Page 31 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

It was as if he was descending into hell, not down to the shocking green of the Highlands.

But this place was hell to him, and had been all his childhood, since everything had been washed in crimson and stained forever.

Destroyed forever.

He tried to push the images back. He didn’t have time to dwell in the past. He didn’t have the mental energy to devote to it. The past was the past.

Death was final.

As soon as the plane stopped, he stood. “Be quick about it,” he said to the flight attendant, who began to open the doors.

This was not him, he knew. He could see it in the faces of his staff members. Had seen it from the moment he had asked for the plane to be procured.

Normally, he was affable. Easy. He was a playboy, after all. His business was pleasure clubs. And he knew that you caught more flies with honey than vinegar. And he preferred to apply his honey liberally.

But it had all left his body when he’d seen Jessie round with his child.

He’d only had one thought. To get to her. To get here.

Only then would he be able to make sense of it.

Only then would he be able to find a way forward.

He was not a man who sat still.

His father was entrenched in tradition. Frozen at an archaic point in time.

Medieval. And cruel.

The sort of man who would beat a little boy for daring to be frail enough to cry for his mother. A man who had a near wild-eyed commitment to the name, to the legacy. Who cared more for his dead ancestors than he ever would for his own living child.

Ewan had never wanted to be thus.

And he never had been.

But now he was close to it. Touching the edge of it as if he was putting his finger to a flame.

It pained him to know that he could understand his old man. But in this moment, he very nearly did.

Because what did he care for the comfort of those around him when he felt as if he was being dismantled from the inside out.

He walked down the plane’s stairs, to the staircase, and continued straight into the green.

He walked up over the rise, and could see the estate down below.

He was wearing custom-made Italian shoes. Not practical for moving across the soft ground here in the Highlands.

His suit jacket wasn’t practical, either.

And they were suffocating him.

This place. God in heaven, this place. He hated it. It was as if there were hellhounds here. Lurking on the edges of the wood. His heart pounded hard, and then it was like he couldn’t breathe.

With speed and efficiency, he took his jacket off. He cast it down to the ground, then bent down and untied his shoes. Both of them.

He left himself barefoot. It was practical because the ground was soft. It was not desperate.

Then he ran.

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