Chapter 3
“Can you say no?” Lea’s best friend, Iris, said on the phone later that evening. “I'm not sure if you can say no. What I’m sure of is that you’ll get your heartbroken for sure.”
“Of course not.”
"Yes, I am one million percent sure; the man is rich, handsome, and hot. Girls like us? Fall for that every time. And he will break your heart a fucking million times, Lea.”
“But it will break my heart to see Brathellae sold,” Lea said. “This is the first real home I’ve ever had. I’ve spent the last fourteen years here—it’s made me who I am today. I can’t bear the thought of it going out of the Borthman family. It belongs to Dave and Mary now. It was wrong of the old man to make his will in such a way.”
“Do you know why he did it that way?”
Lea sighed so heavily that her shoulders slumped. “Dave has made it pretty clear over the years that he has no intention of settling down again. Losing his ex was such a terrible shock to him—as it would be to anyone. I’ve overheard a few conversations where Mary insisted Dave move on with his life, but Dave isn’t someone you can tell what to do. Once his mind is made up, that’s it.”
“So, you think it was right for them to trick him into marrying?” Iris asked.
“Yes.”
“And he’s made up his mind to marry you in a marriage of convenience?”
Lea pulled at her top lip with her finger and thumb as she thought about her conversation with Dave in the north tower.
“Yes, well, I think I kind of planted the idea in his head. But we both love Brathellae and we both know how impulsive Mary can be. She doesn’t love the place the same way we do. He thinks it’s boring, cold, and too isolated. We have to stop her from inheriting the estate, even if it means giving up a year of our lives in a paper marriage.”
“I don't think Mary is like that. She is—odd but she is reasonable,” Iris said with amusement in her voice.
“I don't know, Iris. I am desperate.”
“Well, this is—exciting. But are you sure it’s going to be on paper? Dave’s a full-blooded man. You’re a young and beautiful woman. Living together is going to test the boundaries, surely?”
Lea affected a laugh. “Calling me beautiful is a bit of a stretch. Anyway, can you imagine him being attracted to me? I’m hardly what you’d call his type. I’m not anyone’s type.”
“Lea, you’re way too hard on yourself,” Iris said, echoing Dave’s words. “You shouldn’t let what happened in your teens colour how you see yourself now. But the whole friends-to-lovers thing can happen, you know. It doesn’t just happen in romance novels.”
“I’m not sure how to describe our relationship,” Lea said. “Friends' is probably too generous a description. We’re distant and polite to each other. I sometimes think he doesn’t even register when I'm around now that I’m an adult. I’m like part of the furniture.”
“Jesus…you—”
Lea rolled her eyes. “Don't tell me I'm pretty again, or I'll pull your hair, you silly thing."
“But you are pretty, I just hope you don’t get hurt in the long run,” Iris said. “I want you to be as happy as I am. I still can’t believe how wonderful it is to be married to Rafael, knowing he loves me more than anything. We’re both so excited about our Christmas baby.”
“I’m excited about your baby too.”
It was hard not to feel envious of her best friend’s happiness. After a rough start, Iris and Rafael had finally come together again and were eagerly awaiting the birth of their ‘accidental’ baby. But would Lea’s marriage to Dave have an equally happy ending?
The odds were stacked against it, and the sooner she got that straight and clear in her mind, the better.
Dave walked through the south garden at Brathellae, the scattered leaves of the ancient deciduous trees crunching under his feet. The vivid reds and golds and bronze and yellows were like wild splashes of paint. The autumn air was crisp and redolent with the smell of cooling earth and leaf litter, with a hint of the harsh winter to come. Each season at Brathellae held its magic for him. The gardens, fields, and Highlands beyond could be blanketed in white as thick as a pile of duvets and still stir him to the marrow. But unless Lea agreed to a marriage of convenience, he would have to say goodbye to this place. The land and home of his ancestors, the place where he felt deeply rooted to the estate as surely and securely as the ancient trees around him.
Dave waited for Flossie, his grandfather’s old Border collie, to keep up. She was sniffing around the tendon-like roots of an old oak tree. “Come on, Floss.” He patted his hand against his thigh, and the dog slowly waddled over to him, her tail wagging and her tongue hanging out of her mouth in spite of the chill in the air. He leaned down to scratch behind her ears, a pang jabbing him deep in his gut at the thought of what would happen to her. Mary really wanted to sell the estate. The old dog would not cope with a move to another home, and Robbie wouldn’t want to keep her.
Dave straightened from petting the dog and caught a glimpse of a slim figure walking through the archway of trees in the distance. With her wild chestnut hair, creamy skin, and irregular gait, Lea looked as much a part of this landscape as heather on the Highlands. For months, he had seen her moving about on the estate, reminding him of a faery or other mythic person. Touching her on the arm the day before had sent a shockwave of awareness through him—an awareness he found faintly disturbing. He would have to try harder not to touch her unless absolutely necessary.
The boundaries were not to be blurred, especially not by him.
Lea turned her head as if she had suddenly sensed him nearby. She clutched the front of her jacket around the front of her body and began to walk in his direction. “I was looking for Flossie,” she called out to him, sweeping the cloud of her hair back over one slim shoulder. “I thought she might have gone out alone and got lost.”
Dave met her more than halfway across the wooded garden to save her from negotiating the treacherous tree roots. “I took her out with me earlier. Sorry to worry you.” He turned back to look at the lumbering Border collie. “She’s slowed down a lot, hasn’t she?”
Lea bent down to ruffle the dog’s ears just where his hand had been moments earlier, her hair tumbling from behind her shoulders. He suddenly had an urge to run his fingers through her hair—to see if it was as soft and silky as it looked.
He curled his hands into tight fists and gave his willpower a pep talk. No touching. Hands off. Paper relationship only.
“Yes, I noticed a big change after your grandfather passed,” she said. “She misses him, don’t you, sweetie?” She addressed the dog affectionately and was rewarded by an enthusiastic tail wag. Lea straightened and met his gaze. “We all miss him.”
For a moment, Dave wondered if his grandfather had planned this all along—a marriage between him and Lea. The old man had spent a lot of time with her over the last months of his life. And Mary had given her that loan she’d mentioned. After all, she had been the one to suggest he enter a marriage of convenience when they’d spoken in his grandfather’s suite in the north tower. Had that been deliberate on her part or just a throwaway line borne out of her love for Brathellae?
And why the hell was he suddenly so cynical about her? She was part of the family—or close enough to being so. He couldn’t imagine Brathellae without her.
Dave had taken it a step further by suggesting she offer herself as his paper bride. He still didn’t quite believe he had done that, but it seemed like a solution he could live with at the time. The only solution he could live with “Lea, did you ever speak to my grandfather about his intentions regarding the will?”
Her grey-green eyes widened in affront, and her chin came up at a proud angle. “What are you suggesting? That I somehow put him up to changing his original will?”
Dave shrugged one shoulder with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “You stand to gain quite a lot if you marry me. You said it yourself—the upstairs-downstairs thing.”
She coughed out a derisive laugh. “Newsflash, Dave. I’m not going to marry you. It would be beneath my dignity to marry someone who’s such an appalling snob.” She swung away to walk back the way she had come, but Dave caught up in one or two strides, clasped her by the wrist, and turned her to face him.
“No, wait, damn it, wait,” he said, suddenly aware of how tiny her wrist was—tiny enough for his fingers to overlap. Aware too, of the bergamot and geranium fragrances of her hair. Her eyes sparked with chips of ice, and her rose-pink lips were tightly pursed. It was a mistake to look too closely at her mouth. For months, he had avoided doing so. It was soft and plump, with her top lip shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow, with dimples on either side when she smiled, which she was not currently doing.
“I’m sorry, Lea. That was stupid of me.” He sighed and released her wrist, his fingers feeling strangely restless and empty when she stepped back.
She rubbed at her wrist as if he had given her a Chinese burn, her eyes still flashing.
"I find your accusation deeply insulting. The last thing I want is for you to lose Brathellae but I refuse to marry a man who is so deeply distrustful of my motives.”
Dave had always secretly admired her stubborn streak of pride. She hadn’t had the easiest start in life, but she had made the most of the opportunities that had come her way after coming to live on the estate. She was a hard worker—too hard, he thought, given her leg—but it was a brave person indeed who took it upon themselves to tell her to slow down.
“I can only apologise again. It was a stupid thing to say.” He held her gaze, watching for any softening of her expression.
She appeared to be slightly mollified. Slightly, not fully. Her lips were still tightly compressed, but the daggers in her eyes had been sheathed. For now. “Apology accepted.” Her voice sounded a little gruff, and she delicately cleared her throat and added, “But there’s another thing I find annoying. You’re assuming I don’t already have a partner.”
An invisible punch hit him in the chest, and for a moment, he couldn’t take a breath. He’d heard nothing about her love life recently; in fact, he couldn’t remember hearing anything about a boyfriend for years. But she spends heaps of time in Edinburgh these days with her cleaning business. She could have any number of lovers. And why shouldn’t she?
“Do you?” he asked, not sure if he really wanted to know. But a current partner would be a problem. A big problem in more ways than he wanted to think about.
Her eyes fell away from his, and twin spots of colour darkened on her cheeks. “Not at the moment.”
There was a small silence, broken only by the rustling of the leaves at their feet as a cool breeze passed through the copse of trees. Some remaining leaves fell from the craggy branches overhead, floating down like oversized confetti. What was it with the wedding imagery? Weddings were something he never thought of. He never even attended them, not if he could help it.
Lea’s gaze went to the elderly dog, who was now lying down at Dave’s feet. “What do you think will happen to Flossie if this place gets sold?” Her tone contained a chord of disquiet, the same disquiet he felt about his ruthless younger brother’s intentions. “Would you take her to live with you?”
“She’s too old to travel, and I’m on the road too much in any case.” He exhaled a long breath. “The owner will probably have her put down.”
She gave an audible swallow, and her wide eyes met his. “What? We can’t let that happen. She might be old and mostly blind, but she still enjoys life. Your grandfather would spin in his grave if—”
“If my grandfather was so concerned about Flossie, then why the hell did he write his will like that?” Dave couldn’t strip back the frustration in his voice. His grandfather’s will had put him in an impossible situation. He felt cornered, compromised, and blackmailed.
Lea’s teeth sank into her lower lip. “If I were to marry you, what would we tell people about us? I mean, are we going to pretend it’s a real marriage, or—?”
Dave rubbed a hand along the side of his jaw before dropping his hand back by his side. “I would prefer people to think it’s a genuine love match. I’m not sure who’s going to buy it, but still.”
Her chin came back up, and the daggers were back, glinting in her eyes. “Thank you.” Her tone was distinctly wry.
Dave could have thumped himself for being so insensitive. “That came out wrong. I was thinking more about myself.”
A small frown appeared on her smooth-as-cream forehead. “Because of what you felt for your ex?” She paused for a beat and added, “What you still feel for her?”
Dave had never discussed with anyone the complicated relationship he’d had with his past. He didn’t even like thinking about how badly he had handled things. It was better to let people think he was still grieving the loss of his ex, but in truth, he felt guilt rather than grief. Gut-shredding guilt gnawed and clawed at him with savage teeth and talons.
There were so many mistakes he had made, costly mistakes that had ended in tragedy.
“It’s pretty common knowledge that I never intended to settle down with anyone after her death,” he said. “I guess my grandfather decided to take the matter into his own hands and force me to face my responsibilities as the last man of Borthman.”