Page 62 of One Night in Glasgow
I nodded, finishing my whisky and signaling for the check. “I’ll head out for a walk. Clear my head a bit. Meet you back at the hotel at six for dinner?”
Danny was already walking away, phone pressed to his ear, but he gave me a thumbs up over his shoulder.
Outside, Philadelphia greeted me with a perfect early summer evening. The sun was beginning its slow descent, casting a golden glow over the city’s historic buildings and modern skyscrapers. I walked aimlessly, hands in my pockets, letting my mind drift back to Beth.
God, she was fucking beautiful. Like, the kind of beautiful that leaves you breathless. Not just in the obvious ways, though there was plenty of that, but in how she laughed, how she got this tiny crease between her brows when she was thinking hard about something, how her eyes lit up when she talked about her work with the charity.
The Glasgow debacle had been a mess of tabloid headlines and manufactured outrage. But New York... stripped of all that noise, I was getting to know the actual woman, not the caricature. And it was messing with my head in the best possible way.
What was getting to me wasn’t just the obvious, and Christ, the physical connection between us was a force of nature. No, it was the quieter moments. The way an ordinary conversation with her over coffee could make the entire city fade into background noise. The way my focus, usually scattered across a dozen professional commitments, would narrow to just her. It wasn’t that she fixed something broken in me. It was that she tuned me to a frequency I didn’t know I possessed. Before Beth, my life was a well-produced keynote speech: polished, effective, and on message. With her, it felt like an unscripted, live performance, with all the risk and raw energy that came with it. It made everything else feel like a rehearsal.
No doubt, I was falling in love with her. The thought didn’t land like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. It settled in my bones with a quiet, undeniable certainty. It wasn’t a shocking revelation. It felt more like finally admitting a fundamental truth I’d been subconsciously aware of from the moment I saw her across that crowded pub; a truth I was no longer willing, or able, to ignore.
A storefront window caught my eye, filled with antiques. On pure instinct, I stepped inside, the small bell above the door announcing my arrival. The shop was a curated maze of furniture, paintings, and history.
“Can I help you find something?” A woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and silver hair appeared from behind a bookshelf.
“Just browsing,” I said, but then I saw it: a music box sitting on a shelf near the register. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, made of polished wood with delicate inlaid flowers on the lid. “Actually, could I see that?”
The woman carefully handed it to me. I opened the lid, and a soft, intricate melody played, something classical I couldn’t quite place.
“Debussy,” the woman said, noticing my expression. “‘Clair de Lune.’ One of my favorites.”
My mind flashed instantly to Beth, to one of our late-night talks where she’d confessed she used to take piano lessons as a kid, a lonely girl at a grand piano in her parents’ cavernous Glasgow manor. This wasn’t just a gift. It was a message. It was a hundred times better than flowers.
“I’ll take it,” I said, my decision absolute as I pictured her face when she opened it.
The woman smiled warmly and began carefully wrapping the music box in soft tissue paper, placing it into a small,sturdy box perfect for shipping. “It’s a beautiful piece,” she said. “A wonderful gift for someone special.”
“She is,” I confirmed, pulling out my wallet. “Do you ship? To New York?”
“Of course, dear,” she said, pulling a shipping form from under the counter. “We ship everywhere. Just fill this out with the recipient’s name and address, and we’ll have it on its way tomorrow morning.”
I took the pen she offered and started to write, my hand steady.
Name: Beth MacLeod.
My pen hovered over the next line. Address... I pictured the brownstone in Brooklyn, the amber glow of the streetlight on the steps where I’d kissed her. Then I pictured her at the gala tomorrow night. Alone. With Garrett standing next to her, playing my part, his hand on the small of her back.
A music box, arriving in a cardboard box a day or two late, suddenly felt like a hollow apology. A token. It was a beautiful message, yes, but it wasn’t the right one. A man doesn’t send a gift to do a job he should be doing himself.
I set the pen down on the counter with a quiet click.
The woman looked up from taping the box, her expression questioning. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” I said, a new, cold certainty settling in my gut. I slid the blank form back across the counter to her. “Actually, never mind the shipping.”
I picked up the small, neatly packaged box, its weight feeling solid and purposeful in my hand now.
“I’ll deliver it myself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BETH
I slippedinto a quiet alcove away from the hubbub of the Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom, needing a moment to collect myself. The emerald silk gown I’d chosen whispered against the marble floor, clinging to my curves before falling in a perfect waterfall to my feet. My hair was swept into an elegant updo, with a few strategic tendrils framing my face that had taken a stylist nearly an hour to perfect. Diamond studs caught the light as I tilted my head. A subtle sparkle, not the ostentatious pieces my mother would have insisted upon.
I straightened my spine and smoothed a hand down the silk, feeling the slight tremble in my fingers. Showtime. Tonight was my chance to prove myself, to do something that mattered and show Ms. Henderson what I was truly capable of.
