Page 121 of Gift-Wrapped in a Kilt

I ambled inside the room, stopping at the nearest chair, laying my hand on its back. "The office doesn't want to let you go, eh, Rory?"

My younger cousin glanced up in surprise, the tape stuck to his thumb. "You're early."

"No, you've lost track of time." I pointed to the clock on the wall. "It's eleven o'clock."

Rory's eyebrows lifted as he followed my finger-pointing to the clock. "I did lose track of the time."

I took a seat in the chair in front of Rory's desk. "Did that ever happen to you before Emery?"

Rory ripped the tape off his thumb and tossed it onto the floor, then dropped into his leather chair. "You know it didn't. I was obsessed with timeliness and order."

"A good woman cured you of that." I propped my head on my hand, my elbow on the chair's arm. "I've been thinking about the changes in this family over the past few years. You, Lachlan, and Aidan took chances and came out the better for it. I admire the three of you for that. Even Jamie is happily married and pregnant. I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of my cousins."

"Jealous of what? You have more than enough money, you do what you want when you want, and you can have any woman you want."

Therein lay the problem but talking about it made my skin itch. I'd never told a soul about the event that drastically altered the course of my life and left me adrift for far too long. Aidan knew part of the story, the part about the woman I'd lost. I'd never told anyone more of the tale until I met Gavin Douglas. Somehow, his plight had inspired me to open up about the worst time in my life, though even Gavin didn't know the whole story.

I wouldn't tell all of it to Rory either. I couldn't. The shame of what I'd done still tainted me down to the core of my being.

"Aye, any woman I want," I said. "Except the only one who matters."

Rory leaned back in his chair, watching me with that analytical gaze I recognized as quintessentially Rory. "We all know something happened to you in America, but you've never wanted to talk about it."

Still didn't want to. I resisted the urge to fidget in my chair. Unlike Rory, I'd never repressed my fears or my feelings. I'd embraced them, if anything, a bit too fervently and earned the title of notorious. All that was in the past, though, and I needed a fresh start.

I neededher.

Rory toyed with a card lying on the table, a greeting card. He flipped it open, giving me a glimpse of glittery hearts on the front. "Is this about a woman? The MacTaggart grapevine has embellished the story over the years, but it all began with what Kevin Lister claimed he heard you say at a pub one night."

Damn that blethering drunkard. Not that I could complain since I'd been jaked at the time as well.

"Yes," I said calmly though my stomach had started to roil. "I lost a woman. No, that's not quite right. I gave her up without a fight, and I've regretted it ever since."

Rory raised the Valentine's card and turned it so I could see the words his wife had scrawled inside it, large and impossible to miss.Love is a journey from pain to redemption. Never forget how far we've come.

My throat grew tight and thick, but I managed an even tone when I said, "What am I meant to take away from your wife's effusive love for you? It's charming but —"

"Never give up. That's the lesson." Rory set down the card. "Tell me more about your woman."

Sighing, I resigned myself to the conversation I must have with my favorite solicitor. "Gavin keeps telling me it's not too late to try again. I ran away from the problem thirteen years ago. Let a family of bullies chase me out of America and away from the only woman I've ever loved, convinced myself she was better off without me. Every day since, I've regretted that mistake. When Gavin had a similar problem, he fought like the devil, with your help, and never gave up until he found his way back to Jamie. He has more courage than I ever did. Maybe I don't deserve a second chance, but I need to try."

"Of course you deserve a second chance, Iain. Everyone does."

"You have no idea of what I did to the girl." I couldn't suppress the urge anymore and squirmed in my seat. No amount of fidgeting could ease the discomfort, though, because it resided in my soul. "My only consolation was that she went on with her life. Maybe she married and had children. I'm certain she went on to the career in teaching she'd always wanted. She's clever and stubborn, beautiful and feisty, the sort of woman who makes a man want to hold on to her forever."

The smile that kinked Rory's lips conveyed humor but also compassion. "You loved her."

"I still do." I twisted my mouth in disgust. "I'm too old to be such an eejit about a girl I knew in the distant past. I'm a dinosaur, she's a butterfly."

Rory chuckled softly. "You are turning into a maudlin codger, aren't ye, Iain? Lachlan's six years younger than you. Does that make him a dinosaur? I must be approaching that status too since I'm forty now."

"I'm fifty." I leaned forward, determined for some odd reason to hammer into his mind that I was too old for this. "And she would be thirty-five now. I'm no stripling lad, I'm a dirty old man."

Rory laughed outright this time, shaking his head. "Bloody hell, you're determined to paint yourself that way. Lachlan thought he was a dirty old man for seducing Erica. She's fourteen years younger than he is. Your girl is fifteen years behind you. Not such an enormous difference, is it? Or do you think Lachlan had no right to marry Erica?"

"Lachlan never did what I did to —"

"For pity's sake, Iain." Rory bent forward, arms on the desk, his gaze sharpening on me. "Lachlan left Erica. He broke her heart, and for two months she refused to see or speak to him. And look what I did to Emery." He scoffed at himself. "A marriage of convenience, a bloody business arrangement with sex as a stipulation. I told her I'd never love her, and even when she was about to walk out on me, I couldn't admit I needed her. Why she took me back, I'll never know."

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