There with You (Adair Family 2)

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to tell Lachlan to go screw himself. Why couldn’t he have married one of the millions of other women who must have thrown themselves at him over the years?

But I knew why.

There was no one like Robyn.

She was special.

And the bastard had snapped her up and stolen her away.

Lachlan’s gaze was sharp, probing. Quickly banking my ire toward him, I shrugged and threw my hands in the air, my voice a little too high-pitched as I cried, “Well, this calls for champagne!”

* * *

My sister had been wrong when she talked me out of running away to New York to become a thespian. I’d have made a damn good actor.

Instead of champagne, Robyn and Lachlan bundled me into another Range Rover with my luggage and informed me I’d be staying with them at Lachlan’s home. This unwelcome news had concerned me, but I’d covered it, pretending not to be perturbed. I’d stupidly assumed that Lachlan’s home was on Ardnoch Estate.

Under heavy security.

It wasn’t.

They didn’t even provide me with a tour of the place before they escorted me off the damn grounds.

Standing at the edge of Lachlan Adair’s backyard—a grassy cliff that jutted over the sea—I experienced an emotion that shamed me.

Jealousy.

A bracing, cool evening wind pushed at my body, whipping dangerously at the short hemline of my dress. I didn’t care. Who was here to see me flash them? My sister’s fiancé’s home felt like it was on the edge of nowhere. If it weren’t for the identical house next door, it would feel like I was on some alien, lonesome part of the planet.

My sister’s fiancé.

That painful lump in my throat returned.

Fighting back tears that made me feel small and childish, I couldn’t rid myself of the image of Robyn cuddling Lachlan as I sat in the back of the SUV waiting. He’d bent his forehead to hers, murmuring something. It was clear he was asking if she was okay.

I didn’t know what she’d replied, but I could guess it wasn’t good. They’d shared a lingering kiss filled with so much emotion I had to look away. It seemed intrusive to watch.

Never mind the surreal surroundings I found myself in; what was discombobulating was seeing Robyn with Lachlan. I’d never seen her so into a guy before. Like … staring at him as if he were her universe, and vice versa.

I pushed down my envy.

Not because she’d found that—I wanted that for Robyn. I wanted her to have the most fulfilled, amazing life anyone could ever wish for. Yet in finding it, I was losing her even more than I already had.

Fiancé.

“So when did you get engaged?” I asked when they got into the vehicle.

“I just proposed,” Lachlan replied.

That made me feel somewhat better. I’d thought maybe she’d told Mom and Dad that she didn’t want me to know just yet. And the thought of her keeping something so huge from me hurt.

Which was completely hypocritical since I’d been keeping stuff from her for over a year.

Still. Robyn was getting married.

And to Lachlan Adair, of all people.

Knowing how much Robyn used to resent Lachlan—considering she’d thought he was complicit in Mac’s abandonment of her—it was a shock when our parents told me she was in a relationship with him and staying in Scotland.

She and I were the estranged ones now.

How life had flipped, huh?

“Who are you?”

I startled.

Following the young, high-toned voice, I turned to my right.

Lachlan’s yard and his neighbor’s weren’t separated by a fence. I’d thought it odd. His beautiful, contemporary, clearly architect-designed house was perched over the water in a little place Lachlan called Caelmore, just outside the village of Ardnoch.

Needing a breather, not wanting my sister to see past my devil-may-care attitude, I’d abandoned my luggage in the luxurious guest room Lachlan had shown me to, kicked off my shoes, and strode out via the wall-to-wall bifold doors at the back of the open-plan living space. They led onto a deck with steps that took me to grass that stretched onward to the cliff’s edge.

A security fence sat along the cliff’s edge. Staring at the two small children who gawked at me in curiosity, I guessed the fence was for their safety. They both had dark hair and wore the same light blue sweaters with an embroidered logo on the chest. The girl wore a blue-and-black-plaid skirt, while the boy wore black pants. School uniforms.

“Hey.” I grinned as I walked toward them. “I’m Regan.”

The little boy stood straighter, puffing out his chest as he grabbed onto the smaller girl’s hand. “We’re not supposed to talk to strangers.” He spoke in a lovely, anglicized accent, his Scottish brogue pushing through here and there, particularly prominent in his hard t’s.

I nodded, trying not to laugh. “That’s a good rule. But you asked me a question first.”