Page 96 of Scotch on the Rocks

“Frequently.”

His hands dove into my hair, forcing me to hold his stare.“And just so we’re crystal fucking clear. There’s been no one else … not since I broke up with Beth.”

Beth.I remembered the kind brunette. A school teacher he’d dated for a few brief months after Alistair and I got engaged. “Why?”

“There’s nothing more lonely than a relationship with the wrong person.”

My chest tightened. “So you’re saying you want the full Juniper Ross experience?”

He brushed my hair back, eyes dancing. “Unequivocally. What does that entail exactly?”

“Well …” My hands flicked nervously over the blanket’s trim. “Demon cats to start with.”

“Perfect.” His thumb stroked my earlobe. “What else?”

“Mercurial moods,” I said.

“Mercurial moods happen to be my favourite kind of moods.”

“How long?” I asked.

I knew he understood my vague question, because his fingers stilled. Then he rolled onto his side, drawing me after him until my back was to his chest, pulling the blanket over us until only our heads poked out the top, like we needed to be comfortable for this confession. “From the very start. The first moment I saw you on the station platform.”

“Wait… the platform. You mean on the train?”

“No. I noticed you through the window while I was running down the platform. I couldn’t say why at the time, but something pulled me to you before my brain could even catch up.”

I stroked the back of his arm, enjoying the picture he painted. “What did you think when you sat down?”

I felt his chuckle against my back. “That you were too young for me.”

“Still true.”

He pinched my waist. “I thought … you were beautiful and brilliant and so damn intriguing I couldn’t let you walk away from me at the other end.”

It was fucked up. But I heard his sweet words and didn’t know how to associate myself with the picture he painted.

“What?” he asked eventually, my silence bringing his head up.

“I don’t know … It’s just hard for me to believe, I guess.”

“That someone would think that about you?”

“Yes.” The admission felt loud in the quiet room. “You just seemed so flirty and confident, I thought it was all a joke to you. That’s why I didn’t tell you who I was right away, I wanted to beat you at your own game.”

He groaned, pressing rapid kisses to my neck. “What you must have thought of me.”

I tipped my head back. “I thought you were funny and too attractive. Even if I was in love with your brother.” He stiffened and I grabbed his arm before he could pull away. “I’m sorry—” We hadn’t discussed Alistair since that first night. Like a coward, I was waiting for him to broach the subject.

“Don’t apologise.” I felt his slow sigh. “I never blamed you for loving Alistair. I was jealous as hell, but I never blamed you. And when it ended … I blamedhim.”

I picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I thought you were happy because I wasn’t good enough for him.”

“You areeverything, Juniper. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, because it’s in my interestnotto … I hate even thinking it, but, it was real for him, sweetheart. I don’t know all the gory details of what went down between you, but however it ended, his heart broke too.” The knowledge was a balm I hadn’t known I needed. And yet I felt nothingbut an absent sort of ache for Alistair as another truth locked firmly into place. A far scarier one because it meant putting my heart on the line all over again.

His hands tightened around me, like he intended to keep me. “I was thinking. The ceilidh at the distillery next week … Maybe we could use it as a soft launch.”

“What’s a soft launch?”

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