As she stood there contemplating her next steps, a jingle of keys behind her caught her attention. Grayson stood in the doorway still wearing his swim trunks. But he’d pulled on a well-worn t-shirt and stuck his feet in flip-flops. A grim expression was on his face as he pulled the front door closed.
“Get in.”
He walked around to the driver’s side and pulled open the door. She was so stunned, she didn’t move a step.
“Are you going to get in or what?” he snapped before he ducked and got into the car.
It was enough to spur her into motion. She hurried to the car and placed her bags in the backseat, then slid into the passenger seat. She buckled her seatbelt as he started the car and put it into gear.
“Thank you, Grayson,” she said, her voice quiet.
He was silent as he pulled out of the driveway and headed away from the mansion to the dock.
Chapter Two
Brianna settled intothe airplane seat and peered out the window at the wing while waiting for takeoff. Her gut clenched tightly as her hands shook. Years had passed since she’d left Nassau. Now she was facing the unknown. When she got to Edinburgh what then? She didn’t have a plan. She needed a plan. What the hell did she think she was doing?
Aside from her nerves pounding through her, making her ill, it was awkward saying goodbye to Grayson as he ferried her back to the main island in the Bahamas. She was met with stoney silence when she tried to thank him for everything. She started to walk away from the car to hail a cab to the airport.
“Brianna,” he called.
She turned to see him leaning across the passenger seat, the window down. Her chest tightened at the sight. His face twisted with raw, unguarded pain.
“I hope you find your sisters.”
It was the last thing he said to her as he rolled up the window and drove away.
The worst part was she wasn’t sad about that at all.
In the airport restroom, she managed to dress into something other than her bikini and cover-up. She dressed in faded jeans, a well-worn t-shirt, and sneakers, pulling her sun-kissed auburn hair back and tying it with acolorful scarf at the nape of her neck.
She stared into the mirror, her reflection unfamiliar. Dark shadows clung beneath her pale gray eyes, making them look hollow, haunted. Lines carved deep across her sun-kissed forehead, each one a reminder of too many years baking under the Caribbean sun, too many nights lost to rum and music. She looked brittle, worn thin, like the life she’d built had taken more from her than it had ever given back.
Now, settling into her first-class seat, she leaned back and slid on her Bulgari sunnies, shielding more than her tired eyes. Her body ached with exhaustion, and the thought of the long flight ahead—with layovers in Miami, then London—made her shoulders sag. Still, a flicker of relief stirred in her chest. She was finally on her way. She would finally get answers.
*
Twenty hours later,Brianna landed in Edinburgh. She was not prepared for the weather. Though it was mid-September, the temperature was certainly not what she was used to—warm Caribbean breezes and sultry afternoons. Her lightweight clothes were not going to work and she looked as out of place as a clown at a TED Talk.
She hadn’t thought much ahead when she boarded the plane. She had no place to stay. So when she was herded through the airport to the taxi line, she hadn’t a clue what to tell the driver. A quick search on her phone yielded numerous hotels in the area. She picked one closest to the museum where Chloe worked.
At the hotel, she garnered a few strange looks at her summer attire, but she ignored them. After settling into her room, she decided her next order of business was to find proper clothing. She made a significant dent in her credit card on Princes Street as she purchased everything from jeans and sweaters to scarves, hats, and a coat.
By the time she was finished shopping, hunger pains cramped her stomach. Her last meal was in the Nassau airport before take-off. Shereally had no sense of day or time. She only knew what day it was by looking at her phone.
Carrying her packages, she made her way through the Royal Mile looking for a place to eat when a strange little shop caught her eye. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to peer at it from across the street. Gold lettering over the door announced the name of the shop as Mystic Treasures. It was nestled between a cigar merchant and a shop specializing in cashmere and lambswool.
It looked out of place and yet not.
The shop called to her, a silent whisper threading through the air and wrapping around her soul. A hum vibrated beneath her skin, an electric current that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. It wasn’t mere curiosity—it was something deeper, a pull that felt woven into her very being.Destiny, a voice in the back of her mind whispered, though she tried to dismiss it. She didn’t believe in fate or mysticism, but the sensation refused to fade. It coursed through her veins, insistent, impossible to ignore. The shop wasn’t just a place; it felt alive, waiting for her.
Before she realized she’d made the conscious decision to move, she crossed the street, making a beeline for it. Juggling her packages, she shoved open the door and stopped short as the bell chimed her arrival.
The antique store overwhelmed her senses. Trinkets crowded every surface, furniture loomed in every corner, shelves sagged under the weight of old books. A wall of glass cases gleamed, filled with jewelry that caught faint glints of light. The air was thick with the dusty scent of forgotten attics and musty basements, mingling with the comforting aroma of aged paper and brittle parchment. She froze, her breath hitching. Memories surged—her grandmother’s house, warm and cluttered, where books ruled every room. Dusty shelves had groaned under their weight, each spine faded and cracked with age. Her grandmother would never part with a single one. Those bookswere treasures, just like this place, every corner alive with echoes of the past.
“Hello!” a woman called from the back.
It startled her out of her reverie.
