As the host, it was Tom’s duty to address the haggis, and his chest was swelling with such obvious pride and emotion that Nia felt tears well in her eyes.
Soon it would be over.
And afterwards there would be no risk of them ever having to meet again, she told herself. Farlan would make sure of that.
The meal was excellent. Crisp pan haggerty, creamy neeps and skirlie.
The nutty, toasty stuffing wasn’t traditionally served on Burns Night, but Molly knew it was Nia’s favourite. Only tonight it might as well have been sawdust.
‘I’m guessing this is a big night for your family, Nia,’ Diane said, pouring some whisky cream sauce over the haggis. ‘You must have a whole bunch of traditions.’
Did having your heart broken count as a tradition?
Nia couldn’t look at Farlan. Instead, she smiled across the table at Diane, hoping the misery in her heart wasn’t visible on her face.
‘Before I went to boarding school it was like having a second Christmas. It was so exciting. All the staff used to come to Lamington in the afternoon, and then my parents had a big party in the evening for their friends.’
But for the last seven years there had been nothing exciting about Burns Night. Instead, everything from the first champagne cork popping to the final chord on the bagpipes was just a tortuous reminder of all the what-might-have-beens in her life.
It was the one day in the year she wanted to be anywhere but Lamington. Only not being there was impossible, for it would mean having to explain to her parents, and she couldn’t face having that conversation.
To her mother and father the whole affair with Farlan had been an unfortunate, imprudent aberration to be quickly forgotten.
And she had forgotten.
Months, days, goodness knows how many hours of her life had passed since, and she couldn’t remember how she had spent any of them. And yet she could still remember Farlan’s exact words, and the intensity in his green eyes as he’d pulled her against him on that snowy afternoon.
They’d been sledging in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. It had been a cold day, but with Farlan’s body pressed close to hers she hadn’t noticed. As they’d tumbled into the snow he had held her tight and kissed her fiercely.
‘I want this to last for ever, Nia.’
The heat of his mouth had burned her lips and stolen the air from her lungs, so that she had thought she might faint. And then he’d slid the ring onto her finger and she had known a happiness like no other.
‘Let’s go away—just the two of us. Let’s not get caught. Let’s keep going.’
She had wanted to go with him so badly it had made her whole body ache, and in those sweet, shimmering moments of unrestrained happiness she’d even thought she might go through with it—
But of course people like her, the sensible, reliable ones who never broke the rules, always got caught.
Glancing up, her eyes rested on his flawless profile.
And she was still being punished for it now.
Raising the glass of Laphroaig to his mouth, Farlan tried to remember why he had decided this was a good idea.
They were sitting in the drawing room now, drinking coffee and whisky. He had purposely taken an armchair—there was no way he was going to end up sitting on some sofa with Nia—only that meant uninterrupted views of the room.
Success in Hollywood had given him an entrée into some of the most beautiful homes in the world. But the grandeur and scale of Lamington still jolted him more than he was willing to acknowledge.
The first time he had come here he’d barely noticed anything other than the shift in air temperature as they had sneaked into the house through the back door.
The memory snatched at his breath.
The warm, peppery smell of gingerbread cooking, the gleam of copper pans and Nia’s fingers tightly wrapped around his like mistletoe around the branches of an oak tree.
He had stayed in the kitchen, but he doubted he would have noticed anything that day even if she had given him a guided tour. He had been too cocooned by the immense certainty of what he was feeling, what she was feeling—
Or rather what he’d thought she was feeling…