Page 37 of Summer in the Scottish Highlands (The Scottish Highlands #5)

Jake put his hands on the back of the camp chair.

‘Is this why you couldn’t come and pick us up? You were doing all this?’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. I trawled around Aviemore to make a table booking for this evening …’

‘You were still going to book a table after we rowed?’

‘Yes, and then make a massive, grovelling apology, and hope you accepted said apology, and we could still have our date.’

Faye looked at the camp table. ‘What happened to the restaurant meal?’

Jake frowned. ‘Fully booked. I couldn’t get a table for love nor money.

Although there was one restaurant that had had a call to cancel, but then just as I was about to book, would you believe, the customer called back to confirm they could come after all, as they’d managed to sort out babysitting. ’

Faye raised her eyebrows and looked towards the house.

‘So, when I couldn’t get a restaurant booking, I texted you that I was going back to Gayle’s.

I’d had an idea. I still wanted the date, and to make it extra-special, but honestly, I didn’t think it would take that long to put up a couple of tents.

Marty and Nick pitched in to help, but these old tents are as fiddly as hell to put up. ’

‘The tents are your dad’s – aren’t they? The ones you used to use on your camping trips when you were a child.’

‘Yes, but we only took one with us, which we shared. After the fun and games of setting them up, now I know why.’ Jake shook his head.

They were also heavy to carry, which was another reason they would not have taken both.

‘I knew they’d be in the house somewhere.

I found them in the basement, along with the camp beds.

When I heard Natty was bringing a friend for a sleepover, I set up an extra camp bed, and Nick had two sleeping bags, and Gayle had a couple too.

She supplied the fairy lights. The old camp table and the lamps are my dad’s.

Before I set off back to Gayle’s, I went shopping for ingredients for the meal. ’

Faye stared again at the table. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t believe he’d done all this for her.

‘Oh, god. I knew it. You hate this. I shouldn’t have … you told me you didn’t want to go camping. I should have listened. Look, please have the meal with me, out here in the garden. But we don’t have to sleep in the tents.’

‘ Wild camping. I said I didn’t fancy wild camping. I think I’d freak out, us being all alone in the middle of nowhere in a tent. But this …’ Faye still couldn’t believe he’d done all this. ‘After we argued, I thought …’ Faye trailed off, avoiding his gaze.

‘You thought I’d packed up my stuff and gone back to London.’

Faye nodded.

‘Look, about that. I’ve made a decision. I’m not going back to the Ross Corporation – not now, not ever.’

‘But you made a promise to Marcus,’ Faye said as she took a seat at the table .

Jake took a seat opposite her. ‘Yeah, in the heat of the moment. In hindsight, it was foolish. I haven’t worked there in months.

Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem. I’ve worked there all my life.

But the problem I could foresee was getting sucked back into that life and finding it difficult to leave again. ’

That was exactly what Faye had been afraid of. She didn’t say anything; she just listened.

‘Someone else will just have to step up and mind the shop, so to speak, while Marcus sorts himself out. There are many very capable people who could step into Marcus’s shoes for a time.’

‘What about Derrick?’ Faye asked. Jake had told her about the young employee in whom he’d seen great potential.

So much so, that he’d done something quite unprecedented and very controversial within the Ross Corporation.

Jake had given the young boy from a rough London council estate his apartment, the one reserved for the likes of Marcus and Jake, who had worked their way up to the top of the corporation, just one step down from William, the CEO.

‘Yes, I was thinking of him, but he’s got a way to go yet. He’s only eighteen.’

‘Still at night school, doing his law degree?’

‘Yes, that’s him. He’s in no way ready to head up the corporation. But he will be one day.’

‘But he was ready for that apartment.’

‘You know why I did that.’

Of course Faye knew. It wasn’t just the potential he saw in Derrick, but the fact that one day he might not make it into work. He had no protection on the estate. He stood out because he’d refused to join a gang – a gang, incidentally, that could protect him.

‘You know you saved him, and his brothers.’

‘I know.’

‘How is Derrick’s mum settling in?’

‘Yeah, she took some persuading to take the apartment.’

Faye knew Derrick’s mum was a nurse, and a single parent trying to raise three boys and keep them off the streets.

She’d been wary at first. Why wouldn’t she be after finding out her son had been given a luxury apartment that he didn’t yet deserve?

Jake had convinced her that Derrick would earn his place in the corporation soon enough, and Faye remembered he’d mentioned that he had hopes for Derrick’s younger brothers too.

He was imagining a future in which Derrick and his brothers, much like Marcus and Jake, were heading up the corporation.

He hoped that one day Marcus might pass the baton to Derrick.

He’d said that in Derrick he felt the future of the business was assured.

‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ said Jake, pouring the wine into the two glasses.

‘The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I played right into Marcus’s hands.

He wants me back. Aubrey and William want me back – for good.

I know they think this teaching malarkey is just me having a breakdown …

but that’s just not true. This is me. This is my life, here …

with you and Natty. Well, not here, here, anywhere you are.

Although it would be rather nice if—’ Jake halted.

‘If …?’ She caught him looking over the hedge in the direction of The Lake House.

‘Oh, never mind. I’m just making the point that I’m never going back to my old life. No matter what happens, I am not going back.’

Faye stared at him. She knew what he meant when he said, no matter what happens.

He was talking about Marcus. She bet when Marcus found out, he’d tell Jake he wasn’t going to rehab unless he came back.

It was emotional blackmail – pure and simple.

Faye knew how close they had been – best friends, as close as brothers, before they had fallen out over the accident.

But Faye thought Jake was doing the right thing, distancing himself from Marcus and the Ross Corporation – not just for her and Natty’s sake, but for his wellbeing too.

Jake was right; there would be pressure for him leave his life with them behind and return to the family business for good.

But still she worried about the ramifications. About Marcus.

‘When are you going to tell Marcus your decision?’

Jake put the bottle down and passed Faye a glass of wine. ‘I already have.’

Faye was about to raise the glass to her lips. She put the glass down. ‘You’ve told him already?’

‘Of course. I’ve also told him I’m in Scotland right now, on holiday.’

‘How did he take it?’ Faye asked nervously.

Jake shrugged. ‘Who knows.’

‘But what did he say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

Jake sighed and got his mobile phone out of the pocket of his jeans. ‘Nope, no reply to my text.’

‘You didn’t speak to him?’

Jake shook his head and looked at her sheepishly. ‘Look, Marcus can be very persuasive. I just thought if I spoke to him, I might give in. Believe me, it’s better this way. Although I know you like Marcus, and you think I’ve done the wrong thing not speaking to him.’

Faye thought no such thing. She knew Jake.

He always put everyone else first. It was just how he was.

He was right when he said he’d probably give in and end up back at the Ross Corporation.

This trip, ignoring Marcus’s texts and calls so he could come away, was probably the first time he’d ever done that – put himself first. And it was all for her.

He does love me, thought Faye. She reached across the table and took his hand.

‘If he calls – don’t answer that phone.’

Jake grinned. ‘I won’t.’

They stared at each other for a long moment. ‘You really thought I was packing up and returning to London without you and Natty?’

Faye dropped her eyes from his gaze, embarrassed.

‘Yeah. It was so stupid; I realise that now. But all my fears about you leaving us and returning to your old life just surfaced, and I convinced myself that was the case.’ She added in a small voice.

‘I even told Natty. I wasn’t going to. I was going to lie and say you’d been called away, back to London.

But it just came out.’ Faye looked up at Jake.

‘Oh, she cried, Jake. It was terrible. She was beside herself at the thought that you’d left us. ’

Jake was still holding her hand. He squeezed tightly.

‘Patrick warned me you wouldn’t commit to a long-term relationship.

I understood. Yousaf had let you down, you and Natty, and I know you didn’t want to let another man into Natty’s life who she’d get emotionally attached to and might let her down again if things didn’t work out.

So, you kept your relationships at a distance. ’

It was true. As far as Faye was concerned, she’d been going out having fun, having sex, and she wasn’t hurting anybody – least of all Natty. ‘Things were working,’ she said. Or I assumed they were , she thought. ‘And then you came along.’

‘Yes. I came along and threw a spanner in the works, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, and do you know what that spanner was?’ Faye asked .

Jake squeezed her hand. ‘I think I do. At least I hope I do.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Love. You fell in love, didn’t you?’

‘It wasn’t meant to happen.’