Chapter Thirty-Three
In which some guys just cannot take a hint.
Isla…
Violent cramps contracting in my abdomen wake me, I roll over and vomit off the side of the bed. Curling up in the fetal position, I wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to hold myself together.
“I’m sorry, they must have got the dosage wrong.”
Gideon.
Gideon fecking Wallace is sitting in an armchair across the room, with his hands on his knees and a guilty expression. I’m happy to see the beginning of two black eyes and he’s wearing a big plaster over his nose.
“Ya’ doolally! What have ya’ done?” I croak. There’s more cramping and I roll off the bed, trying to avoid landing in my own sick.
“Here, let me help you-”
“Take your hands off me!” I hold onto the bedpost, trying to pull myself up. “Where’s the loo.”
He hurries over to open a door, smiling at me appeasingly. “I’ll get someone to take care of that,” he gestures awkwardly at the mess by the bed. Lurching through the door I shut it in his face. This time, I make it to the toilet at least, falling to my knees and violently expelling everything in my body besides my teeth and toenails.
Shutting the lid, I rest my head on it. This loony bastard’s lost it. He kidnapped me and drugged me? What happened to Gideon to turn him into this clatty prick?
“Oh, shite,” I moan, “Taskall.”
I’m sobbing, thinking of the cheerful man who’d cooked for me, taught me how to bake bread, and protected me at the cost of his life. No. Please let him be alive. He wears a bulletproof vest, doesn’t he?
I haven’t spoken to God since he took Mama and Ewan, but I try to bargain now, begging him to save Taskall. No one should die for me.
There’s a hesitant knock. “Isla? Do ya’ need help? The maid brought you tea and ginger biscuits.”
The vision of throwing boiling tea in this fecker’s face makes me smile for the first time today.
“Give me a moment,” I call out, trying to sound as weak and helpless as possible. Admittedly, right now it’s not much of an act. Groaning as I stand up, I brace myself on the sink, waiting to see if my stomach will behave.
I’m gonna kill Gideon. That’s certain.
Slowly rinsing out my mouth and dabbing a wet cloth at some spots on my shirt, I suck in a deep breath. “You’re a Blackwoodanda MacTavish. Now act like it,” I whisper. Leaning weakly on the door frame, I push Gideon’s hand away when he tries to help me and then collapse on a chair near the bed. I’m not getting on a fecking bed with this arsehole in the room.
“Why have ya’ done this? I thought we were friends.”
“We’re more than friends,” he says incredulously, pulling up an ottoman to sit in front of me. “I’ve loved ya’ forever, Isla Blackwood. How could ya’ have not known?”
I’ve always thought I was good at reading people and understanding their motivations; whether they were telling me the truth, or lying. Gideon, though, was never on my radar, not as a job or part of our world. How did I miss this?
“There’s no proof about my brother’s accident, is there?” I ask, exhausted.
“Well, no,” he admits, looking pained. “But I had to get you to see that this is all wrong, this thing with Dougal. I knew if I got you away from him, you would think clearly. Has he been drugging you?”
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.Don’t kill him. Not yet.
“The only person who drugged me isyou. I’m married to Dougal, we’re happy. Why will you not accept this?”
“I know why you brushed me off before,” he nods wisely, “because I was… what do you call it? A civilian. Your da never would have agreed to the match, aye? I’m in your world, darlin’ I’m one of you.” He’s leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and smiling at me earnestly.
“What-” I shake my head and stop, closing my eyes and fighting off the nausea. “What do you mean by that?”
“It started with my father, needing a favor.” He chuckles humorlessly. “The man who always lectured me on integrity, that in the banking world, our reputation had to be spotless,” he spat. “He was cheating on my mother and the girl threatened to go to her and tell her everything. He paid her off. Set her up in an apartment in Paris. She got more and more demanding, she had videos, I guess. She was going to send them to the board of directors at the bank.”
