Page 60 of One Night in Glasgow (The Scottish Billionaires #15)

My stomach gave a nervous little lurch. I took the envelope. The handwriting was elegant, old-fashioned, and entirely unfamiliar. I excused myself, finding a quiet bench in a secluded corner of the garden, the scent of roses hanging heavy in the warm air.

With trembling fingers, I tore open the seal.

Inside were two letters. The first was from a solicitor in Edinburgh, its language cold and formal.

It informed me, with regret, of the passing of my Great-Aunt Eilidh MacLeod, my grandfather’s youngest sister, who had passed away peacefully in her sleep two months ago.

The funeral, the letter stated, had already taken place.

A pang of sadness hit me for a life I’d barely known.

I remembered her vaguely from childhood.

A quiet woman with kind eyes and a mischievous smile who always smelled faintly of lavender and old books.

The family had always referred to her as their “eccentric,” the one who had eschewed a society marriage to live a quiet life on her own terms on the coast. The family’s other black sheep.

The second letter was handwritten on delicate, pale blue stationery, the ink a little faded. It was from Aunt Eilidh herself .

My Dearest Elisabeth,

If you are reading this, then I have embarked on my next great adventure, and I hope it involves fewer judgmental relatives and considerably more dancing than my last one.

I imagine you might be surprised to hear from me after all these years.

We didn’t know each other well, a regret I carry with a quiet sigh.

But, my dear girl, I have watched you from afar more than you perhaps realized.

Your spirit, that fiery creativity and fierce independence you possess, always reminded me so much of myself at your age.

A spirit that, I fear, your immediate family sometimes struggled to nurture, much as mine did with me back in the day.

When I heard, through our dear Mr. Douglas (a more loyal friend one could not ask for), of the rather challenging predicament you found yourself in, my heart truly went out to you.

I know your mother, in her own way, believes she’s acting in what she perceives as your best interest, but sometimes the best intentions can feel like the tightest of cages.

I simply wanted you to have a chance, Elisabeth, a real chance to breathe, to find yourself, to discover the remarkable strength I always sensed in you, far away from the shadows and stifling expectations that can be so heavy in a family like ours.

It was I who asked Mr. Douglas to arrange your passage to New York and to ensure you were well taken care of during your stay.

Please, think of it not as charity, but as a small gift from an old woman who recognized a kindred spirit and believed in the untamed fire she saw in your eyes.

A little nudge towards the sunshine you deserved.

Sometimes, my dear, you have to break free to find out who you really are.

I sincerely hope that time away gave you the space you needed to heal and to grow. I hope, with all my heart, that you found happiness. Live boldly. Never let anyone, not even a well-meaning family, extinguish that wonderful, wild spark of yours.

With much affection and fond memories of a little girl with paint on her nose, Your Great-Aunt, Eilidh.

Tears were streaming down my face by the time I finished reading, blurring her elegant script.

This quiet, almost forgotten woman had been my secret champion, my guardian angel.

She hadn’t just seen the “wild child”; she had seen the “fiery spirit.” Her belief in me, her quiet intervention, had set me on the path that led me out of my darkest moment and, ultimately, to Sean, to this new, incredible life .

Sean found me on the bench, clutching the letter, my shoulders shaking. I couldn’t find the words, just handed him the delicate blue pages. He read it slowly, his arm wrapping around me, holding me tight as sobs I was holding back finally broke free.

When he finished, his own eyes were suspiciously misty. “Wow, Beth,” he whispered, his voice thick. “She was your Fury.”

I laughed through my tears, the comparison so absurd and yet so perfect. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I guess she was.”

Later that evening, after the last of the family had departed and a comfortable quiet had settled over the house, Sean and I sat on the back porch of his new home, a sleek, modern house nestled in the hills overlooking the valley.

The sky was a vast, inky canvas studded with a million stars, more than I had ever seen in the city-lit skies of Glasgow.

We sat in silence for a while, just breathing in the cool night air, our shoulders pressed together.

“I’m proud of you, Beth,” Sean said softly, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Not just for what you did in Glasgow, for standing up to your parents and to Stewart. But for everything. For taking a chance on New York. For walking into that foundation every day. For becoming this incredible, strong woman who isn’t afraid to fight for what she deserves. ”

My throat tightened with emotion. I just nodded, unable to speak.

He took my hand, his thumb tracing gentle circles on my palm.

“I have something for you,” he said, his voice unusually solemn.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out…

not a box. Something small, that glinted in the soft light from the house.

He opened his palm, revealing a delicate silver bracelet with an intricate Celtic knot pattern .

My breath caught as recognition hit me with the force of a physical blow.

“Is that…”

“Yours,” he finished, his voice a low murmur. “You left it behind that night in Glasgow. I found it under the bed the morning after you disappeared and left me that cryptic note.”

I reached for it with trembling fingers, memories flooding back. The bracelet had been a gift from my grandmother on my sixteenth birthday. I had thought I’d lost it for good. “You kept it,” I whispered. “All this time.”

“I’ve carried it with me ever since,” he admitted. “At first, I thought I might run into you again and return it. Then, after everything happened… I kept it as a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

His eyes met mine, intense and sincere. “Of the real you. The woman I met that night. Not the tabloid caricature, not the daughter of a tycoon. Just Beth. The sharp, witty, beautiful woman who was brave enough to talk to a stranger in a pub. This bracelet… it represents our beginning. The chaos, the passion, the mess. But it was real. And it was ours.”

He took the bracelet and gently fastened it around my wrist. The cool metal felt like it belonged there, like a piece of my past I had thought was lost forever had finally been returned to me.

“But this,” he said, his voice dropping even lower as he reached into his pocket again, “this is for our future.”

He pulled out a small, black velvet box. My heart stopped. He slid off the bench and knelt on one knee before me, opening the box to reveal a stunning, elegant engagement ring. A single, perfect diamond that seemed to capture all the light in the world.

“Beth MacLeod,” he began, his voice shaky with emotions.

“ Our story didn’t start like a fairytale.

It started with a one-night stand and a tabloid scandal.

We have fought, we have fled, we have made mistakes.

But we found our way back to each other.

” He took my free hand, his grip warm and steady.

“The bracelet is for our past, a reminder of the crazy, beautiful journey that brought us here. But this ring… this is for our future. A future built on truth, on trust, and on a love that fought through hell and won.”

His green eyes, full of so much love it made my chest ache, locked with mine.

“I love you more than I have words for. I love your fire, your wit, your strength, your beautiful, complicated soul. I don’t want to be your hero, Beth.

I want to be your partner. Your team. Your family.

For the rest of our lives. Will you marry me? ”

Tears of pure, unadulterated joy were streaming down my face now. This wasn’t a transaction. This wasn’t an arrangement. This was real. This was love.

“Yes,” I whispered, my voice cracking with all the emotion I could no longer contain. “Yes, Sean. Of course, yes.”

He slid the ring onto my finger, a perfect fit.

He stood, pulling me into his arms, and kissed me, a deep, profound kiss that sealed a thousand promises.

We were two people who hadn’t just found love but had found the best versions of ourselves in each other.

And as I stood there, wrapped in his arms, with my past on my wrist and my future on my finger, I knew, with an absolute certainty that filled every corner of my soul, that our forever was just beginning.