“So did I,” she says softly.“I want to learn more about my father.Not just what my mother has told me.I need answers and I believe the castle can tell me about my sperm donor.”
The memory of his own father, laughing and loving him, rattles Callum.He hates those two words, but understands why she feels that way.
The words hang between them, not hostile, but sharp.
Callum runs a hand through his hair.“You don’t know what this place means to me.”
The castle has been his home for the last fifteen years.A place of sanctuary.Of acceptance and even love.
She rises with deliberate grace, her blouse tracing her curves, her waist lean and distracting.The instinctive pull to touch her slams into him, and he swallows it like a weakness.
“You don’t know what it cost me to get here.”
They stare at each other across the piano, an altar, a battleground, a confession neither of them asked for.
Callum feels the truth pressing against his ribs.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he says, wishing they had met under different circumstances.Why had Keir never told him about his daughter?Even in his drunken state, he’d never mentioned the girl on the other side of the pond.A woman who played the piano like a dream, even better than her father.
Isla’s gaze flickers.“Neither do I.”
“And yet,” Callum continues, “I don’t know how to stand by and watch you take the one thing that feels like mine.The place that is my everything.”
Her voice is quiet but unyielding.“I don’t know how to walk away from the only place that’s ever felt honest.A building that holds secrets I need to learn.”
Something in Callum shifts.
This isn’t about a will.
This isn’t even about Keir.
It’s about two people standing in the wreckage of the same man, each holding a different piece of what he left behind.One searching for answers and the one wanting to hold onto a peaceful time in his life.
Callum steps back first.
Not in surrender.
In recognition.
“You play like a goddess,” he says, before he can stop himself.
Isla blinks, startled.
Then her chin lifts.“And you guard this place like it’s alive.”
“Because it is,” Callum says, “to me.”
His heart cracks at the thought of leaving it all behind.The memories, the music.Everything that had brought him back to life after his father’s death.
She nods slowly.“Then I guess we’re both staying.For now.”
The tension snaps taut between them, electric, dangerous, undeniable.Maybe he should say thank you, but it’s his home.And that’s a bridge too far, even for him.
Callum turns toward the door, desperate to escape the pull of her sensuality, the way her voice and her music wrap around him and refuse to let go.
“Get some rest,” he says.“The castle doesn’t sleep easily.Let me know when you’re ready to begin your search.Maybe I can help.”
Or maybe he’d only lead her astray.He hadn’t yet decided which path would help him keep the castle.
