EIGHT
Golf Charlie Mike, please don’t die
Georgie
We fly over astone castle perched on a tiny island, connected to the mainland by an ancient-looking bridge.
A gasp escapes me. “That castle…”
“You’ll see plenty of those,” Patrick says. “That one’s Eilean Donan.”
Down below, tourists swarm. Tiny dots of people living out their Outlander fantasies.
“I never knew Scotland was this magical,” I say, half to myself. “I get it now. Why you’d spend so much time here instead of London.”
He glances over, clearly amused at my wide-eyed tone. “Aye, it’s got its charms. We’ll be offering helicopter transfers from Inverness to the hotel for guests who want this on arrival.”
“You’re not flying all of them yourself, are you?”
“Only the special ones.”
Brilliant. Now I’m blushing again.
I try to cover it by babbling. “We’ve been airborne for roughly fifteen minutes, traveling at about a hundred and ten knots... that’s approximately thirty-five nautical miles. So we’re already halfway to Skye.”
“That’s a damn impressive guess.”
“It’s not a guess. It’s about eighty miles to Skye by road, which converts to around seventy nautical. At our current speed and time elapsed… thirty-five nautical miles. Basic math.”
He pauses.
“I’m impressed you worked that out in your head,” he finally says.
I grit my teeth. I work in tech. Calculations and logic are literally my day job.
But in his mind, I’m still the disaster who broadcasts recordings about nervous burps.
A few minutes later, he nods toward the horizon. “That’s Skye.”
My jaw drops. It looks like God was showing off when he designed this place. Jagged mountains rise from the sea, and the coastline twists and curves like something from a fairy tale.
“The water’s so blue!” I say. “Like, Maldives blue. It actually looks warm.”
“It’s not. But we get in anyway.”
“You swim here?”
“Swim. Kayak. Surf when I have time. Clears the head.” He pauses. “What about you? What are you planning to do while you’re here?”
“I’ll be busy with work,” I mumble, immediately realizing how pathetic that sounds compared to the CEO who just casually listed three outdoor hobbies.
“You’ll have weekends off.”
“Definitely,” I say too fast. “I’ll, uh, explore. Do some… mountain things.”
Mountain things? What are you, a goat?
He doesn’t call me on it, just tips his chin toward the view. “That’s Portree.”
