Page 83 of Wild Scottish Fortune

Just like my father had.

It all came crashing back. Once more the person that I’d put on a pedestal had shown me their true colors, and I was left with my heart broken in bits, trying to find a way to tape it back together. Maybe I’d been stupid to believe in love, if even my own father couldn’t stay in a committed relationship, maybe the world didn’t revolve around love.

“Finlay—what’s wrong?”

Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind me, and I sighed, passing a hand across my face. I’d almost made it to my lorry without being seen.

“It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look to be nothing. Mate, you look shattered.” Munroe put a hand on my shoulder, and I kept my eyes on the ground, unable to look up at him.

“I need to go.”

“Nope, not a chance. Come on.”

“No, Munroe.”

“It’s an order.”

“Bloody hell,” I shouted, needing him away from me.

“Och, you’re definitely not driving. Get inside. I have whisky.” Munroe, for all of his easygoing manner, had a steely determination to him that I rarely butted heads with. One time, we’d almost come to blows at university, and from there on we’d acknowledged that we both had a side to us that we rarely showed the world.

But we respected it.

Now, I let him push me toward the castle, fury makingmy blood heat. I wanted to punch something, anything, and I stomped down the dark corridor toward the games room where I’d enjoyed a game of pool a time or two with Lachlan and Munroe.

When the apparition of a coo—a ghost coo—jumped out in front of me, I didn’t even pause.

“No!” I shouted, once, and sharply, and breezed right through the ghost, no longer caring if it would take me to my death. What did it matter anyway? The woman I loved, that I’d uprooted my whole life for, hadn’t been truthful to me. She’d hidden such an important part of herself, so what else did I not know about her?Is she like my dad too? Thinks I’m a pushover, someone who doesn’t mean shite to her?Did she think concealing her lies was acceptable?

“It’s okay, Clyde. Just a bad time,” I heard Munroe murmur from behind me, and my eyebrows winged up. Were ghosts just the usual thing for him? Was everyone else in on this whole magick thing other than me? If so, that made me even more furious, since I considered Munroe to be one of my very best friends. If he’d lied to me as well…bloody hell.

The games room was a classic room with a fireplace, tartan lounge chairs, and a sidebar stocked with whisky. Striding over to it, I chose a bottle at random and poured myself a dram, swallowing it in one gulp so the liquid burned down my throat.

At least I wasn’t entirely numb.

“So you’re in on it too then?” I poured myself another dram, gesturing with it as Munroe walked slowly to me, like a man approaching someone with a gun.

“Please clarify.”

“The ghost coo. Magick. All of this?” My mind flitted back to the day I’d seen the unicorn. Then even further back to being trapped in that cottage with the scary ghost who tried to kill me.

The same ghost that had bloodied Orla.

“Bloody hell,” I hissed, taking a sip, and Munroe poured his own glass.

“Sit with me?” Munroe gestured to the armchairs and crossing the room, I dropped into one, running a hand through my hair. Finally, I faced him, my expression mulish.

“Well? It’s a simple question. Aye or nae? You knew about the magick here or not?”

“Aye, I do, Finlay.”

“Of course. Just fecking grand. All of you, just running around behind my back, laughing at me.”

“Nobody was laughing, Fin.”

“Easy for you to say when you’re in on the game.”

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