Book 1 Chapter 16
1166 Words
Ari woke with a start. Cold grass pressed against her cheek, the sky above her a pale winter blue. She blinked, disoriented, pushing herself upright. Her coat was bunched beneath her, her hair a wild mess, and her phone lay a few inches away in the frost.
“What…?”
She looked around. She was in the field behind the barn, the one with the old stone wall and the view of the loch. She had no memory of lying down. No memory of falling asleep. One moment, she’d been walking and texting the girls… and the next, nothing.
Ari rubbed her temples. “Great. Fantastic. Love that for me.” She stood, brushing grass off her jeans. She needed to get back to the castle, get warm, and get her brain working again. She’d barely taken ten steps when...
“Ari!”
She froze. Bram stormed toward her from the direction of the barn, shoulders tense, jaw clenched, eyes blazing with something that looked suspiciously like Jealousy. Oh, hell no.
“There you are,” he growled, stopping in front of her. “Who were you meeting out here?”
Ari blinked. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Bram snapped. “Liora said you came out here to meet someone.”
Ari stared at him, stunned. “Are you serious right now?”
Bram stepped closer, towering over her, frustration radiating off him. “Aye, I’m serious. You disappear for hours, no one can find you, and you’re out here in a field meeting...”
“Meeting who, Bram?” she cut in sharply. “My secret Scottish boyfriend?”
He flinched. Ari threw her hands up. “Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.” Bram scowled. “I’m trying to understand what’s going on.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Ari snapped. “I took a walk. I sat down. I fell asleep. That’s it. No mystery man. No secret rendezvous. No, whatever fantasy you’ve cooked up in your head.”
Bram opened his mouth, but she wasn’t done. “And even if I was meeting someone,” she said, voice rising, “it’s none of your business.”
His jaw tightened. “It is my business.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why would it be your business, Bram? You have Eilidh.”
He froze. Ari’s heart hammered, but she pushed on before she lost her nerve. “I’m not getting dragged into whatever complicated, tragic, Scottish love story you have going on,” she said, voice shaking with anger. “I’m not going to be the other woman. I’m not going to be the girl who catches feelings for a man who already belongs to someone else.”
Bram looked like she’d slapped him.
“Ari...”
“No,” she said, stepping back. “I’m done. I have research to do. Actual work. Things that matter.”
She turned on her heel and marched toward the castle, fury and humiliation burning in her chest.
Behind her, Bram didn’t follow. He just stood there in the field, stunned, confused, and completely alone.
Bram stood in the middle of the field long after Ari disappeared over the hill, the cold wind cutting through his coat. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t think. He just replayed her words.
You have Eilidh. I’m not going to be the other woman. I’m not going to be the girl who catches feelings for a man who already belongs to someone else.
None of it made sense. Eilidh was… gone.
And Ari, Ari thought...Bram dragged both hands through his hair, pacing a tight circle in the frost. “What the hell just happened?” He’d come out here ready to demand answers, ready to confront whoever she was supposedly meeting, ready to...He didn’t even know. But instead, she’d turned on him as he’d betrayed her, as he’d hurt her. Like he’d done something unforgivable, and he had no idea why. He paced again. And again. And again. Long enough for the sun to shift and the frost to begin to melt.
Finally, footsteps crunched behind him. Torin. Of course.
“Right,” Torin said, hands in his pockets, “I’m going to assume from the way you’re stomping holes in the ground that the conversation didn’t go well.”
Bram glared at him. “She yelled at me.”
Torin blinked. “Ari? Yelled? At you?”
“Aye.”
Torin whistled low. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know!” Bram snapped. “She accused me of” He gestured wildly. “Having a girlfriend.”
Torin’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you?”
“No!”
“Then why does she think you do?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
Torin studied him for a long moment, then sighed. “Alright. Start from the beginning. What exactly did she say?”
Bram repeated it all, the accusations, the anger, the part about Eilidh, the part about not wanting to be the other woman.
Torin listened, expression slowly shifting from confusion… to realization… to horror.
“Oh no,” Torin whispered.
Bram froze. “What?”
Torin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, Bram. Oh, you absolute idiot.”
Bram bristled. “What did I do?”
Torin looked at him like he was the densest man alive. “She heard us.”
Bram blinked. “Heard us what?”
“Last night,” Torin said, exasperated. “When we were talking outside the kitchen. When I was teasing you about her. When you said...”
Bram’s stomach dropped. “When I said Eilidh was my mate,” he finished quietly.
Torin nodded grimly. “Aye. That.”
Bram stared at him. “But... but that’s not... Eilidh is... she’s...”
“Dead,” Torin supplied gently. “Aye. We know that. But Ari doesn’t. She doesn’t know what ‘mate’ means to us. She doesn’t know the history. She doesn’t know anything except that she overheard you talking about another woman.”
Bram felt the blood drain from his face.
Torin sighed and slapped a hand over his own. “She thinks you have a girlfriend, Bram. Or worse, that you’re hung up on one.”
Bram staggered back a step. “No. No, that’s not...she can’t...”
“Oh, she can,” Torin said. “And she did.”
Bram stared at the ground, heart pounding. Ari thought he belonged to someone else. Ari thought he was taken. Ari thought he was unavailable. Ari thought she was catching feelings for a man who wasn’t hers, and that hurt her. The realization hit him like a punch to the chest. Torin watched his expression shift and groaned. “Oh, saints. You’re in deep.”
Bram didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. Because for the first time, he understood exactly why Ari’s words had cut so deep. And exactly what he stood to lose if he didn’t fix this.
- Writer
