In any case, she made a note to send Magnus an email with Iain’s available times on Thursday, before moving on to the next item: “The speaker for tonight’s 30 Under 30 event had to drop out due to a family emergency. The organizers are wondering if you can take his place.”
“Last I checked, I’m 31 now.”
“Yes, but you won the award three years ago, so it would still be—”
“Got my Highland retreat tonight, too.”
Once a month, Iain took a full night and day off to go on a “Highland retreat.” Which from what she could tell, was nothing more than him returning to the village where he grew up to go camping. Most people would probably just call it a “mental health day,” but you know…visionary genius and all. He always drove there directly after work and from the time he left until three o’clock the next day, he didn’t answer his phone or emails.
“Yes, I realize that, but they’re desperate. So I told them I’d ask you—”
“You asked. Now you can tell them I canna do it. Next!”
She glanced at her list and groaned inwardly. Milly hated going over Iain’s dating items. “Um…Caro Salzig’s assistant texted a few times since your date last weekend. Ms. Salzig is wondering if you’d like to go with her to the premiere of her new movie next Thursday.”
“Is that the one about the high-stakes heist in Monte Carlo?”
“No. It’s about the guy who goes home to Dublin for his father’s funeral. She plays the sister of the girlfriend he left behind—”
“Hard pass. But the Irish gal who plays the girlfriend…”
“Hmmm…” she racked her memory to come up with a name, “You mean Lisette Collier?”
“Aye, her. Put her on the calendar for this weekend.”
Hard pass. Put her on the calendar. All of these phrases were Iain’s way of telling her to blow off the actress voted last year’s Sexiest Woman in Britain for the one on this month’s cover of British Vogue.
By now, Milly had become used to doing just about all the work when it came to Iain’s love life. She initiated contact, secured the best tables at top restaurants, sent “looking forward to seeing you” bouquets a few days in advance, followed by a box of handcrafted artisanal chocolates on the morning of the date. By the time she was through, all Iain had to do was show up at the carefully selected restaurant with his obnoxiously good looks and get laid in a nearby hotel afterwards.
“Anything else?” he demanded.
“No, that’s all,” she answered, feeling even smaller than usual today. Just a speck in the great Iain Scotswolf’s universe.
“Alright, then leave. And tomorrow don’t be late, or I’ll have to dock your pay.”
Stability…superior benefits…ability to pay the rent and eat regular meals…
Milly silently listed the string of reasons why she absolutely needed to keep this job as she turned to walk out of the office.
But before she could make it to the door, the clicking of Iain’s fingers over the keys suddenly stopped, and he issued a sharp “Millicent.”
She turned back around and inwardly started when she saw that not only had Iain stopped typing, but he’d turned to face her, his piercing gray gaze trained on her like a laser beam. Like he could see her over the algorithm code he’d been obsessing about for months.
Milly, Iain’s definitely-not-a cover-model assistant, wasn’t used to him looking at her in this way. Or in any way, really.
“Yes?” she asked when he didn’t immediately say anything.
“You’re not wearing the fragrance.”
Crap. Another one of his stupid “standards.”
Turns out her insensitive boss had a surprisingly sensitive nose. So much so that something about her natural body odor disturbed him. Before she’d left his office after their one-sided interview, he’d told her to buy an obscure German perfume called KeinWulf. It was a brand she’d never heard of, but according to Iain, it worked to neutralize the scent of other staff members so he was confident it would work for her. In any case, she was expected to wear it every work day per Iain.
Most awkward conversation ever. But she’d done as he’d asked, reminding herself that she needed the private health insurance and above average pay his company offered. And the fragrance wasn’t that bad. Kind of smoky and dark. Even her roommate Tara liked to use it when they went out because she said it made her smell “like a straight up spy.”
Only this morning, Milly woke to find the thin roller bottle of KeinWulf empty. She’d known she was running low, but she was sure she’d get another week or so out of it before she needed to buy another bottle online. So much for that. After a few seconds of uncertainty, Milly finished dressing and headed out the door, hoping Iain wouldn’t notice. But he had. Of course.
She winced. “I’m so sorry. I had a lot going on last week and didn’t notice I was almost out. I’ll put in a rush order, and hopefully it will get here by Friday—”
“You’ve a doctor’s appointment, today,” he said, veering abruptly onto an entirely new topic.
It was a statement, not a question. “Yes, I’m sorry, but I didn’t have a chance to put it on the calendar. How did you kno—?”
“You always wear that yellow jumper when you have a doctor’s appointment,” he answered tersely.
Milly blinked. Not because he’d cut her off—that happened nearly all the time with Iain. But because he’d noticed anything at all about her habits.
“Yes, well...the doctor’s office is usually a little chilly so I like to wear layers to keep comfortable.” Milly hated lying, but she wasn’t about to try and explain about her lucky cardigan. “I had my annual last week and today is my follow-up.”
“It was just a routine physical?” he asked, his tone unusually harsh even for him.
Well, no it wasn’t exactly a routine physical like she’d implied, but she typically tried to avoid discussions about why she had to do the needle dance at the oncologist’s office every six months. After spending most of her college years in hospitals back home in the States, she relished not being known as that “poor sick girl” here in Scotland.
Even her current role as Milly Mouse, the invisible and meek executive assistant of the genius CTO and founder of AlgoFortune, was a much better alternative to the life she’d been leading before.
“If you want, I’ll work from home until the perfume arrives,” she said, returning to the original subject.
Iain glared at her as if she’d offended his sensibilities as well as his nose. “No, that’s not what I—”
He was cut off by a quick rap on the door. The graphical user interface team had arrived for their stand up with Iain. It was 4:15 A.M.—on the dot.
Milly opened the heavy oak door to Ian’s office and let them in, still feeling the weight of his eyes on her. She rushed past the four men who, unlike their kilted CTO, were dressed in the standard uniform of software engineers around the world: t-shirts and jeans.
In any case, there was so much to do when Milly got back to her desk, she found it easy to lose herself in all of it for the next few hours. Too easy, she realized when her phone lit up with the Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre’s number flashing across the Caller ID screen. Right above the current time of 12:15 P.M.
Crap! She’d missed her noon follow-up appointment.
Milly picked up the phone and immediately began apologizing before the person on the other end could say a thing. “I am so sorry I forgot my appointment,” she said. “Can we reschedule for tomorrow? Or even better, next week after the bank holiday? I’m really slammed at work right now, and that—”
“Ah…hello, Millicent,” a male voice with a gentle Scottish burr cut in. “This is Dr. Keller. It’s no problem at all about the missed appointment. I understand how busy things can sometimes get. The good news is I can still squeeze you in this afternoon. And…well, I really must insist you come in today, if possible.”
Milly stopped breathing. She knew what was going on
almost immediately. Doctors never made personal calls to patients, and they never insisted a patient come in immediately…unless the news was bad.
Chapter Two
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL as it was known when she’d started undergoing treatment for it at the age of 19, was a beast. It had killed Milly’s mother at the young age of 24. And Milly, who’d been raised by her grandmother, had spent the most formative years of her young adult life fighting the disease. So yeah, ALL was a nasty customer. But apparently, there was something way worse than getting the cancer that killed your mother and almost killed you.
The cure.
Four years ago, thanks to extensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow match from a good Samaritan of a similar racial background, Milly went into remission. Unfortunately for her, the cure that saved her life also turned off her body’s immune system, effectively opening the door for an even scarier monster: acute myeloid leukemia.
A few hours later, Milly walked back into the ultra-modern AlgoFortune office building in a daze. Still not quite understanding everything she’d been told about AML. What she did know was that the disease typically showed up in eight to ten percent of cancer patients within an average of five years. And for patients with a history and genetic profile like Milly’s, AML had an average life expectancy of eight months. Give or take.
Eight months. The roar of an ocean started between her ears when Dr. Keller gave her the news. Loud, but not loud enough to drown out his explanations about why chemotherapy and radiation were no longer options for her. Then he gently suggested they schedule another appointment to discuss “palliative options.” In other words, the appointment consisted of lots and lots of blah, blah, blah, that had come down to, “Your cancer is back, you’re dying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
For once, Milly was happy her outer office was made entirely of glass. Sitting inside a rectangular fish bowl that put her on view for anyone who happened to be walking by meant she didn’t burst into tears as soon as she sat down at her desk.
Instead, she flipped through the brochures the doctor had pressed into her hand. These had much less hopeful titles than the ones she’d received as a sick 19-year-old. Less “rah-rah, you can beat this!” and more “oh well, better deal.” The “Coping with Loss and Grief” booklet listed all the mental and physical therapy resources in Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre’s network. There was also a practical pamphlet entitled, “Talking with Loved Ones about Advanced Care Planning.” And last but not least, rounding out the world’s most depressing collection of medical brochures ever was, “Transitions: Taking Charge at the End of Life” which consisted of three brief commiserative paragraphs followed by a list of local hospices and in-home hospice care providers.
Great.
Not wanting to look at them anymore, Milly set the brochures aside. Then she pushed her glasses up her nose and typed in her computer passcode.
She’d been gone less than an hour. But in that time, Iain had sent her over thirty messages—four of which were marked urgent.
She glanced toward his office. His door was firmly closed. Which meant he was probably scrambling to get the code for the new algorithm completed before taking off for his retreat.
Good. That meant she could work in peace. Without him hovering over her, complaining she’d missed two serial commas in her daily market report (as he’d done yesterday). Or repeatedly asking her to draft and send emails from him to individuals unlucky enough to rub him the wrong way, missives that typically began with “Dear [insert one of the numerous Scottish terms for idiot here].”
Yes, that was what she would do. Throw herself into her work. Try to forget, at least for a little while.
Milly started re-typing Iain’s notes to the GUI team from this morning’s update so they’d sound like they’d been written by a semi-decent human being and not a pit viper in a kilt. She managed to focus on that and only that for five whole minutes. But then…
She opened a new tab in her internet browser and typed in the URL for the Royal Scottish Bank. A password, a security question, and a few clicks later, her savings account popped up on her screen.
She stared at the four-figure number. It wasn’t a lot. But it was something. Enough to survive for a month or two—she could maybe even stretch it out to four or six months if she didn’t come back to live in crazy expensive Scotland.
Though her grandma had died before she’d come here. Meaning she had no other close family members back in the U.S. So where else would she go to die but here where at least she had her best friend, Tara, to attend her funeral? But…
Milly opened another new tab on her computer. This time, she typed “Milford Track New Zealand” into the empty search bar at the top of the window.
It was where she’d originally planned to travel at the end of her summer internship in Scotland. But then the position at AlgoFortune had become available…
She clicked on the Images tab, and her screen filled with pictures of a gorgeous fjord, flanked by lush green mountains and majestic waterfalls, the likes of which she’d never seen in real life. And might never get the chance to see.
Milly stood abruptly, and before she could stop herself, she walked into Iain’s office. Without knocking. Going totally against his standards.
But really, what did she have to lose? She marched right in and looked him straight in the eye.
Or at least tried to. Her newfound store of bravery petered out as soon as her gaze met his annoyed one, and she ended up quickly redirecting her eyes to a photo of Iain and his awful brother, Magnus, just beyond Iain’s shoulder. They were both wearing kilts—apparently, this was a family tradition because she’d never seen Iain, his brother, or father without one. But while Iain wore his with a simple button up, as he was doing now, his brother wore his with a rugby jersey emblazoned with AlgoFortune. She’d taken that picture of them two years ago, shortly after AlgoFortune became the new official sponsor of the Edinburgh Rovers, which also happened to be the team Magnus played on as a winger. Milly still wondered if the sponsorship had been Iain’s decision or if Magnus had “commanded” that, too.
“Well?”
Iain’s voice interrupted her musing. And she remembered why she’d come in here in the first place.
“Um…I just found out I have cancer,” she said, dropping her eyes to her feet. “Actually. I had cancer before. Leukemia. It’s been in remission since before I came to Scotland. But now I have a new type of leukemia…and I guess it’s too far along for them to treat.”
She stopped, so used to his interruptions that she’d cut herself off in anticipation of a barrage of commentary.
But he didn’t say anything. And Milly was too afraid to look up to see how he was taking this. So with her eyes still glued to her feet, she said, “So, I’m sorry. I really am, but I need to quit. Effective in two weeks.”
This time she did look up. Not because she felt particularly brave, but because she needed to get a sense of where he was at before she said anything else. Iain thought he had an answer for everything and he hated change of any kind. She got a “not up to my standards” reprimand the other day just for modifying a report’s font from Avenir to Avenir Next—that was how opposed he was to even the tiniest minutia of change.
So Milly had no idea how he’d react to the news that for reasons completely out of his control, he’d be losing his assistant in two weeks.
Iain’s face remained its usual hard mask, all but ticking with irritation.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, dropping her gaze again to her hands, which had somehow folded into a tight clench against her chest. “I…I know it’s going to be inconvenient to replace me, especially as we go into stage two of the new product launch. I’ll start looking for my replacement today—”
“Both your parents are no longer in your life, correct?”
Milly started, not understanding the question. Or what it had to do with her resignation. She knew almost everythin
g there was to know about Iain. She made sure his one-night stands went as smoothly as possible, fielded calls from his brother, sent in annual five-figure donations to his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, on his behalf. Last month, she’d refused yet again to put through a call from Iain’s Italian mother, Valentina, who’d moved back to the Italian countryside after splitting up with his father, Lachlan. And next month she’d make sure Lachlan received a new set of golf clubs for Scottish Father’s Day. When she went back to her desk earlier that morning, she’d set up the requested date with Lisette because that was how involved she was in Iain’s life outside of work.
But Iain knew almost nothing about her. Because he’d never asked her a single question about her background or life outside the office. Ever. Not until this morning when her doctor’s appointment came up. And now here he was asking about her parents. What was going on?
“Um…no, they’re not,” Milly answered carefully. And knowing how impatient he could be, she left out all the details about how her dad left pretty much right before she was born, and how her mother had died soon after.
“So, you have no close family to speak of?”
“No,” she answered again. A painful memory from four years ago surfaced…of being the only person at the funeral of the grandmother who’d raised her after her mother had died. And of the sudden realization that she was entirely on her own now that Nana was gone.
“Right then, you’ve nowhere to go. So why would someone in your condition quit a well-paid job with private benefits? That’s just daft!”
Harsh as it was, the truth of Iain’s words hit her with a sharp pang. He was right; she didn’t have anyone. No home to return to. No loving arms to comfort her in her last few months. Her roommate and best friend, Tara, would do her best, but she was the same age as Milly. Only twenty-five, and still in the prime of her life. It wouldn’t be fair to burden her with the responsibility of caring for a dying friend.
Her Scotttish King: (Howls Romance) Loving World Page 17
