Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“Until you,” he confessed. “And I think what you felt here that day was fate. I think fate kept you here for me. To find me. So we could stop being lost together. Will you stay?” North got down on one knee and opened the box to reveal a stunning large oval diamond within a cluster of smaller diamonds set in a diamond-shaped platinum clasp. It looked old Hollywood and was so me that I was momentarily dazzled by its perfection. North continued, drawing my eyes back to his, “Will you stay found with me, Aria? Forever?”
I nodded, lowering myself to my knees. “Forever.”
Relief and joy filled North’s face and then he kissed me, hard, hungrily, our lips parting in laughter and tears, until finally he let me up for air. But only to slip the diamond on my ring finger.
“Do you like it?” he asked, caressing my finger with his thumb.
“You couldn’t have picked anything more perfect.” I reached for his face, the diamond winking in the late September sun. “I couldn’t have picked anyone more perfect. I’m so lucky you picked me back.”
North closed his eyes as if in sweet agony before resting his forehead on mine. A cool breeze fluttered over our skin as birds sang the perfect engagement song. Peace, a sense of utter rightness, moved over me, and I knew North felt it too as we kneeled in blissful silence, together, connected.
Home among the heather.
Epilogue
THEO
This was Scotland for you. Only a few short hours ago, the sun had been shining, glinting off the North Sea. I’d even taken a bracing walk along the private beach on Ardnoch Estate.
And now the evening sky, usually still bright so far north at this time of night, was dark and foreboding. Rain lashed my suite windows, and I could see the waves crashing against the beach beyond.
It made me think of Gothic tales and tragic love stories.
It made me think of the reason I’d escaped to Ardnoch.
I exhaled heavily, for once feeling the prick of isolation. North wasn’t here to throw back a whisky with. It was strange arriving at the estate and not having Aria Howard greet me. I’d gotten used to the woman, and she was far prettier to look at than Lachlan Adair.
However, my old friend North had managed a miracle and actually persuaded the woman to have a life outside of Ardnoch Estate. I liked them. But fuck, they were annoying with their sickening lovey-dovey ways.
Fools too, I thought broodingly.
It would end badly. All love affairs ended badly.
I should know.
“God, I’m bored.” I groaned, flopping down on the gargantuan bed. I would call up Clarissa but I got the distinct impression my call would be unwelcome. I think it was the text she’d sent calling me a colossal prick that tipped me off.
Shame. She was an ex-gymnast and still incredibly flexible.
I wondered who else was staying on the estate and whether there was anyone worth fucking. I desperately needed the distraction.
See, I had writer’s block.
I’d felt it coming for months. The last script had been a struggle in between filming projects for other people. Yet writing was the thing I enjoyed most, and I couldn’t bloody come up with anything worth a damn.
If I couldn’t come up with anything while living in a castle on the Scottish coast with violent waves and forlorn wind wailing against the windows, then I was absolutely, positively fucked.
Truly.
In the arsehole.
With a pen that had run out.
“Bloody hell.” I pushed off the bed, determined to find something to occupy my desert-dry, barren, ignominious excuse for a brain. Grabbing my room key off the side table, I strode to the door and yanked it open—
“Fuck!” I clasped a hand to my chest in fright at the sight of the woman standing on the threshold with her fist raised, as if to knock. “I almost defecated in my trousers, thank you very much.” I glared at her.
Then frowned because she was familiar.
It was the mousy housemaid. Sarah, wasn’t it?
Her pale cheeks had turned a mortifying shade of red as she lowered her hand and blinked at me like she’d never seen a human before.
“May I help you?” I snapped impatiently.
If possible, her cheeks darkened, and I almost felt a tiny bit guilty. Just a smidge.
But then she surprised me by throwing back her shoulders. “I—I’d like to speak with you, Mr. Cavendish.”
I searched her gaze, curious despite myself, and was shocked to discover she had stunning eyes. They were the clear and green like the jade waters of the Verzasca River in Switzerland.
She was always scuttling around the castle, trying to be invisible, that it was any wonder I hadn’t noticed.
At my perusal, she nibbled nervously on her lip.
“Well?” I grimaced. Shy women were not the most comfortable creatures to be around, and I had places to be, someone to find to fuck away the monotony of my colorless, toneless, creatively dry existence. “Sarah, is it?”