After a morning run with Ery, followed by a quickie in her shower, I left for work. Keeping our casual sex arrangement secret this past month hadn’t proven too difficult, to be fair, considering how much time we’d spent together before.
What was proving difficult was keeping feelings out of it. I knew going in it would likely become an issue for me as time went on. I wanted to know about her past. I wanted to know what she was hiding from.
That Lachlan knew and I didn’t was a thorn in my bloody side.
I wanted Eredine to trust me with this.
And I was pissed off and frustrated she wouldn’t. Yet, I couldn’t show her that was how I felt because that wasn’t our deal.
The deal was great sex for however long we wanted.
Neither of us was showing signs of growing bored either.
I just hoped the moments we stole together made her happy enough … that maybe I was becoming essential to her. That maybe she thought of me at least once every hour, like I thought of her.
My biggest distractions from Eredine were the Gloaming and my house. The Gloaming renovations were well underway. The bar and restaurant were now open again at night and making us some money. We’d kept on most of Gordon’s staff and had been paying them while we were closed, which was eating into profits, so it was good to have them back and working. Eventually, when the bar and restaurant reopened during the day, I’d serve as the day manager, and we’d keep Bobby, who’d worked as Gordon’s right-hand man for years. We’d finally given Bobby his due and made him the restaurant and bar evening manager.
The biggest renovation was the addition of en suite bathrooms in every guest room. It had taken some planning to fit them in, and now the plumbing was giving me a headache. Needing a breather from the organized chaos, I slipped out of the Gloaming around noonish to grab a coffee from Flora’s and sandwich from Morag’s Deli.
Ardnoch was always busy at the weekends with tourists, but you could rely on quieter streets during most weekdays in winter months. Summer meant there were people every-bloody-where hoping to bump into a celebrity on the loose from my brother’s estate, like they were zoo animals. Yes, I was grateful for the tourists. They frequented the Gloaming and soon they’d book our rooms. But the hustle and bustle on the streets, taking up all the tables in the cafés, and making an obstacle course of Main Street, was jarring. I’d never really had the chance to experience Ardnoch like this until now, though I’d stayed in much more crowded places in my life.
As I approached Flora’s to grab a to-go cup, I slowed at the sight of Monroe Sinclair standing outside talking to a young woman I didn’t recognize. The tension in Roe’s body caught my attention, the way her eyes darted around, as if she wanted to escape.
She’d been successfully avoiding me for a month, which probably meant she wanted nothing to do with me, but Roe would always be my friend, and right now, I didn’t like the vibe of whatever was going on.
I picked up my pace. “Roe!” I called just before I reached her.
Roe started, her gray eyes wide as she looked up at me. “Arran, hi.”
“You all right?” I looked at the unfamiliar woman and noted how she held her phone out between her and Roe. A quick glance at the screen revealed a recording app.
What the hell?
I narrowed my eyes on the young blond who didn’t look a day over twenty.
She tilted her head as she looked back at me. Something flickered behind her eyes before recognition suddenly lit them. “Are you an Adair?” she asked in a North American accent. “You look like Lachlan Adair.”
“Who is asking?”
The blond beamed and announced, “I’m Harriet Blume, a celebrity journalist.”
“You barely look old enough to have graduated from high school,” I said, my back up even more to discover she was a journo. Lachlan had told me over the years that Ardnoch attracted paparazzi and journalists during the summer. Paps hoped to snap a photo or two of members who dared venture into the village.
However, most of the celebrity gossips learned, after a few years of trying, that they couldn’t get the locals to talk about whatever went on at Ardnoch Estate. One, because anyone who didn’t work on the estate had no clue what went on; and two, because they were loyal to the village and to Lachlan. Many people owned businesses on Main Street, the four streets that made up the village center, and down the many quaint lanes that connected those streets. Ardnoch relied on tourism, and its tourism had increased tenfold since my brother transformed Ardnoch Castle. The estate remained popular for its privacy, and the villagers understood that.