She stumbles forward, hands coming up instinctively, palms landing on a man’s chest.
A very warm, very solid chest.The smell of woodsmoke and something alluring teases her nose.A ripple shudders through her body.
Strong hands grip her arms, steadying her before she can fall.Isla jerks back, breath sharp, heart slamming into her ribs.
“What the hell?”she snaps.
The man in front of her is tall.Broad-shouldered.Dressed in an emerald kilt that has all the regalia.His socks come to his knees, his tartan crosses his chest.His hair is dark and slightly too long, his jaw rough with stubble.
He does not look like staff.
He looks like trouble.
“You walked into me,” he says flatly.
Isla bristles.“You were standing in the middle of a hallway.”
“Because it’s my hallway.”
She blinks.“Excuse me?”
His gaze flicks over her, expensive jacket, designer heels, posture sharpened by years of being watched, and something hardens in his eyes.
“Oh,” he says.“You must be her.”
Her temper flares instantly.“Her who?”
“The ghost,” he says coolly.“The absentee daughter.”
The words hit like a glass of ice water.
Isla straightens.“And he was an absentee father,” she snaps, because, apparently, this is what they’re doing now, throwing assumptions like knives.
“I don’t believe you,” he replies.
Her mouth falls open.“What did you just say?”
He folds his arms.“You show up late.Only when he’s dead.Wander where you don’t belong.Act like everyone should move out of your way.”
Isla laughs, sharp and incredulous.“And you are…what?A groupie?A friend who never left?”
His jaw tightens.“Careful.”
“Why?”Isla shoots back.“I assume you’re one of his, what do you call yourselves, proteges?Fans?People who benefit from orbiting him?”
“That’s rich,” he says, eyes darkening.“Coming from someone who benefited without ever showing up.”
Her pulse spikes.
“I didn’t abandon him,” Isla snaps.“He abandoned me.”
His gaze flickers.Something like pain flashes there before hardening into anger.
“You think that makes you special?”he says quietly.“You think you’re the only one he didn’t show up for?”
Isla takes a step closer, fueled by exhaustion and grief and twelve hours of listening to her mother tear a man apart.“You don’t get to judge me.After all, I never spoke to him.”
“And you don’t get to waltz in here like this place is a hotel suite you forgot you booked,” he fires back.
