her. Why would he? She was more or less invisible to him and had been for the past fourteen years. But for him to rule the possibility out at the get-go was still a slap in the face to her feminine ego. ‘Message received loud and clear.’
He gave a slight nod, the quiet intensity of his gaze unsettling her already shaky equilibrium. ‘Here—I’ll carry your basket downstairs for you.’
He stepped forward to pick up her basket at the same time she bent down to get it. Their hands met on the handle and a jolt of electricity shot up Layla’s arm and straight to her core, fizzing like the ignited wick of a firework. She pulled hers out away and straightened but in her haste, she lost her balance and would have fallen if it hadn’t been for the quick action of Logan grabbing her arm to hold her steady. His fingers overlapped on the slim bones of her wrist and another wave of heat coursed through her body. Heat that simmered and sizzled in all her secret places.
His gaze locked with hers and she got the strangest sense he was seeing her for the first time. The slight flare of his pupils, the gentling of his fingers around her wrist less of a steadying hold, more like that of a caress. She could smell the cool fresh lime top notes of his aftershave and the base notes of cool forest wood and country leather. She could see the various shades of blue flecks in his eyes, reminding her of flickering shadows over a deep mountain lake. His lean jaw was lightly sprinkled with regrowth; the dark pinpricks a reminder of the potent male hormones surging around his body.
His mouth…
Her heart skipped a beat. Her stomach flip-flopped. Her female hormones started a party. She should not have looked at his mouth. But she was drawn by an impulse she had zero control over. His lips were more or less even in volume with well-defined contours that hinted at his determined, goal-achieving personality. She wondered what his mouth would feel like pressed to her own. Wondered and wanted and wished for it to happen.
‘Are you okay?’ His voice was husky and low—as low as an intimate lover’s voice.
Layla stretched her lips into a polite smile that felt shaky around the edges. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ She stepped out of his hold to create some distance between them but she couldn’t help noticing he was opening and closing his fingers as if to remove the same tingling sensation she had felt. Or maybe he hadn’t felt tingles. Maybe he was disgusted…as disgusted as her teenage date all those years ago when he’d seen her damaged body.
‘I’ll go and see to your room.’ Layla injected housekeeper briskness into her tone. ‘I assume you’re staying for a night or two?’
‘It depends.’
‘On?’
His unwavering gaze held hers. ‘On your decision.’
‘And if I say no?’
A fault line of tension rippled along his jaw and an embittered light came into his eyes. ‘You and your great-aunt will no longer have a home here. Not if my brother Robbie has his way.’
Logan waited until Layla had left before he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. But truth be told, he felt like he’d been holding his breath ever since he’d found out the contents of his grandfather’s will. Nothing could have come as more of a shock than finding the survival of the Bellbrae estate was dependent on him finding a wife. A wife, he had resolutely decided seven years ago, he would never have.
Not after the suicide of his fiancée Susannah.
Logan went back to the windows that overlooked the estate. His chest ached and burned with the thought of losing his family’s ancestral home. Generations of McLaughlins had lived and loved and died here. Every Highland slope and crag, every bubbling burn had watched him grow from baby to boy to man. Every tree was like an old friend. There were trees on the estate his great-great-grandfather had planted. There were gardens his own father had designed before he had been taken by pancreatic cancer when Logan was eighteen. Logan had learned the skills of landscape design from his father and developed it into a global career that gave him more money than he needed and fame he didn’t want.
He drew in a breath as rough and uneven as Highland scree. There was no other way but to marry if he was to save the estate from his reckless and foolish younger brother.
And who better to marry than Layla Campbell, who had lived here since she was a child?
Logan would be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed how beautiful she was. Perhaps not in a classical sense, but with her waist-length chestnut hair and creamy complexion and grey-green eyes, she had an ethereal quality about her that was just as captivating—maybe even more so. For years she’d just been a cute but somewhat annoying child lurking around the estate, spying on him and his brother.
But it was impossible not to notice her now.
But he would have to, because he wasn’t entering into a long-term relationship.
Not now.
Not again.
Not ever.
Logan walked back over to the boxes Layla had packed and opened the lid of one that contained his grandfather’s clothes. It didn’t seem real that his grandfather was no longer here. He lifted out a Shetland island sweater and held it against his face, breathing in the faint smell of his grandfather’s old-fashioned spicy aftershave.
If the estate was sold, there would be no trace left of his grandfather or his father. They would be gone. Lost. Erased.
For years, Logan had spent hours in his father’s study at Bellbrae, sitting at his father’s desk, reading the books his father had read, writing with the pens he had used—just so he could feel close to his dad. To hold onto the memory of his dad for as long as possible.
Logan put the sweater back in the box and closed the cardboard flaps, wishing he could close a lid on his guilt and regret. He hadn’t been as close to his grandfather as he should have been. But losing his father on the threshold of his own adulthood had made Logan resentful of his grandfather’s old-school parenting style. He hadn’t wanted his grandfather to be a stand-in dad. He’d wanted his father to still be alive. He’d resented the way his grandfather had tried to control every decision he made, everything he did and who he did it with. It had been suffocating and had only made him miss his father more.
It had hit Robbie even harder and Logan blamed himself for the way his younger brother had rebelled. Logan had been too lenient with him, allowing the pendulum to swing too far back the other way to compensate for his grandfather’s strict authoritarian style. But hadn’t he always been too lenient with Robbie? Ever since their mother had left, Logan had tried to fill the gaping hole she’d left in their lives. But, of course, he had failed.
What was with him and relationships? Why was he destined to screw up each and every one?
But maybe he could repair some of that damage by saving Bellbrae.
He had been straight with Layla on the terms of the deal. Brutally straight, but he was unapologetic for it. He had no intention of hurting her by giving her false hope. A marriage of convenience was the only way he could save his family’s home. A home Layla had loved from the moment she’d arrived to live with her great-aunt Elsie. If Logan thought his brother would do the right thing by Bellbrae he wouldn’t have bothered with the messy business of
