I blinked and forced a nod. “Yeah. I’m fine. I was just thinking about the flight.”
He frowned for another moment, then grinned. “A private jet, huh? That’s pretty darn fancy. I’ve never been on one.”
“You’ll love it,” I said, but as he ran a hand over Brody’s freshly trimmed head, my jaw clenched so hard it ached.
We were leaving for Scotland tonight, and now that the last errands had been run, I could feel the excitement building among the Morgans. For me, however, the rest of the day blurred.
I packed bags into cars and answered questions about everything from the plane to the bedrooms at the estate. Idouble-checked travel arrangements for after we’d landed and talked to Matthew about fishing in the lochs.
Mason and Michael wanted to know about winter sports and whiskey, but while I cracked jokes, responded when spoken to, and did my best to be present, worry sat like a hot coal at the center of my chest.
On our way to the airport, I looked around the car and wondered if they knew. How would they react when they found out?
It was possible Mason and Michael had clocked it before I had. Michelle might’ve pieced it together the second she’d seen him and me sharpening his skates in that garage the very first time I’d met her, and maybe that was why Matthew didn’t say much to me.
And Maisie, shit. Did she even know thatIwas the jackass who’d knocked her up and left her to raise our baby alone?
There might’ve been someone else back then. Someone she hadn’t mentioned and that I didn’t even want to think about. Suddenly, the thought that she might not know he was mine burned like hellfire.
My head was pounding when we climbed out at the airport, everyone around me laughing and herding luggage and each other. They were acting like this was the start of some grand adventure, and maybe it was, but all I could think about was the conversation that needed to happen.
Not now. Not with her family around me and Brody wide-eyed between her mother and me. But soon.
The second we landed in Scotland, I was going to find Maisie. Get her alone. And then, I was going to ask the question that had been eating me alive since I’d seen that mark behind Brody’s ear.
Was Brody mine, and if so, why the fuck hadn’t she told me?
CHAPTER 40
MAISIE
Castles in the Scottish countryside, private jets, fancy champagne, and chauffeured limousines. Before I’d met them, I didn’t think real people lived like this, but that was life as a Westwood. It was staggering, to say the least. Incredible and unbelievable.
Sterling’s house rose up ahead at the end of a narrow country lane, appearing like a mirage out of the afternoon mist, and my jaw threatened the drop. The fact that Brody was, by blood, one of them, was more terrifying than ever before.
CC sat on the long seat in the back of the limo, talking to Sadie and Laney like she hadn’t even noticed where we were. I had no idea what it took for a house to classify as a castle, but if this one didn’t, I honestly didn’t understand why.
Yet CC didn’t blink an eye.
Laney seemed as awestruck as I was, nodding along to whatever CC was saying, but she and I had ended up next to the windows. Both of our faces were practically glued to the glass. Even Sadie seemed a little shocked.
CC chuckled once she realized none of us were listening to her anymore. “It is pretty, isn’t it? Sterling bought it a few yearsago in such a sad state of disrepair. It took him ages to restore it to its original glory.”
That was all she said about it before launching straight into a different topic entirely. This was Brody’s biological grandmother and she treated a European castle like nothing more than her son’s pet project.
Another flicker of fear zapped through me, but I pushed it down. This was happening, no matter how scared I was. As soon as I got Callum alone, I was telling him. All I could do now was pray that he didn’t try to take our son from me when he found out.
Eyes fixed on the window, I looked out at massive stone walls that climbed into the misty sky, turrets that looked like something out of a fairytale, and sweeping grounds that stretched as far as I could see. The whole place was lit up against the gray afternoon like it had been waiting centuries for someone to come home.
It was probably incredibly haunted, but it was so gorgeous that I wouldn’t even mind if a ghost was wandering around in there.
The limo pulled to a stop and Laney and I climbed out, both of us speechless. We followed CC inside. Jameson, Sterling, Harrison, and Harlan were already there, having been in the limo in front of us, but of course, while the men swept their wives into their arms, no one moved to grab the bags.
Naturally, the castle was fully staffed.
I drifted in behind them like a groupie sneaking into the band’s tour bus, but that was exactly what I felt like. I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t royalty or anywhere near it, but the Westwoods were already treating me like family.
It was insane. All it.
