Page 2

‘I know, but apparently there’s enough accommodation at this place that I won’t need to pay rent, so I won’t lose out financially. It’s just frustrating, you know.’ She let out a long groan. ‘I’m not wrong to be annoyed by this, am I?’ she said, trying to keep the focus on her initial grievances rather than being sidetracked by the reminder of her perpetually single relationship status, but it was difficult given how intertwined the two were. ‘I get that I can’t keep a relationship going for more than two months, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a life. I don’t want to just pack everything up and move there. But I can’t complain about it, because generally speaking, Nigel’s great, and I actually think he believes he’s doing me a favour by giving me this position. Besides, he’s right. I am the one without “commitments”.’

A deep aching sat heavily in her chest. She’d always thought that playing the field was a sensible thing to do, that waiting until Mr Perfect finally showed up would be the key to having the perfect ever-after marriage like her parents had. But her last four relationships had lasted less than three months each, and here she was, over a year older, feeling no closer to finding that happily ever after.

‘You just need to think of it as an adventure,’ Daisy said, bringing Bex out of her thoughts. ‘There are some beautiful areas up in Scotland. All the islands and things. And you won’t be working all the time, will you? You’ll have time to get out and explore.’

‘You haven’t actually told us what you’re needed to do up there,’ Claire said before Bex could respond. ‘Why do you need to be up there?’

‘It’s some friend of Nigel’s dad,’ she said, though the thought alone was enough to worry her. Nigel was in his late fifties, so she could only imagine what this man was like. ‘Apparently, he’s got a large estate, with land and various businesses and things, but he hasn’t done a great job of keeping on top of all his accounts. It sounds like he’s still stuck in the days of paper and wants someone to go up there and sort it all out. Digitalise it, that kind of thing. It’s more bookkeeping than accounting. Not my area of expertise at all.’ Well, it was beneath her area of expertise – that was what she actually wanted to say, but she kept that to herself, just like she had done in the meeting with Nigel. ‘That’s all I know. I mean, I’m hoping it’ll take less time than Nigel thinks, but I won’t know until I get there. And I got the feeling that Nigel expects me to stay up there the full two months, or longer than that if that’s how long it takes. If I want the promotion, that is.’

Silence fell among the girls, and Bex reached for her drink, only to find the glass was empty. She’d googled the place Nigel was sending her, and it seemed to be a little village in the middle of nowhere. The chances of them having a decent wine shop felt next to nothing. She would need to stock up.

‘You never know,’ Daisy said. ‘Maybe you’ll find your Scottish Prince Charming up there? I have always liked a man in a kilt.’

Bex arched an eyebrow. ‘Let’s make one thing clear. I have zero need for a prince, and my one aim is to get the job over and done with as quickly as possible. But I’ll be sure to let Theo know about the kilt thing when he gets back.’

As the girls chuckled, Bex’s mind drifted back to thoughts of the next two months.

Maybe Daisy was right. Maybe she could turn this into an adventure. And what was the worst-case scenario? If she hated the place, then she could lose herself in the work, get it sorted as quickly as possible, then come back to London to the promotion she’d been working her butt off for, and her friends would still be waiting for her.

She would do this. She would go to Scotland and do what had been asked of her. After all, it wasn’t like she had a choice.

3

‘How long have you got left to go?’ Claire said, her voice tiny through the car’s speaker system. ‘You must be nearly there now?’

‘Three hours,’ Bex replied with a groan. ‘Remind me again why I decided to drive rather than fly.’

She already knew the answer, of course. If she was going to be in the middle of nowhere, away from tubes and taxis, not to mention everything she loved about London life, then she needed her car to get around. Unfortunately, that meant an eleven-hour drive. She had done half of it the day before and had planned on getting up early to finish off the remaining five hours, but then she had overslept, there had been roadworks and diversions, and for the first three hours of the journey, the time on her satnav kept going up rather than down.

Now it was already gone three in the afternoon, but at least she had passed Glasgow and was on the narrow country lanes, finally feeling like she was making decent progress. Besides, the long summer evenings meant there were still hours of daylight ahead of her.

‘I’ve been researching the village where this house is.’ Daisy’s voice took over on the phone. ‘It looks lovely. Very posh. They hold clay pigeon shoots and country balls, that type of thing.’

‘Well, I’m sure that’s lovely for the people who live there. I, however, will not have time to do anything other than pretend I’m a bookkeeper for the next two months. Honestly, the more I think about it, the madder I get. But at least it’s pretty. Very pretty.’

Pretty was probably the biggest understatement for what she was seeing. It was stunning. Breathtaking even. Whichever window she looked out of, all she could see was miles and miles of constantly changing greenery stretching out in every direction. One moment she was driving through undulating hills; the next, it was long, tundra-like plains, and only a couple of miles later, the green had been replaced entirely by the sight of the sea, pale blue and glinting with sunlight off in the distance.

‘That’s not the only thing,’ Daisy continued. ‘The place you’re staying at, you said it was called Highland Hall, right?’

‘That’s right, why?’

‘Well, I looked that up too and?—’

‘What the hell!’ Bex slammed on the brakes. Her pulse soared as the car skidded on the stony road and came to a stop only half a foot away from disaster.

‘Bex? Is everything okay?’

‘Has something happened?’

Even though Bex could hear the worry in her friends’ voices, she couldn’t reply straight away. Her pulse was still sky high, and she needed to catch her breath. Slowly, she loosened her grip on the steering wheel and managed to choke out an answer.

‘Sheep,’ she said. ‘Lots and lots of sheep.’

* * *

Never before had Bex known sheep to put her in such a foul mood. Normally the only times she saw them were out of the windows of trains or in the fields around Wildflower Lock, and she loved to watch the little bouncing lambs leaping around without a care in the world. But these sheep weren’t in a field. They were on the road, and rather than leaping, they were trudging forwards as if they were completely oblivious to the fact that this was a road with traffic on and people in cars who needed to be somewhere.

After apologising to the girls for scaring them, then opening up the camera so they could see what she was having to face, Bex hung up the phone and got out of the car in search of any sign of a farmer or someone she could yell at. But if there was someone there she couldn’t see them. So she returned to her vehicle, flicked her audiobook on and tried not to get any more wound up at the massive inconvenience. Finally, after nearly forty minutes, the sheep filtered off the road and into one of the fields.