by Ella Hayes
When the band announced that the next dance would be Strip the Willow, he shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his tie, pulling her close so he could shout in her ear. ‘Take off your shoes or you’ll twist your ankle again!’
The pace was lively, and the force of the spins so powerful that after the dance they tumbled out of the marquee, breathless and dizzy. Outside, the light was almost gone, but a million tiny lights twinkled in the trees.
Cormac motioned upwards and laughed. ‘You’re looking at a day’s work right there. I don’t want to see another string of lights for as long as I live.’
‘It’s stunning. Overwhelming. The whole wedding has been magical—so big...larger than life.’
He threw an arm around her shoulders. ‘Rosie knows how to put on a show, that’s for sure. Let’s go for a walk.’
She looked down at her feet. ‘I’m not wearing any shoes.’
He pressed his lips together and sighed. ‘Oh, well. I’ve done it before, I can do it again—’
‘No, Cormac, you’re not going to—’ But she was already up in his arms, laughing into his neck. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere quiet.’
She wrapped her arms around him, felt the heat of his body pulsing through the sheer fabric of her dress. He walked away from the noise and the lights, carrying her through the last throes of nightfall onto the jetty. A pale moon reflected off the water, and as he set her down she noticed the bright pinprick of Venus, already shimmering in the sky.
She slipped her hands into his. ‘When I walked off this jetty last night I thought I’d lost you.’
She felt his lips in her hair.
‘I know you did. But you should have known better. I told you before—I can’t keep you at arm’s length.’ He released her and scuffed the boards with his shoe. ‘This jetty has witnessed many an adventure over the years.’
She looked over the edge at the dark, shifting water. ‘I’ll bet you’ve pushed plenty of people off here in your time.’
He laughed. ‘Yes, so don’t tempt me.’
She stepped away from him. ‘You wouldn’t... It’s Rosie’s dress—she’d never forgive you.’
He shook his head slowly and stepped towards her. ‘No. I didn’t bring you here to throw you into the loch.’
The intensity of his gaze was making her nervous. ‘So, why did you bring me here?’
He placed his hands on her waist. ‘I wanted to tell you how incredibly beautiful you are.’
She blushed. ‘I had a very good make-up artist—’
He placed a finger on her lips. ‘Shh. I’m not talking about make-up. You have a lovely face. What I’m trying to say is that you are beautiful. On the inside. You brought me back to life and now my head’s spinning with possibilities.’ He reached for her hands. ‘What you said today, about us not being a permanent fixture—we need to talk about that.’
‘Oh, no! I wasn’t—I didn’t mean anything by it. What I’m trying to say, rather badly, is that I wasn’t angling—’
He laughed. ‘I know you weren’t—and don’t worry, I’m not about to ask for your hand—but...’
She sighed with relief. She was in love with him, but she wouldn’t have known what to do if he’d dropped to his knee on the jetty.
‘I do have a proposal for you.’ He smiled. ‘Will you hear me out?’
She nodded.
He released her hands and walked to the end of the jetty. ‘All week my father’s been trying to persuade me to leave the Army and take over the estate, and I turned him down repeatedly because it felt like he was offering me a hiding place, somewhere to run away from my failure. I could never accept his offer on those terms.’
He turned around and looked into her face.
‘But in the middle of the night I had an idea for the estate—a plan for diversification—and I’m hoping it might interest you.’
‘Me? I don’t know anything about Highland estates—’
‘But you know about art.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Come here.’
She walked to his side and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, turning her to face the loch. ‘You love all this, don’t you? This place. I’ve seen it in your work.’
She slid her hands to his forearms, savoured the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers. ‘Yes. Of course.’
She felt his cheeks lifting into a smile. ‘I took you out this morning because I wanted to see your reaction to other parts of the estate—from an artist’s point of view. I wanted a professional, unbiased opinion about what we could offer.’
She twisted round to look at him. ‘What do you mean—what you could offer?’
‘I want to build more bothies for artists on the estate; I want to share this place with people who love it.’ He released her and turned her round to face him. ‘We could run courses, workshops... There are more buildings close to the house—they could be converted into studio space and you could take artists into the hills on painting safaris. Everything we’ve done this week. I discussed it with my father before the wedding and he’s ready to listen, but it won’t work without you, Milla. You’re the inspiration.’
His enthusiasm was infectious, and the idea was certainly appealing. Calcarron Estate would be the perfect artist’s retreat. It had everything. Breathtaking landscapes on the doorstep, an established reputation with its existing bothy, not to mention an extremely attractive and capable Laird.
‘So you’re proposing...what? A business partnership?’
He shook his head and the look in his eyes caused her heart to beat a little faster.
He reached a hand to her face and smiled softly. ‘I love you, and I can’t imagine any kind of future without you in it, so what I’m actually proposing is...’
She felt her hand fly to her mouth as he dropped to one knee and pulled a small black box from his sporran.
He looked up and held her in his gaze. ‘Will you marry me, Milla O’Brien?’
For a moment she couldn’t speak, and then she was smiling and crying at the same time. ‘I will... I absolutely will... But you said you weren’t going to ask—’
He rose to his feet, his smile even wider than his smile in that photograph. ‘I said I wasn’t going ask for your hand—but that’s because I want all of you, not just a hand.’ He opened the ring box. ‘This was my grandmother’s ring...’
Milla stared at the solitaire diamond glittering against the dark velvet. ‘It’s beautiful.’
He pushed the ring onto her finger and pulled her into his arms. ‘You’re mine now, and I’m yours...always.’
As his lips found hers she couldn’t imagine a more perfect moment, and then suddenly he released her.
‘Look!’
She followed his gaze upwards and laughed in delight. Shimmering green curtains were dancing across the sky above them. ‘Do you think the cosmos is trying to tell us something?’
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair. ‘Maybe, but it can’t tell us anything we don’t already know.’
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Diamond for the Single Mom by Susan Meier.
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A Diamond for the Single Mom
by Susan Meier
CHAPTER ONE
HARPER SLOAN HARGRAVES looked up at the condo building looming before her. Nestled in the heart of Manhattan, the tall structure gleamed in the early morning sun of a warm September day. Black trim enhanced the grey brick exterior. Leafy green trees decorated the courtyard, along with topiary roses in enormous ceramic pots.
Well-dressed men and women ambled out of the wide, tinted-glass door and bobbed along the street on their way to undoubtedly prestigious jobs. Taxis, town cars and limos rolled by—quietly, to match the clean, subdued area around her.
Fighting the urge to glance down at her torn jeans and simple T-shirt, Harper tightened her fingers on the handle of her daughter’s stroller and gave it a quick push toward the door. It opened automatically, revealing the kind of lobby typically reserved for luxury resorts but borrowed for the rarefied world of New York City’s upwardly mobile. The tinkling of the falling-rain fountain in the center of the room greeted her. Gray-and-white-print area rugs highlighted black slate floors. A stainless-steel banister on the ultramodern stairway, steel elevator doors and steel window frames sharpened gray walls. Green plants sat discreetly in corners, while vases of red and purple flowers added pops of color.
“Can I help you?”
A doorman. Of course. She hadn’t expected otherwise. At one time, Harper had belonged in a building like this one. She’d grown up in an area so lush she’d taken luxury for granted and had rejected it. Then she’d married Clark Hargraves and fallen into the lap of luxury again, only to lose it all when he’d died.
She’d been rich, then poor, then rich again. Now, she had no idea who or what she was.
She walked up to the shiny black desk where the doorman stood staring at her. “I’m here to see Seth McCallan.”
Wearing a red sweater with the gray building logo in the upper left-hand corner, the doorman straightened. “Mr. McCallan will be leaving for work in a few minutes. Is he expecting you?”
She’d known seeing Seth wouldn’t be easy. He was one of the McCallans. Owners of enough Manhattan real estate to be unofficial royalty, though he’d been a penniless student when he’d met Clark. He’d renounced his family and their money and had been forced to move into Clark’s run-down apartment with him. Two years after they’d graduated, Seth had persuaded him to start an investment firm together. Five successful years later, he’d gotten Clark accustomed to being somebody, then decided to help his brother with the family’s business and sold his share of the investment firm to Clark.
It all seemed so generous, except Clark had spent every cent he’d made keeping up the facade that he and Harper were as wealthy as Seth. He didn’t have the money to buy Seth’s share, so he’d leveraged the firm. And mortgaged their condo.
She’d had to sell both after he’d died to pay off the bank.
“He’s not expecting me, but I’m a personal friend.”
And he owes me, she thought, her chin raising. If he’d kept his share of their investment firm, not forced Clark to mortgage everything they owned, she wouldn’t be desperate right now.
Keeping his eyes on her, the doorman picked up his house phone.
“Mr. McCallan, you have a visitor. Harper Hargraves.” A pause. “Yes. I’ll be happy to send her up.”
The doorman motioned to the elevator. She headed to the shiny steel door, and he followed her. When the door opened, he directed her to go inside and walked in with her.
He was keeping tabs on her. Making sure the scraggly woman with the baby didn’t go anywhere else in the building.
Humiliation burned through her.
When the car stopped at the ninth floor, he didn’t accompany her out, but stood waiting in the elevator as she rolled her stroller to Seth’s door, then knocked.
The door opened, and Harper forgot all about the doorman watching her. Her husband’s former best friend stood before her in a pair of gray sweatpants that hung low on his hips, as he wrestled a T-shirt over his head. He yanked the thing down his torso, but it was too late. She’d seen the rippling muscles of his chest and stomach.
Shell-shocked, she stared at him. He was taller, sleeker, more muscular than he had been five years ago. But with his perpetual smile and tousled black hair, he was the same heart-stopping handsome he’d been when they lived in side-by-side apartments. And those eyes of his. As black as the soul of a condemned man, they nonetheless had a strange light. Almost a knowing. As if the years had taught him to be careful...wise. Though he’d been a nervous nerd when he’d lived with Clark, he seemed to have found his confidence as a man.
It was easy to see why the tabloids gossiped about him being with a different woman every few weeks. Confident. Rich. Handsome. Built. He had everything—
Which she shouldn’t be noticing. She’d had the love of her life. Their marriage had been fun, perfect. She missed Clark with every fiber of her being.
“Hey, Seth.”
His gaze ran from her short cap of black hair down her simple T-shirt, along her worn jeans and back up again.
“Harper?”
She tried to smile. “It’s me. I know I look a little different.”
“A little different” didn’t hit the tip of the iceberg. Since Clark’s funeral, she’d had a baby, cut her long black hair and lost weight. She was suddenly grateful for the supercilious doorman. If he hadn’t announced her, Seth might not have recognized her.
He gestured awkwardly. “I’ve never seen the baby.”
“Her name is Crystal.” Her words came out on a shaky breath, and she knew she had to get this over with before she lost her courage. “I need some help.”
“I guessed that from the fact that you’re here at eight o’clock on a Tuesday.” He stepped back so she could enter. “Come in.”
He held the door for the stroller. As Harper slipped by, her gaze flicked down his torso again. He looked so good in T-shirt and sweats. Fit. Agile.
Maybe a little intimidating.
That was probably why she kept noticing. Not interest. Fear. She’d never asked anyone for help. Never. She’d always made it on her own.
She pushed the stroller into the living room of the sophisticated open-floorplan condo. Motioning to the aqua sofa, Seth indicated she should sit, as he lowered himself to the matching trellis-print chair. She could see the white cabinets in the kitchen, along with a restored wood dining table surrounded by six tufted chairs the same color as the sofa, with a modern chandelier hanging overhead. Simple, but luxurious. Rich fabrics. Expensive wood. Even when a McCallan lived simply, he did it with understated elegance.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m in a bit of a bind. I sold my condo yesterday, but the buyer wants it on Monday.”
“That’s great? Good? Awful?” He shook his head. “It’s been too long. I’m not sure what to say.”
She laughed, so nervous she couldn’t even react normally around him. “It would be great, except I don’t have another place to move into.”
“Oh.”
“The buyer pai
d cash and getting the place in a week was a condition of the sale and I really needed the sale...so I took the offer.”
“You need money?” He frowned. “You own an investment firm.”
And here was the tough part. Her wonderful, funny, smart husband had done what he’d had to do to buy Seth’s share. Had he lived, that loan would have been a footnote in his life story. As it was, it had all but destroyed his legacy. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was tell Clark’s best friend that he’d failed—
No, the last thing in the world she wanted to do was tell her parents Clark had failed. Seth, at least, would give Clark the benefit of the doubt. Her parents—her mother—would have a royal fit, then belittle Clark every time Harper mentioned his name.
“I had to sell the firm. Clark had leveraged it to get the money to buy your share and the market plummeted. It was like a perfect storm, Seth. I couldn’t pay the loan and I couldn’t sell the firm until I dropped the price to a few hundred thousand dollars over the amount we owed.” She shifted the focus of Seth’s disappointment from Clark to her. “And that money’s almost gone because I needed it for living expenses while I had the baby and waited to sell the condo.”
A hush fell over the room. Harper refused to say anything more. He might not belittle Clark the way her mom would when Harper finally told her parents she was broke, but Seth was an entitled rich kid. He’d dropped out of his family for a while, but when he and Clark had graduated university, Seth had used his connections to land them jobs in an investment firm. He’d gotten family friends to pony up the starting funds when he and Clark wanted to open their own company. When the business was more than on its feet, he’d found the money to buy out their investors. And when he needed to go to work for his family’s company, after his dad’s death, he’d easily handed over the firm’s reins to Clark, not caring that he was giving up what could have been a gold mine if he and Clark had stayed around to run it.
