Page 61 of Kilts and Kisses at Highland Hall (Kilts and Kisses #1)

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Chapter One

Two suitcases, umpteen plastic carrier bags, and an oversized rucksack lined the hallway. Fiona stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around her son and squeezed.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind us not coming?’ she asked, releasing him and dropping down onto her heels. ‘I’d have to rearrange a few things, but if you give me half an hour to ring the office and send a few emails…’

‘Mum.’ Joseph placed his hand on her shoulders. ‘It’s fine. I’ve got this. Everything’s sorted. Dad’ll drop me at the station, and I’ll get a taxi at the other end.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Honestly. It’s not like I’m going away forever.’

‘Well it feels like it is.’

Casting an eye around the hall, she was filled with a mixture of pride, excitement, and sadness. Her baby was all grown up and heading off to university.

‘You’re sure you’ve got everything you need?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘I gave him a selection of pots and pans out of the kitchen too,’ Stephen appeared on the stairs, ‘and a couple of pieces of crockery and cutlery to take with him.’

‘You did?’ She turned, a frown crossing her eyebrows. ‘Which ones? Plates, that is? Nothing that was part of a set?’

‘I don’t think so. They were on their own.’

‘Well can I check before you take them? I don’t want to be left with a mismatched dinner service the next time we have people round to eat.’

Leaving her son, she crossed the hall into the dining room, where more bags overflowed.

‘Which one did you pack them in?’ she asked, to neither of the men in particular.

‘I can’t remember,’ Joseph replied. ‘One of the rucksacks, I think.’

Crouching down, she tugged at the zip of a red holdall.

‘This one?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Fiona, is that really necessary right now?’ Stephen’s frown was almost a mirror image of hers. ‘We need to get going.’

‘Is it necessary to check that we haven’t sent him off to university with part of my mother’s Anna Weatherley dinner set? Yes. What colour were the plates he gave you?’ She directed her question back to Joseph, while freeing the zip from whatever it had caught on.

‘Yellow maybe? Or blue?’

‘Fiona, please. I didn’t give him your mother’s china.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t remember what it looked like?’

‘I know what your mother’s Anna Weatherley looks like. And it hasn’t come out of the cupboard in over a year.’

The condescending edge to his tone rankled with her.

‘We used it the last time Kat and Paul came over for dinner,’ she corrected him.

‘Which was over a year ago.’

Stephen fixed his eyes on hers. She raced through her memory, trying to recall the date. It was so frustrating when he did this, pushed a point so far, especially when he was almost certainly wrong. And now she had to come across as the pedantic one.

‘No,’ she pointed a finger at him, with the smug satisfaction that came with always being right. ‘Your birthday. Eight months ago. We always use it on our birthdays.’

‘Not last year,’ Stephen replied, his face impassive. ‘I had to head to Swansea and you had a conference to set up, remember?’

‘And I ordered Chinese and you got pissed off at all the mess I left,’ Joseph added, obviously feeling the need to join in.

The memory clicked into her mind. ‘Of course, you did.’

How could she have forgotten? She’d arrived back home – after eighteen hours out of the house – feet throbbing, head pounding and desperate for a glass of wine.

What she’d found in her exhausted state was an entire worktop covered in congealing patches of sweet-and-sour sauce, with fried rice strewn everywhere and a general smell of grease in the air.

By the time she’d cleaned up and taken a shower to remove the stench of soy sauce and general grime of the day, it had been nearly three in the morning.

‘And now someone else will have to deal with your mess.’ She grinned.

‘So, definitely no Anna Weatherley involved then,’ Stephen said, the smallest of smirks playing on his lips. ‘Now, we have to get going. I do have a job to get to you know.’

‘If you’d rather I took him?’

‘No, it’s fine. I already said it’s fine. I’ve got something I need to sort out, anyway.’

The clock in the hall ticked loudly, as if to remind them that time was passing. With a long sigh, she pouted, rubbed her temples, then smiled. ‘I guess it’s a good job we’re going away next week.’ She placed her hand on her husband’s arm. ‘We probably both need the break.’

After seeing her smile fleetingly reciprocated by her husband, she turned back to Joseph. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? It’s Belgium. Chocolate and a spa hotel. It wouldn’t be too late to get you a room.’

‘And miss Fresher’s Week?’ he raised his eyebrows. ‘No chance. It’s fine. Just bring back a load of chocolate for when I come home with my washing.’

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

‘If you think I’m still doing that, you’ve got me confused with someone else’s mother.’

Joseph laughed and looped an arm around her shoulders.

‘How did you grow up so fast?’ she asked, causing him to laugh again.

He had such a sweet laugh, the same as he’d had as a child, only deeper.

It felt like only a week ago they’d been on holiday in the Seychelles, digging giant holes in the sand for him to bury himself in.

And now he was towering over her, making her feel both incredibly small and incredibly old at the same time.

‘Right, that’s enough sentimentality for one day.’ She blinked herself out of the moment. ‘You’ll miss your train, and your dad and I have got work.’

‘I’ll check the plates when I get there,’ he said, his arm still around her. ‘I’ll bring anything I shouldn’t have back with me next time I’m home.’

Nodding mutely, Fiona wrapped her arms around her son and breathed him in for one last time. He hadn’t even left, yet the house already felt emptier, as if part of its soul inhabited his belongings and now he was taking it with him.

‘You’re going to have so much fun,’ she said. ‘Just stay safe and work hard.’

‘I know.’

‘And it’s going to be quiet around here,’ she added.

‘It is,’ Stephen agreed, standing back and observing his son and wife. ‘It’s going to be very quiet indeed.’

* * *

The office was a comfortable six Tube stops away, with no line changes involved.

It was a little farther out of central London than she would have liked, but what she’d lost in location, she’d more than made up for in space.

And, despite being only a two-woman operation, space was paramount. Space and style.

It had taken more than a few tries to get the ambiance just right – and of course it all needed updating every couple of years to ensure it didn’t start to look tired – but right now, Omnivents, Fiona’s high-end, events-planning company, was at the top of its game.

A large, silver name plaque greeted clients at the entrance and, inside, a small table offered goodies, ranging from retro sweets to French macarons, depending on who they were expecting that day.

When not on offer, said sweets and treats were stored in the stock room, along with hundreds of empty presentation packs, over a thousand lanyards waiting to be filled, two portable mini projectors with built-in screens, and a whole host of other events paraphernalia. Hence the need for space.

On a second, small table, wooden diffusers heated essential oils, spilling citrus and lavender scents into the air, obscuring the unwanted smells that filtered through from the Lebanese restaurant downstairs.

This juxtaposition was a double-edged sword; smelling shawarma chicken floating up from the kebab rotisseries at 8a.m. each morning wasn’t exactly pleasant, but having a falafel wrap with a side of hummus and pita delivered in less than five minutes could be a godsend when she didn’t have time to leave the office for an actual lunch break.

In the twelve years since its inception, Omnivents had built up a client list that made her smile with pride every time she thought of it.

Of course, she was small fry compared to the business Stephen worked for, but then most businesses were.

(Alton Foods was run by the renowned entrepreneur John Orbiten and had been securely positioned in the top-five food producers in the UK for most of the eleven years Stephen had been there.) But, unlike her husband, who was at the beck and call of his boss twenty-four hours a day, Fiona answered to no one but herself. Omnivents was entirely her own.

During those years, it had gone through more than one reinvention.

Back when she’d first started, she had taken any jobs she could get her hands on: sweet sixteen parties, book launches, not to mention weddings.

God, she’d had fun with those weddings. But, somewhere along the road, despite the high-society christenings and elaborate twenty-firsts, she’d carved out a particular name for herself as the go-to person for bespoke, high-end corporate events.

Now, some of the biggest names in marketing and business used her when it came to launches, Christmas parties, charity galas, and, most of all, seminars.

Companies, she had discovered, liked nothing more than holding seminars.

‘Soon you’ll be earning more money than me,’ Stephen had joked a couple of years back. He’d only said it in passing but, to her, it had become a target to aim at, particularly after one of his own company events led to her scoring three new clients.