Page 35 of One Night in Glasgow (The Scottish Billionaires #15)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SEAN
I dropped into the leather booth, my body finally registering just how exhausted I was after a full day of presentations. The Philadelphia conference was going well, better than well, but all I could think about was how much I’d rather be in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with a certain redhead.
“Earth to McCrae,” Danny said, sliding a whisky across the polished wood table. “You’ve got that look again.”
“What look?” I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant.
“That ‘I’m physically in Philadelphia but mentally undressing a Scottish socialite’ look.” He clinked his glass against mine with a smirk. “It’s been your default facial expression since we left New York.”
I took a long sip, welcoming the burn. “That obvious, huh?”
“Obvious? Bro, you literally sighed her name during your lunch break today. I thought you were having a stroke. ”
The bar was filling up with the after-work crowd, a mix of suits and casual wear. Danny’s eyes tracked a blonde in a business suit who walked past our table. I couldn’t summon any interest in our usual people-watching game.
“I miss her,” I admitted, running my finger around the rim of my glass. “It’s been four days, and it feels like four fucking months.”
Danny leaned back, studying me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “You got it bad, don’t you?” There was no mockery in his voice, just genuine surprise.
“We’ve been texting non-stop,” I said, the corner of my mouth lifting into a smile I couldn’t suppress. “And Face Timing every night.”
“Oh, yeah?” Danny waggled his brows suggestively. “What kind of FaceTiming? Are we talking innocent goodnights or the kind that ends with shirts off?”
The memory from two nights ago comes back.
Beth, propped up on her pillows, wearing some ridiculously flimsy piece of black lace that left little to the imagination, her hair a wild tumble of red around her shoulders.
What had started as an innocent check-in had quickly escalated into something far more intimate, a raw connection that crackled through the phone screen. A possessive heat coiled low in my gut.
“That’s between me and Beth,” I said, my voice dropping to a lower, firmer register. But the slight smirk I couldn’t hide must have given me away.
“FaceTime sex! I knew it!” Danny crowed, slapping the table and drawing annoyed glances from a nearby couple.
“Our little Sean is growing up. Getting the full visual experience, huh?” He perked up, leaning in with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye.
“So? What was she wearing? Or was she just all out there on display for you? ”
My smile vanished instantly. I leaned forward, leveling a look at him that was anything but playful.
“Danny.” My tone was quiet, but it cut through his frat-boy enthusiasm like a knife.
“Drop it. What Beth wears—or doesn’t wear—is for my benefit.
Not for your imagination. We’re not talking about her like that. ” I held his gaze. “End of discussion.”
Danny’s grin faltered, and he had the good sense to look slightly chastened.
He raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Alright, alright. Understood. Subject dropped.” He cleared his throat.
“All I’m saying is, you’ve clearly got it bad.
Maybe you should send her something. Let her know you’re thinking about her. ”
“Like what?”
“Flowers? Women love that romantic shit.”
My jaw clenched involuntarily. “Someone already sent her flowers. Anonymously.”
“What the hell? When?”
“Right before I left for Philly.” I drained my whisky, the memory souring my mood further. “She thought they were from me at first. Made things pretty awkward when I had to tell her they weren’t.”
“Any clue who sent ‘em?” Danny asked, his eyes narrowing like he was already plotting to track down the mystery sender and have a not-so-friendly chat.
I had my suspicions. “Probably that Garrett asshole she works with,” I growled, my fingers tightening around the empty whisky glass like I wished it were his throat instead.
“That gala prick that was with her the day we first saw Beth?”
“Yeah. He’s been sniffing around her like a dog in heat since the first fucking day.
Making up bullshit reasons to be in her space, watching her with those beady little eyes when he thinks nobody’s looking.
” The thought of Garrett with his perfect hair and his fancy suits made me grind my teeth.
“He keeps dangling this gala committee position in front of her, but never actually lets her do any meaningful work.”
Danny frowned. “Damn, bro. You think he’s trying to…you know, get her?”
“I think that slick bastard wants to fuck her six ways from Sunday. Probably jerks off to the thought of it every night in his penthouse apartment with his Italian sheets.” I signaled to the bartender for another round.
“And that overdressed jackass will be there with her at the gala while I’m stuck here in fucking Philly.
” I slammed my glass down harder than I meant to.
“So don’t fucking send flowers,” Danny conceded, throwing his hands up like he’d just suggested I adopt a pet alligator instead of making a simple romantic gesture. “How about jewelry? Women go crazy for that shiny shit, bro.”
“Nah,” I said finally. “I’ll think of something.”
“What about a fruit basket?” Danny suggested, his face completely serious until I looked at him incredulously. Then he burst out laughing.
“Yeah, right, dickhead. Like fruit says, ‘I’m thinking about you and missing you with every fucking breath I take.’”
“Hey, don’t knock it. Nothing says, ‘I care,’ like a pineapple.”
We were both laughing when Danny’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, his expression shifting to something more serious.
“I gotta take this,” he said, already sliding out of the booth. “I have to keep the money flow coming in.”
I nodded, finishing my whisky and signaling for the check. “ I’ll head out for a walk. Clear my head a bit. Meet you back at the hotel at six for dinner?”
Danny was already walking away, phone pressed to his ear, but he gave me a thumbs up over his shoulder.
Outside, Philadelphia greeted me with a perfect early summer evening. The sun was beginning its slow descent, casting a golden glow over the city’s historic buildings and modern skyscrapers. I walked aimlessly, hands in my pockets, letting my mind drift back to Beth.
God, she was fucking beautiful. Like, the kind of beautiful that leaves you breathless.
Not just in the obvious ways, though there was plenty of that, but in how she laughed, how she got this tiny crease between her brows when she was thinking hard about something, how her eyes lit up when she talked about her work with the charity.
The Glasgow debacle had been a mess of tabloid headlines and manufactured outrage. But New York... stripped of all that noise, I was getting to know the actual woman, not the caricature. And it was messing with my head in the best possible way.
What was getting to me wasn’t just the obvious, and Christ, the physical connection between us was a force of nature.
No, it was the quieter moments. The way an ordinary conversation with her over coffee could make the entire city fade into background noise.
The way my focus, usually scattered across a dozen professional commitments, would narrow to just her.
It wasn’t that she fixed something broken in me.
It was that she tuned me to a frequency I didn’t know I possessed.
Before Beth, my life was a well-produced keynote speech: polished, effective, and on message.
With her, it felt like an unscripted, live performance, with all the risk and raw energy that came with it.
It made everything else feel like a rehearsal .
No doubt, I was falling in love with her.
The thought didn’t land like a lightning bolt from a clear sky.
It settled in my bones with a quiet, undeniable certainty.
It wasn’t a shocking revelation. It felt more like finally admitting a fundamental truth I’d been subconsciously aware of from the moment I saw her across that crowded pub; a truth I was no longer willing, or able, to ignore.
A storefront window caught my eye, filled with antiques. On pure instinct, I stepped inside, the small bell above the door announcing my arrival. The shop was a curated maze of furniture, paintings, and history.
“Can I help you find something?” A woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and silver hair appeared from behind a bookshelf.
“Just browsing,” I said, but then I saw it: a music box sitting on a shelf near the register. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, made of polished wood with delicate inlaid flowers on the lid. “Actually, could I see that?”
The woman carefully handed it to me. I opened the lid, and a soft, intricate melody played, something classical I couldn’t quite place.
“Debussy,” the woman said, noticing my expression. “‘Clair de Lune.’ One of my favorites.”
My mind flashed instantly to Beth, to one of our late-night talks where she’d confessed she used to take piano lessons as a kid, a lonely girl at a grand piano in her parents’ cavernous Glasgow manor. This wasn’t just a gift. It was a message. It was a hundred times better than flowers.
“I’ll take it,” I said, my decision absolute as I pictured her face when she opened it.
The woman smiled warmly and began carefully wrapping the music box in soft tissue paper, placing it into a small, sturdy box perfect for shipping. “It’s a beautiful piece,” she said. “A wonderful gift for someone special.”
“She is,” I confirmed, pulling out my wallet. “Do you ship? To New York?”
“Of course, dear,” she said, pulling a shipping form from under the counter. “We ship everywhere. Just fill this out with the recipient’s name and address, and we’ll have it on its way tomorrow morning.”
I took the pen she offered and started to write, my hand steady.
Name: Beth MacLeod.
My pen hovered over the next line. Address... I pictured the brownstone in Brooklyn, the amber glow of the streetlight on the steps where I’d kissed her. Then I pictured her at the gala tomorrow night. Alone. With Garrett standing next to her, playing my part, his hand on the small of her back.
A music box, arriving in a cardboard box a day or two late, suddenly felt like a hollow apology. A token. It was a beautiful message, yes, but it wasn’t the right one. A man doesn’t send a gift to do a job he should be doing himself.
I set the pen down on the counter with a quiet click.
The woman looked up from taping the box, her expression questioning. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” I said, a new, cold certainty settling in my gut. I slid the blank form back across the counter to her. “Actually, never mind the shipping.”
I picked up the small, neatly packaged box, its weight feeling solid and purposeful in my hand now.
“I’ll deliver it myself.”