Scottish Billionaire's Unwanted Baby Page 8

  “The servants heard us fighting. Some of them are still with us. They can corroborate my story.”

  “But they’re loyal to you and yer family, Angus.”

  I tried to hold back my irritation and approached the problem from a different angle. “Isn’t it a bit odd that a new witness came forth now, after all these years? Where have they been all this time?”

  “They told us they were protecting you, laddie. That they didn’t want to see you in jail. But that they finally decided they had to do the right thing.”

  “That sounds unlikely.”

  “On the contrary.” Alastair grinned down at me. “Sounds perfectly likely to me. I always knew ye were trouble, Angus. I always suspected you had something to do with Una’s death.”

  With a sensation of warm nostalgia, I remembered the time I’d broken Alastair’s nose in school, and I rather wished I could do it again. But to let him provoke me into idiocy would be to find myself inside a jail cell for a very long time, and that I couldn’t do, no matter how satisfying it would be to smash the bampot’s face in. I had a company to run, and a woman to wed. I couldn’t allow Alastair to ruin my life. Not now. I seethed but remained in my chair.

  Alastair seemed to relish my impotent fury. He smirked down at me.

  “Ye’re our main witness, Angus, and we’ll want to question ye again. Likely more’n once. Mind ye stay in town.”

  ***

  Isla

  The bedroom we were sharing was large and luxurious, with a four-poster bed and a huge window that overlooked the Firth. We’d been there for three days, and we’d carefully kept to our own sides of the bed, allowing our relationship to remain in a platonic state. We hadn’t discussed it; it had just happened.

  Part of me ached for Angus, longing to be wrapped in his strong arms, to feel his hot mouth against my skin. But I was still afraid. I’d agreed to marry a stranger, and despite all our midnight talks, I had to admit I still didn’t know him all that well. For all I knew, he could be a murderer.

  At least that was what my brain told me.

  My heart disagreed.

  But right now I wasn’t thinking about my brain or my heart. My stomach was the problem. It seemed to be making a concerted effort to crawl right up my throat. The sight and scent of sausage (bangers, as they called them here) on the breakfast table had made me feel ill, and I’d barely managed to choke down a dry piece of toast. But even that had been enough to make me very, very ill.

  And to make matters worse, as I repeatedly vomited into the toilet, it dawned on me that my period was late. Very late.

  I’m not a complete idiot. After the first time with Angus, I’d been sure to wear my diaphragm whenever we were together, and he’d always used a condom, too. But sometimes all it takes is one time.

  And I was pretty sure that in this case, once had been enough.

  Once my stomach settled a bit, I had made an excuse to go to the local store, riding like a queen in the chauffeured Bentley. Instead of the antacid I’d claimed I needed, I’d purchased a pregnancy test. Once we returned to the castle, I retreated to my bathroom and followed the instructions, then placed it on the counter and sat down on the toilet seat to wait an excruciating three minutes.

  At long last, I picked it up and looked at it, and panic clutched me by the throat. I was pregnant.

  I was going to have Angus Scott’s baby.

  This was awful. It was terrible. Angus was a billionaire playboy, and even if he’d committed to me for two years, that didn’t mean he was ready to commit to fatherhood. Besides, there was still the horrific possibility that he was a murderer, and if there was even the faintest possibility that he was capable of murderous rages, I couldn’t let him be involved with this child. I just couldn’t.

  I put the test down, walked out to the bedroom, and sank down heavily on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t seem to stop the tears; they overflowed my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I tried to hold back my sobs, for fear that someone would hear, and wonder.

  I sat there crying quietly, staring out at the Firth where Una had died. It looked steel-gray, reflecting the dark clouds above. Fear and grief roiled inside me, and I imagined fancifully that the dark and ominous waters of the Firth had somehow taken up residence in my chest, drowning me in anxiety.

  What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

  I was too caught up in my anguish to hear the footsteps in the hallway. The door creaked open, and Angus stood there, staring at me.

  “Are ye all right, lassie?”

  I knew he was worried because he’d reverted to his native accent. I sniffled pathetically, and he sat down on the bed next to me, and—for the first time in three days—wrapped his powerful arms around me.

  It felt good. It felt right. I couldn’t help myself.

  I buried my face in his shoulder and sobbed aloud.

  “Easy, lass.” He ran a big hand through my hair. “Don’t cry. Tell me what’s troubling ye.”

  “I just—I just—” I tried to get words out, but couldn’t. They choked off in a sob.

  “Never mind.” He sighed into my hair, and his voice dropped to its lowest register, rumbling like thunder. “I already know. It’s me. Ye’re worryin’ I killed Una. But I swear to ye, lass, that I did not. I swear it on my da’s grave.”

  The knot of confused emotion that had tangled in my chest loosened. I knew Angus well enough to know what his father had meant to him, and I was absolutely certain he would not have uttered those words if they had not been true.

  “I believe you,” I whispered into his shoulder and meant it.

  “That bein’ said…” He sighed again. “Well, the truth of the matter is that perhaps it is my fault, in a way. Una and I, we had been friends for years. When I told her I was leavin’ for America, and I broke up with her—maybe it was too much for her. She’d always had her problems, emotionally speaking. She’d be brilliant sunshine one day, and darkest midnight the next.”

  “Bipolar?”

  “I suppose, though she never saw a doctor for help with it. I begged her to, but she wouldn’t. I knew she had this issue, though, and still, I walked away from her. So in a way… I did this to her, lassie. I did.”

  The grief in his voice cut straight to my heart. I snuffled, and straightened up, looking him in the eye.

  “Don’t you dare blame yourself,” I said fiercely. “You tried to get her help, didn’t you?”

  He nodded, looking miserable.

  “You did what you could for your friend, Angus. But you couldn’t stay with her if you didn’t feel that way about her, could you? You had your own future to worry about. Your own life. Don’t think it was your fault, Angus. It wasn’t.”

  He swallowed audibly and didn’t answer. His gaze flickered away from mine, and he studied the hand-stitched quilt on the bed like it was the most fascinating thing imaginable. I took a deep breath, trying to push back the dark waters rising inside me.

  “At any rate,” I said, taking his hand in mine, “the truth is that I wasn’t crying over that. Well, not exactly. It’s…” I stiffened my shoulders. “I’m pregnant.”

  He stared blankly at me for a long moment, and my heart sank. But then a soft, unfamiliar expression bloomed on his face, a look almost of joy.

  “A baby,” he said softly and placed a hand on my belly. “To think there’s a baby growing right here. Are you certain?”

  “I’ve always heard pregnancy tests are pretty reliable. And I’ve been throwing up. So yes, I’m certain.”

  He looked pensively at my stomach. “It doesn’t show yet though.”

  I snorted. “It’s not going to show for a while. For quite a while, I hope.”

  He looked at my abdomen and smiled, like he was picturing me the size of a whale. The idea didn’t make me smile.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he said. “I’ll take care of you both.”

  Though softly spoken, the words had the weight of a sacred vow. I blinked at him.
Somehow I hadn’t thought someone like Angus Scott would want a child to interfere with his glamorous lifestyle. But I looked into his eyes, which were practically glowing, and I thought maybe he’d longed for this more than he’d ever let himself admit.

  “The child will want for nothing,” he said. “Nor will you. I promise you that.”

  The words were reassuring, but I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. I only had two years with him, after all. I’d signed a contract saying so. And after that, what would happen? Would we split custody of my baby? Or would Angus, with his vast money and power, use lawyers to wrest the child away from me?

  I decided that was a foolish idea. Angus might have his faults, but he would never keep me away from my own child.

  Even so, sooner or later, the two of us would go our separate ways, and we’d have to settle on a shared custody arrangement. The baby would only be mine on occasion. I knew that Angus would never suddenly realize he loved me, or announce that we should remain together for always. And now that I knew about Una, I thought I knew why. I looked out over the dark water and shivered.

  Angus Scott’s heart lay in pieces at the bottom of the cliff, shattered on the rocks along with his first love.

  Chapter Eleven

  Angus

  The sheer rock face of the cliff rose on my right; the water of the Firth lapped on the beach to my left. I walked along the sand, picking my way over jagged rocks as the sun began to sink down behind the cliff.

  A baby. Isla was going to have a baby.

  My baby.

  It wasn’t like me to forget to use a condom. Something about Isla had swept all my common sense away that first night. I’d lost my self-control at a glance from her emerald eyes.

  And I didn’t regret it. The idea of my baby growing inside of her, the thought of her slim body swelling with my seed… it made something glow inside of me, something I’d never felt before. I’d always longed for children, in a vague, distant sort of way, but I’d never wanted to share a pregnancy and childbirth with another woman, not even Una. Which was perhaps why I’d been so willing to leave Una behind when I decided to go to America.

  I couldn’t imagine myself leaving Isla behind. Not now. Not ever.

  She was mine. She would always be mine. And not just because of the baby, either. She’d somehow burrowed into my soul, so deeply that I knew I could never bear to let her go.

  As I wandered along the sandy beach, a figure emerged from behind a little curve in the cliff. It was a tall, broad-shouldered man, and I stiffened because, at first, I thought it might be Alastair. But an instant later, I recognized my old friend, Thomas Craig. His coffee-brown hair was rumpled and windblown, and he wore a cable-knit jumper against the chill breeze that blew off the Firth.

  I hadn’t seen him in over a decade, or heard from him or received a birthday card or even friended him on Facebook. But for an instant, the years dropped away, and I was a teenager again, seeing my best friend in all the world. I hurried toward him.

  “Thomas!”

  I would have flung my arms around his shoulders in greeting, but something on his face stopped me, and all at once I recalled that everyone here thought me to be a murderer. I hesitated.

  “Angus,” he said, his voice reserved. “How goes the investigation?”

  At the chilly, unfriendly look in his eyes, something inside me shriveled and died. The last of our childhood friendship withered away to dust.

  “I told them exactly what I told them last time,” I said, speaking just as coolly as he did. “I wasn’t there that night she died. I was with my da.”

  “And yet someone claims to have seen ye there wit’ her.”

  “Someone is lying,” I snapped.

  His eyes shifted away from mine. I had grown up with Thomas, had spent almost every waking hour with him back then, had shared every class with him. I knew him so well that he’d never been able to lie to me.

  So I knew that he was lying now.

  “It was you,” I said, my voice sharp, accusing. “You’re the one who told them I was there.”

  “Don’t be a numpty.”

  I ignored the insult, which was one we’d thrown at each other in a friendly fashion all through school, and went on, trying to piece this puzzle together.

  “Someone told the constable I was with Una just before she died. It was you, wasn’t it? But you know that’s not true. Why would you lie, Thomas?”

  He glared at me. Despite the passage of years, he was still a good-looking fellow with a braw face, but at this moment there was something in his eyes I’d never seen before, something angry and hateful, and for an instant it made him look downright ugly.

  “Because ye killed her,” he snarled out. “Even if ye didn’t push her, it was your fault, Angus. She jumped because of you, damn it.”

  “Aye.” I looked up at the cliff, imagining the awful despair that it would take to leap from there onto the rocks below. “Maybe she did, in a way. But I never meant to hurt her, Thomas.”

  “Ye didn’t deserve her!” His face was distorted with fury. “Ye never loved her, not the way she deserved to be loved. I loved her, Angus, but she never had eyes for me, not with you around. When ye decided to leave, she was so broken. You were all she wanted. All she ever wanted.”

  The rage and pain in his voice caught at my heart. I’d been friends with Una and Thomas almost all my life, yet I’d never known how he felt, had never imagined the depths of his feelings for Una, nor the depths of his fury toward me. He’d kept it all inside, hidden it, and all these years it had been eating at him, turning him bitter and angry. Twisting him.

  He went on, his voice rising with rage.

  “You didn’t know what it was to love! Ye still don’t. I’ve read about yer escapades with all those trollops. Ye’ve never loved a one of ‘em in yer life.”

  I thought about Isla, waiting for me back at Braehaven. I thought about how she fit into my life—the way she loved architecture, the way she’d turned her back on the life she’d been born to, just like me, and gone on to something bigger and better. I thought about her growing round and full with my child. And for the first time, I was able to put words to what I felt for her.

  “You’re wrong, Thomas,” I said, softly but with confidence. “I’ve fallen in love with a woman. Her name is Isla, and she’s the one I’ve been waiting for all these years. She’s pregnant with my child, and I’m going to marry her.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “Don’t destroy my future over something that happened fourteen years ago, Thomas. Not now, not now that I’ve found her. Please. I can’t lose her now.”

  He glared at me, but some of the rage burning in his eyes had cooled.

  “It’s not fair,” he said with a growl. “It’s not fair that you had Una, and now you have this girl as well.”

  “You’ll find someone too, Thomas. If you can just start looking ahead, instead of behind… you’ll find someone too.” I blew out a long breath. “Don’t ruin everything for me, Thomas. Please.”

  “After what you did to me, you deserve to suffer.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as gently as I knew how. “I didn’t know you loved her, Thomas. I didn’t know. I doubt she knew, either. Maybe… maybe you should’ve told her how you felt.”

  His face crumpled, and he sniffled, sounding more like the boy I’d known than a full-grown man with shoulders a yard wide.

  “I did tell her,” he muttered. “Aye, that I did.”

  A terrible suspicion seized me. “Thomas. When did you tell her?”

  “The night…” He snuffled again, drawing the arm of his jumper across his nose, and spoke in the small, guilty voice of a child. “The night she died.”

  My heart squeezed in my chest. I hadn’t seen Thomas in near to fifteen years, yet he was still my best friend. And the suspicion that had risen up inside me was agonizingly painful.

  “Thomas,” I said, softly but firmly. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t mean
to!” he wailed. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, Angus. I just—I just…”

  “Thomas. What happened?”

  “I found her in the folly.” He gestured vaguely back in the direction of the old stone folly at the edge of the woods. “She was cryin’ her eyes oot, Angus, because ye were leavin’. Because ye’d broken up with her. And I got down on my knees, held her hands, and told her that I loved her. That even if she didn’t have ye, she still had me.”

  I forced my voice to steadiness. “What did she say?”

  “She told me—she told me that she only loved you. That I was just a friend. And I told her—I told her—”

  He paused, clearing his throat and wiping his eyes impatiently.

  “I was angry,” he choked out. “So angry that I went completely radge. I told her—I told her that you’d said you never really cared for her. That you’d been sleepin’ with the other bints in school. That everyone was laughin’ at her behind her back aboot it. I made her think that she’d never meant a thing to you.” He brushed a hand over his face roughly. “It was my fault, Angus. She went and threw herself off that cliff… and it was all because I hurt her so. I did it to her as surely as if I’d pushed her.”

  He burst into sobs, heavy, racking noises of grief. It had been almost fifteen years, yet he wept as if it had happened yesterday. I stared at him for a long moment, then, slowly, stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him, just like we were still kids.

  “I’m sorry,” he gritted out. “I’m sorry. But I hated you, Angus. All this time I’ve hated you, because she loved you instead of me. I read that you were gettin’ married, and I thought if I could take you away from your love, like you did to me… if I could get revenge on you, if I could make you hurt like I hurt, the pain would finally go away.”

  Anger and sympathy swirled inside me. After a moment or two, the sympathy won out.

  “I understand,” I said gently, and it was true. “It’s all right, Thomas. I understand.”

  He wept into my shoulder for a long while, and despite everything he’d done to me, I held onto him, the way I had when we were kids—after Davy Gordon knocked one of his front teeth out. Nothing was settled yet, and after all these years of nursing a grudge against me, I knew better than to be certain he’d choose the right path and admit the truth to the police. For all I knew, he might continue on this path and try to destroy my life. He might even succeed.