Chapter 1- BOOK THREE

Lea Carloth was placing dust sheets on the furniture in the now deserted northern wing of Brathellae Castle when she heard the sound of a firm footfall on the stairs. Goosebumps peppered her skin like Braille, and a cold draught of air circled her ankles like the ghost of a long-dead cat.

No such things as ghosts. No such things as ghosts.

Her old childhood chant wasn’t working any better than when she first came to live in the Scottish Highlands castle as a frightened and lonely twelve-year-old orphan. Taken in by her great-aunt, who had worked as a housekeeper for the Borthman family, Lea had been raised in the kitchen and corridors of the castle. In the early days, downstairs had been her only domain, upstairs was out of bounds. And not just because of her limp. Upstairs had been another world—a world in which she did not and could not ever belong.

“Is anyone th-there?” Her voice echoed in the silence, her heart thumping so loudly she could hear it booming in her ears. Who would be coming up to the north tower at this time of day? Dave, the new heir to the estate, was working abroad in France, and last time Lea had heard, Dave’s older sister Mary wasn't interested in their great-great grandmother's wealth; after all, Mary married Lea’s distant billionaire cousin’s Tyler Johnson.

Fear crept up her spine with ice-cube-clad feet, her breathing coming to a halt when a tall figure materialised out of the shadows.

“Lea?” Dave Borthman said, with a heavy frown. “What the hell are you doing up here?”

Lea clasped her hand against her pounding chest, sure her heart was going to punch its way out of her body and land at his Italian-leather-covered feet. “You didn’t half give me a fright. Aunt Evelyn told me you wouldn’t be back until November. Aren’t you supposed to be working in France this month?”

She hadn’t seen him since Tyler and May’s wedding last year. And she figured he hadn’t seen her even then. Lea had tried to offer to contact him about the castle, but she’d been busy helping her great-aunt with the catering, and Dave had left before she could get a chance to speak to him in private.

But the upstairs-downstairs thing had always coloured her relationship with the Borthmans. Dave and his sister were not privileged from birth; they didn't even know that their family came from a long line of aristocratic ancestors. Lea’s great-aunt and her, by default, were downstairs. Yes, on Lea’s mother's side, the Johnson were also wealthy, but she wasn't very eager to tell the world that she was associated with the Johnson. Besides, she was brought up here in the castle and was one of the staff members who were meant to stay in the background and go about their work with quiet dedication, not share intimate chit-chats with their employers.

Lea could never quite forget she was the interloper, the charity case. It made her keep a prickly and prideful rather than polite distance.

Dave scraped a hand through his hair as if his scalp were feeling too tight for his head. “I postponed my trip. I have some business to see here first.” His dark blue gaze swept over the dust-sheeted furniture, the crease in his forehead deepening. “Why are you doing this? I thought Mary was going to hire someone to see to it?”

Lea turned to pick up one of the folded dust sheets, flapping it open and then laying it over a mahogany table with cabriole legs. Hundreds of disturbed dust motes rose in the air in a galaxy of activity. “She did see to it—by hiring me. Not that I want to be paid or anything.” She leaned down to tuck the edge of the dust sheet closer around the legs of the table and flicked him a glance. “You do realise this is my job now? Cleaning, sorting, and organising. I have a small team of people working for me. Didn’t your sister tell you? She gave me a loan to get my business started.”

One brow came up in a perfect arc. “A loan?” There was a note of surprise—or was it cynicism? —in his tone.

Lea pursed her lips and planted her hands on her hips like she was channelling a starchy nineteenth-century governess. “A loan I paid back, with interest.” What did he think she was? An abuser? Exploiting her cousin’s wife with requests for money she had no intention of paying back? She might have shared the genes of people like that, but she didn’t share their morals. “I wouldn’t have agreed to the loan otherwise.”

His navy-blue eyes narrowed. “Seriously? She offered you a loan?”

Raising one brow, Lea moved past him to pack up her cleaning basket. “For your information, Mr. Borthman, I have never taken your sister’s trust for granted. She is Tyler’s wife, I will never betray her, Jesus!”

“Why are you so defensive? ”

“I am not defensive, I'm just stating a fact here! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Feather duster. Tick. Soft polishing cloths. Tick.

What an ass. She thought.

“She allowed me to live here with my great-aunt rent-free, and for that I will be grateful forever.”

She shoved the furniture polish bottle in among the other cleaning products in her basket. She had become closer to his sister, coming to understand the gruff exterior of a proud wife and mother of two who had done her best to keep her family together.

Dave let out a long breath, still frowning like he didn’t know any other way to look at her. Story of her life. One look at her scarred leg and her limp, and that’s what most people did—frowned. Or asked intrusive questions she refused, on principle, to answer. Lea never talked about what had happened to her leg, not in any detail that is. ‘A car crash’ was her stripped-down answer. She never said who was driving, why they were driving the way they were, or who else had been injured or killed.

Who wanted to be reminded of the day that changed her life forever?

“Why didn’t she just give you the money?” Dave asked.

She rolled her eyes, steeled her gaze, and tightened her mouth. “Oh, you mean because she felt sorry for me?”

Dave’s covert glance at her left leg told her all she needed to know. Just like everyone else, he saw her damaged leg first and her later—if at all. Lea was fiercely proud of how she had made something of herself in spite of impossible odds. She didn’t want to be seen as the little girl with the limp, but as the gutsy woman with gumption, drive, ambition, and resourcefulness.

“Of course not. Tyler is your cousin, why—”

“It's really not your business, you know.”

“Why the hell not?” His tone was weighted. “Because he was a wealthy man, and you’re practically family.” He moved away to look at some of the boxes she’d packed earlier. He peeled back the cardboard flaps of one box and took out a leather-bound book, fanning through the pages, his features set in lines of deep thought.

Practically family? Was that how he saw her? As a surrogate sister or distant cousin? At six feet four with a lean and rangy build, dark brown loosely styled wavy hair, a chiselled aristocratic jaw, and deep blue eyes the colour of the ocean, it would be a crying waste if Dave Borthman were her brother, cousin, or whatever! She thought.

It was a crying waste for women the world over that he hadn’t dated since the tragic death of his girlfriend.

Not that he would ever date Lea. No one had ever dated her—well, not since she was a teenager. And she deliberately tried not to think of that one and only date and the excruciating embarrassment it had entailed. From that day on, she decided her career plans would always be more important. More important than trying to go to parties or nightclubs in short dresses and heels that drew even more attention to her leg. More important than being told by a guy she wasn’t good enough. Could never be good enough.

Dave closed the book with a little snap and placed it back on top of the others. He turned to look at her.

Yep, with a frown.

“Where will you and your aunt go if this place is sold?” he asked with concern.

Lea’s eyes widened, and her chest developed a tight, can’t-take-another-breath ache. “Sold? You’re selling Brathellae?” She could think of no bigger tragedy. Well, she could because she’d lived through one big hell of a tragedy, but still. Selling Brathellae was way up there on the list. Who would she be without the shelter of Brathellae watching over her? Her identity had been formed here, her sense of security and safety honed within the fortress-like walls of the centuries-old castle. “How could you do that, Dave? Your great-great grandfather left it to you as his heir. I mean, technically, you and your sister, but still. Your grandfather is buried here, along with your grandparents and generations of ancestors. You surely don’t need to sell it for money. ”

His expression went as blank as one of the dust sheets on the furniture, but his tone was jaded. “It’s not about money. I am unwilling to fulfil the terms of my grandfather’s will.”

Lea frowned like she was in competition with him for Best Frown in Show. “Terms? What terms?”

He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and moved to look out of one of the mullioned windows, his back turned to her. Lea could see the tension in his shoulders even through his clothes. The breadth of his shoulders had always secretly fascinated her.

She had often seen him rowing and swimming in the summer on the lake on the Brathellae estate when he’d come home to visit. Tall and lean-hipped, with abdomen muscles ridged with strength and endurance, she had been fascinated by his athleticism, as it had been in such stark contrast to her young, broken body. And when he’d brought his lover home for visits, Lea had watched them both. His lover had been a supermodel, stunning, slim, and glamorous. Never had Lea seen two people more perfect for each other or more devotedly in love. It had set a benchmark for her to aspire to. Perhaps an impossible benchmark, but a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

Dave turned to look at her, his jaw set in a taut line. “Unless I marry within three months, the entire estate will pass to the orphanage.”

“What? I didn't know that?” Lea gasped as she licked her carpet-dry lips, her heart suddenly flapping like a loose window shutter in a stiff Highland breeze.

He drew in a breath and released it with a gust of frustration. “And we both know what he will do when he gets his hands on this place.”

Lea couldn’t allow her mind to even go there. No two siblings could ever be more disparate. They were the strong, silent type—hard-working and responsible, though Dave was a loud party man with a streak of recklessness who had already brought little shame on the family too many times to count. “You think Mary would sell it?”

He gave a grim movement of his lips that wasn’t anywhere near a smile. “Or—worse—I'll turn it into a party central for irresponsible playboys myself.”

Lea chewed her lower lip, her thoughts in a tangled knot. If Brathellae was sold, what would happen to her great-aunt? Where would Aunt Evelyn live if she were not here? Her great-aunt lived in a little cottage on the estate where she had spent the last forty years. Like Lea, it was the only home she knew. And what would happen to Dave’s grandfather’s elderly dog, Flossie? The dog was almost blind and would find a move to another place even more distressing than Aunt Evelyn would. “There must be something you can do to challenge the terms of your grandfather’s will.”

He smirked. “The will is ironclad.” He turned away to look at the view from the windows; even the sound of his feet moving across the carpet conveyed his disgust.

“Why did your grandfather write it in such a way?” Lea asked into the echoing silence. ‘Did he talk to you and to Mary about it before he…?” She still found it hard to believe the old man was gone.

Packing up the old man’s things had made her realise how different Brathellae would be without him. Picky and pedantic, he hadn’t been the easiest person to get along with, but over the last few months, Lea had made a point of ignoring his bad points and had found him to have a softer side he’d been at great pains to keep hidden.

Dave rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and partially turned from the window to look at her. “I don't know,” he sighed. “We never talked to the old man before; we didn't even know this castle existed. I mean, yeah, me and Mary had been with ourselves. I think it was Mary’s idea. She’s been telling me for years to settle down and do my duty. Marry and provide a couple of heirs to continue the family line and such, whatever the hell that means.”

“But you don’t want to get married.” It was a statement, not a question.

A shadow passed through his gaze like a background figure moving across a stage. He turned back to face the view from the windows; there might as well have been a ‘Keep Away’ sign printed on his back. It seemed a decade before he spoke. “No. I want adventure in my life, not to stay at home. If you know what I mean," his tone had a note of finality that made something in Lea’s chest tighten.

The thought of him marrying someone one day had always niggled at her like a mild toothache. She could ignore it mostly, but now and again, a sharp jab would catch her off guard. But how could he ever find someone as perfect for him as his ex? No wonder he was a little reluctant to date seriously these days. If only Lea could find someone to love her with such lasting loyalty. Sigh.

“What about a marriage of convenience? You could find someone who would agree to marry you just long enough to fulfil the terms of the will.”

One of his dark eyebrows rose in a cynical arc above his left eye. “Are you volunteering for the role of my paper bride?”