‘I’ll go and see to your room.’ Layla injected housekeeper briskness into her tone. ‘I assume you’re staying for a night or two?’
‘It depends.’
‘On?’
His unwavering gaze held hers. ‘On your decision.’
‘And if I say no?’
A fault line of tension rippled along his jaw and an embittered light came into his eyes. ‘You and your great-aunt will no longer have a home here. Not if my brother Robbie has his way.’
Logan waited until Layla had left before he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. But truth be told, he felt like he’d been holding his breath ever since he’d found out the contents of his grandfather’s will. Nothing could have come as more of a shock than finding the survival of the Bellbrae estate was dependent on him finding a wife. A wife, he had resolutely decided seven years ago, he would never have.
Not after the suicide of his fiancée Susannah.
Logan went back to the windows that overlooked the estate. His chest ached and burned with the thought of losing his family’s ancestral home. Generations of McLaughlins had lived and loved and died here. Every Highland slope and crag, every bubbling burn had watched him grow from baby to boy to man. Every tree was like an old friend. There were trees on the estate his great-great-grandfather had planted. There were gardens his own father had designed before he had been taken by pancreatic cancer when Logan was eighteen. Logan had learned the skills of landscape design from his father and developed it into a global career that gave him more money than he needed and fame he didn’t want.
He drew in a breath as rough and uneven as Highland scree. There was no other way but to marry if he was to save the estate from his reckless and foolish younger brother.
And who better to marry than Layla Campbell, who had lived here since she was a child?
Logan would be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed how beautiful she was. Perhaps not in a classical sense, but with her waist-length chestnut hair and creamy complexion and grey-green eyes, she had an ethereal quality about her that was just as captivating—maybe even more so. For years she’d just been a cute but somewhat annoying child lurking around the estate, spying on him and his brother.
But it was impossible not to notice her now.
But he would have to, because he wasn’t entering into a long-term relationship.
Not now.
Not again.
Not ever.
Logan walked back over to the boxes Layla had packed and opened the lid of one that contained his grandfather’s clothes. It didn’t seem real that his grandfather was no longer here. He lifted out a Shetland island sweater and held it against his face, breathing in the faint smell of his grandfather’s old-fashioned spicy aftershave.
If the estate was sold, there would be no trace left of his grandfather or his father. They would be gone. Lost. Erased.
For years, Logan had spent hours in his father’s study at Bellbrae, sitting at his father’s desk, reading the books his father had read, writing with the pens he had used—just so he could feel close to his dad. To hold onto the memory of his dad for as long as possible.
Logan put the sweater back in the box and closed the cardboard flaps, wishing he could close a lid on his guilt and regret. He hadn’t been as close to his grandfather as he should have been. But losing his father on the threshold of his own adulthood had made Logan resentful of his grandfather’s old-school parenting style. He hadn’t wanted his grandfather to be a stand-in dad. He’d wanted his father to still be alive. He’d resented the way his grandfather had tried to control every decision he made, everything he did and who he did it with. It had been suffocating and had only made him miss his father more.
It had hit Robbie even harder and Logan blamed himself for the way his younger brother had rebelled. Logan had been too lenient with him, allowing the pendulum to swing too far back the other way to compensate for his grandfather’s strict authoritarian style. But hadn’t he always been too lenient with Robbie? Ever since their mother had left, Logan had tried to fill the gaping hole she’d left in their lives. But, of course, he had failed.
What was with him and relationships? Why was he destined to screw up each and every one?
But maybe he could repair some of that damage by saving Bellbrae.
He had been straight with Layla on the terms of the deal. Brutally straight, but he was unapologetic for it. He had no intention of hurting her by giving her false hope. A marriage of convenience was the only way he could save his family’s home. A home Layla had loved from the moment she’d arrived to live with her great-aunt Elsie. If Logan thought his brother would do the right thing by Bellbrae he wouldn’t have bothered with the messy business of fulfilling the terms of the will.
But lately he’d become aware of Robbie’s gambling habit. A disturbing habit that had run up some eye-watering debt. Robbie saw Bellbrae differently from him. He didn’t have the same deep-in-the-DNA connection with the estate Logan had. Once his brother got hold of Bellbrae he would sell it to the highest bidder and walk away from the estate that had been in their family for centuries.
But selling Bellbrae wasn’t going to happen if Logan could help it. He would enter a short-term marriage to protect a long-term estate. To protect the legacy his father had handed to him on his deathbed.
‘Always do the right thing by Bellbrae.’
And he would do the right thing by Layla by making sure she had no illusions about their marriage from the get-go. He would pay her generously for her time as his wife. They would marry as friends and part as friends. He knew how much this place meant to her—how much she used it as a base when she wasn’t in Edinburgh, where she ran her small business. Any niggling of his conscience he settled with the conviction he was helping her in the long run. He was offering her a staggering amount of money to be his temporary wife.
How could she possibly say no?
‘BUT YOU HAVE to say no,’ Layla’s best friend Isla said on the phone later that evening. ‘You’ll get your heart broken for sure.’
‘But it will break my heart to see Bellbrae sold,’ Layla 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 McLaughlin family. It belongs to Logan. It was wrong of Angus to make his will in such a way.’
‘Do you know why Angus did it that way?’
Layla sighed so heavily her shoulders slumped. ‘Logan has made it pretty clear over the years that he has no intention of settling down again. Losing Susannah was such a terrible shock to him—as it would be to anyone. I’ve overheard a few conversations where Angus insisted Logan move on with his life but Logan isn’t someone you can tell what to do. Once his mind is made up, that’s it.’
‘So, he’s made up his mind to marry you in a marriage of convenience?’
Layla pulled at her top lip with her finger and thumb as she thought about her conversation with Logan in the north tower.