“Aye. I’ve dealt with enough abusive narcissists to recognize one when I see him.”
“Bloody hell,” I muttered under my breath as I turned the stroller toward the car park. “A few weeks. That’s how long I’ve known the arsehole. How did it escalate to this?”
“With people like him, a fixation can happen almost instantly.”
“Wonderful.” I had a mystery stalker planting cameras in my old apartment and now a new one who wanted to make my life a misery because I had the audacity to say no to him. “You know, coming home was supposed to be about slowing down.”
“This is Ardnoch. We were due a wee bit of danger,” Walker replied dryly.
Twenty-Seven
FYFE
It had been a brutal night.
Millie had woken up wailing and when I went to check on her, I discovered she was roasting hot. When I took her temperature, it told me she had a fever. Of course, I went into panic mode and drove to the out-of-hours at the small hospital in Thurso. After waiting for an hour, they checked Millie over and found she had an ear infection. They assured me Millie was fine and that the ear infection would clear up on its own. We were only to see the doctor if she was still in pain after three days. They prescribed pain medicine and saw us on our way.
My daughter slept fitfully, waking up every few hours to cry. It broke my fucking heart. I’d never felt like such a failure in my life, not being able to stop her pain. Finally, I just ended up on the couch, the TV on low, while Millie slept on my chest. I drifted in and out until she woke me again to change her nappy.
At the crack of dawn, I gave her some formula, made myself a coffee, and settled back on the couch. Her fever had come down a little with the meds the docs gave us. Millie rested her chubby wee cheek against my bare chest and fell asleep.
I rubbed my eyes beneath my glasses, staring at the TV screen, feeling like I’d been awake for days instead of hours. Flicking through the apps, I switched over to a well-known streaming platform and the first thing advertised on it wasYoung Adult.
With everything up in the air between us, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to watch the last season Eilidh starred in. Curiosity piqued, I switched on the show and turned the volume up just a bit. Eilidh’s character Mikayla was the first on-screen.
My pulse picked up speed as I watched her. She was so the opposite of Mikayla that I marveled anyone would mistake her for her character. But she was a bloody great actor, and it made me sad for Eilidh that the joy of acting wasn’t enough to outweigh all the other shit that came with the job. Even knowing it wasn’t real, I still didn’t like it when she shared an on-screen kiss with Jasper Richmond. They had the kind of chemistry that people had gossiped about for years, about if they were a couple in real life.
I saw that Jasper had trash-talked Eilidh lately, though. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of it, but I wouldn’t bring it up. She was trying to avoid all that rubbish. He was a prick for doing that to her.
“Ae,” Millie said.
I looked down to find her eyes on the TV. “Is it Auntie Eilidh?”
She wriggled, and I helped her sit up so she could turn to look at the screen. She let out a sleepy giggle and pointed at the screen. “Ae!”
Holy crap, shewastrying to say Eilidh’s name.
Pride filled me. “That’s right, wee yin. That’s Auntie Eilidh.”
Unfortunately, the giggles turned to crying as Millie grew distraught when her Auntie Eilidh didn’t come to her out of the TV screen. “Aw, hush, wee yin.” I switched off the TV andbrought her up to press kisses against her gorgeous chubby cheeks. “That’s too confusing for you, eh, my wee darling.”
Eventually, my attention soothed her and her crying stopped. She snuggled back on my chest and I felt her breaths slow as she fell asleep. I could feel baby drool on my pec and chuckled to myself.
Life had certainly taken a strange turn.
Looking down at Millie, seeing her long, dark lashes fluttering, her lips moving in a moue, I felt such overwhelming fucking love, it almost cracked me in two.
Aye, life had taken a strange turn. Even stranger … I’d never been happier.
Twenty-Eight
EILIDH
This was deliberate.
It had to be.
A complete manipulation of my erogenous zones.
