the room is too loud for anyone to hear. His grip on my wrists is so tight he’s cutting off my circulation.
To my right, Grizel struggles against her assailant, who claps a hand over her mouth and murmurs, “That’s it. Make it fun for us both.” He’s even more powerful than the man attacking me.
The latter tosses his knife aside, undoes his belt, and shoves down his trousers, revealing a purple-veined erection.
My mind floats above the scene, and I start to see Grizel and myself from that corner of the ceiling that’s least in shadow.
I look over at her curly blonde hair spilling from her hairpins, her short dress rucked up to her waist, and the tears rolling down from her bulging eyes.
As my assaulter rips my panties off and angles his tip toward my entrance, I turn my attention back to him and renew my screams, struggling against his hold and kicking the air behind him.
* * *
My breaths come so fast my lungs can’t keep up, and it feels like I’m going to explode. A strong arm circles me from behind, pulling me flush with a solid chest. I only realize my arms are flailing about when someone pins them to my body.
“Shh, steady on, sweetheart. Nowt’s gaun tae hurt you,” a deep, silvery voice croons from above.
“Get off me,” I rasp, fighting against the powerful arm banding me.
“Quiet now,” the silken voice pours in my ear, making a steady thud start up in my core. “You’re at a restaurant.”
I startle, taking in my surroundings. The golf wallpaper on the wall opposite, the black-and-white picture of a group of people accepting a medal, the soft lights, the smell of fresh fried fish.
I’m not back there. Relief pours over me like a cool fountain.
Then I realize who’s holding me.
Fuck.
Leith saw me at my most vulnerable. He comforted me. Make that is comforting me.
“Th-that’s all right,” I stammer out. “I’m okay.”