“Wife, I leave ye in capable hands,” he murmurs, giving me one of his heart-stopping kisses. Not just the quick peck you’d give the missus, but something with passion and just enough pressure to make my lips feel bruised.
Logan immediately sweeps Arabella up in a dramatic kiss while Sloan sighs and checks her watch.
“Is Logan working with you tonight?” I ask quietly.
Logan hears me and answers first. “Aye, Wallace and I are having a boys’ night. The knuckle-brained fart lozenge needs a bit of assistance.”
“Let’s go, ye cock juggling thundercunt,” Wallace says, pulling away from me with a flattering amount of reluctance.
“Is this the standard entourage?”
I'm riding in an armor-plated Maserati SUV with Sloan and Arabella, with Gio riding shotgun. There's also another SUV with tinted windows following us closely. I didn’t count all the giant men squeezed in that car, but it seems like a lot.
“Tensions are high right now,” Sloan says placidly, still signing, her graceful fingers fluttering. I know by now that Arabella has losther hearing and that everyone in the family immediately learned BSL. Which I will start working on the minute I get home.
“Of course,” Sloan continues, “tensions are always high. I suspect these men wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if we had a long period of peace.”
Arabella laughs, and even that sounds musical. “Logan would explode. There would be bits and pieces of MacTavish flung from one end of Scotland to the other.” She looks at me with a smile. “I read lips, so if you’re facing me, there’s no problem. Knowing Wallace, I’m thinking an extended period of quiet would make him self-immolate?”
“Oh, good lord, can you imagine?” I shudder. I’ve seen it, felt it too, that barely contained sense of anticipation in Wallace, a flame burning. He’s channeled this obsession into something productive and powerful, but if he doesn’t let it out, it will find a way.
“Okay,wow.”
Not my most clever response but this restaurant, the SkyBox is one of several the MacTavishes own, and it’s essentially a glass cube. It’s perched on top of an old building downtown with a heart-stopping view of Edinburgh Castle, theglass making me feel like we’re floating over the city.
Arabella links arms with me. “Aye, this is one of my favorites.”
One corner of the restaurant is taken over by three women, waving wildly at us as if we’d never find them without the violent gesticulations. I notice there’s a couple of beefy-looking guys in dark suits standing against the wall.
“It’s Bring Your Bodyguard to Work Day, eh?”
I don’t realize I’ve said that out loud until one of the girls howls with laughter. “Good one. You’ll get used to it. I’m Afton, welcome to the family.”
We settle in, shoulder to shoulder with everyone leaning in to talk. The three guards we brought with us join the others in forming an over-muscled perimeter around the table. Along with Afton, who’s married to Mason, there’s Luna, she’s Kai’s wife.
“Luna, thank you for lending out Kai,” I say. “He was so kind to me on my wedding night.”
There’s a spray of wine as Luna spits it out, howling with laughter, everyone else joining in.
“Yeah, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” I bury my face in my hands.
“Dinnae ye worry,” Kenna says, rubbing myshoulder. “A couple ofthesebonnie lasses passed out drunk on their wedding night before the hochmagandy could happen. Their grooms deserved it, too.”
Kenna’s a MacTavish and a psychologist who certainly has her work cut out for her withthisfamily. She’s not married but there’s a hot guy in a very nice suit at the bar who she’s exchanged glances with, and he looks like he’s settled in for as long as it takes. I suspect Kenna’s multi-tasking tonight and more power to her.
“To the newest MacTavish bride!” Luna toasts. “Yes, our unions are abrupt and always socially unacceptable, but they all turn out to be exactly what we wanted.” She grins. “Even if we didn’t know it.”
My eyes burn, a sheen of tears wanting to escape. My life is incomprehensibly chaotic, yet all these women totally get it. What are the odds of that?
“Oh, did you see your wedding announcement?” Sloan pulls it up and hands her phone to me. “This is a local gossip account on Instagram, they say they’re celebrityinfluencers. As in, influencing celebrities.”
“Ambitious,” I chuckle.
“They have two hundred and fifty thousand followers though,” she says. “So, you know this got spread around in a hurry.”
“You can hear the wailing and sobbing all over the UK today as Wallace MacTavish-Taylor announced his marriage to Scarlett Banner.”
The picture they used is good, Wallace is smiling down at me like I’m the most charming thing and I’m laughing, my hand on his chest.
