Page 2 of The Scot Who Loved Me (A Scots Through Time #3)

The next day, she had almost half a day completely free, so she spent the time sketching the wildlife, carefully capturing the sleek outline of an arctic fox she’d glimpsed darting silently across the ice.

After particularly grueling days, the other researchers would occasionally find tiny sketches tucked carefully under their pillows or taped discreetly to their bunks.

A simple, small reminder of the beauty amid the harsh isolation.

Harper never signed the sketches, but everyone knew who left them.

It was her way of bringing a bit of cheer to everyone.

The fluorescent lights of the conference room hummed with an intensity that made Harper’s skin prickle.

Three days had passed since their return from the Arctic back to civilization, and the preliminary findings meeting had been moved up unexpectedly.

She’d spent the night finalizing her notes, organizing the data that would support her theory of catastrophic permafrost formation.

She’d texted Sarah twice about meeting beforehand to coordinate their presentation. No response. Unusual, but Sarah had mentioned needing to brief the project director separately.

Dressed in a rarely worn blazer, she smoothed back a strand of mousy brown hair that had already escaped her attempt at a professional ponytail.

She’d never been comfortable in these corporate settings, preferring the field to the slippery politics of academia.

But with a discovery this significant, she needed to get the presentation right.

The door opened, and Harper looked up with relief. “Sarah, I was wondering if?—”

The words died on her tongue. Sarah wasn’t alone. Dr. Laurence Mitchell, the head of the Institute, entered alongside her, followed by two board members whose names Harper could never remember despite having been introduced multiple times.

“Dr. Ross,” he nodded coolly. “Please have a seat.”

Something in his tone made her stomach tighten. She sank into the nearest chair, rubbing her palms on her pants, watching as Sarah took the position at the head of the table rather than beside her. Sarah wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Before we begin,” Laurence said, sliding a folder across the table, “I’d like you to look at these findings.”

Harper opened the folder that Dr. Mitchell slid across the smooth, polished table.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the papers, feeling oddly detached from the cold certainty that had carried her confidently into this room.

She glanced at her friend once again, but Sarah still wouldn’t meet her eyes, her gaze fixed resolutely downward.

Confused, she leafed through the neatly typed pages, recognizing her data at once. The isotope ratios, the spectrometer readings, the crystalline structures she’d so painstakingly charted. She scanned the familiar columns of numbers, seeking the comforting order she’d spent last night perfecting.

But as she studied the graphs more closely, something felt off.

Her brow pulled tight, her pulse quickening slightly as she flipped pages back and forth, trying to pinpoint the source of her unease.

At first, the differences were subtle enough that she almost dismissed them as minor transcription errors or printing mishaps.

But no, she had always trusted her meticulous memory.

Harper knew her data intimately, and these numbers were skewed ever so slightly, just enough to cast doubt on the conclusions she’d drawn.

An icy chill settled at the base of her spine. Still, she fought against the instinctive suspicion climbing insistently through her chest. “These graphs...” she murmured slowly, tracing her finger along the altered lines. “They’re slightly different from my original findings.”

Sarah finally looked up, a faint crease of concern appearing between her eyebrows. “What do you mean? Those are the exact graphs you uploaded into our shared folder last night, aren’t they?”

Harper hesitated momentarily, doubting herself. “No, well, yes, but they’ve changed. These readings here,” she pointed to a specific cluster of data points, “they weren’t like this when I uploaded them.”

Dr. Mitchell cleared his throat, leaning forward with a carefully neutral expression. “Dr. Ross, are you suggesting someone altered your data without your knowledge?”

She swallowed, glancing back toward her colleague again, desperate for reassurance from the only ally she’d ever known. But Sarah’s gaze had shifted downward again, her shoulders tense.

“No, I—I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just a mistake.” Harper’s voice came out softer, uncertainty bleeding into her words.

Sarah let out a soft sigh, her expression one of practiced patience. “We discussed this. Remember when you showed me the original spectrometer readings? I told you then that some numbers seemed out of place, but you assured me they were accurate.”

Startled by Sarah’s calm, matter-of-fact tone, she blinked owlishly. “What? No, that’s not right. You agreed those numbers aligned perfectly with the catastrophic formation theory?—”

Sarah shook her head slowly, her tone gentle but firm. “That’s not how I recall our conversation.”

Harper’s pulse quickened, confusion turning into genuine alarm.

“But I have my original notes,” she insisted, opening her tablet and scrambling frantically to access her personal files.

Her hands shook as she pulled up the saved data, desperately scrolling through page after page of notes, searching for the documentation she’d meticulously uploaded.

Her breath caught sharply. Her carefully organized personal files, always precise, always backed up, had been rearranged. Numbers were subtly different, graphs altered just enough to make her groundbreaking conclusions seem flimsy, unreliable.

“This can’t be right,” she whispered, panic trembling at the edges of her voice. “Sarah, something’s wrong with my notes. Someone has altered them?—”

Dr. Mitchell cleared his throat again, his voice carrying the quiet authority of someone accustomed to final decisions.

“I authorized Dr. Owens to supply a separate set of the core samples that she personally handled in the field. These were independently re-tested by our senior lab technicians under controlled conditions yesterday.”

He tapped the folder in front of her, his expression carefully neutral but with a glint of impatience beneath the surface.

“Those validation tests perfectly match Dr. Owens’s submitted data.

Every number was consistent with her figures, not yours.

The Institute takes scientific integrity very seriously. ”

Harper swallowed hard, her throat tightening at the implication.

She glanced at Sarah, whose gaze finally lifted, offering a carefully constructed expression of sympathy.

Harper recognized the subtle triumph behind her friend’s gently furrowed brow, a masterful performance she’d seen between other academics, but had never thought her friend capable of.

“Sarah provided separate samples?” Harper echoed quietly, disbelief warring with grief. “Without my knowledge?”

Sarah nodded slowly, her voice gentle, almost apologetic.

“It was protocol. You were so immersed in documenting your findings, I didn’t want to bother you with something routine.

” She folded her hands calmly on the table, her expression carefully sympathetic.

“You’ve been under tremendous pressure. Isolation, exhaustion, maybe this was just an unintentional error on your part. ”

“No,” Harper shook her head vehemently, her mind spinning. “I’d never?—”

Dr. Mitchell interrupted gently, his tone authoritative and final. “Dr. Owens brought these concerns to me privately. When we independently verified her duplicate samples, her original readings clearly matched our expectations. Your data, Dr. Ross, appears compromised.”

“Wait.” She straightened, suddenly clear-eyed as she met Dr. Mitchell’s gaze head-on.

“Look at the spectrometer calibration logs and the timestamp on my original notes. Each entry has a unique digital signature, so it’s impossible for me to alter these without leaving evidence.

If you review the file histories, you’ll see exactly when my data was changed.

” She pushed her tablet firmly across the table toward him, her voice steady despite the tremor in her fingers.

“I’m asking you to verify this now. Please. ”

Harper looked to her friend and colleague, feeling the ground shift sickeningly beneath her feet. Still, she fought the wave of realization surging relentlessly forward. “Sarah, please,” she pleaded softly. “Tell them this is a mistake.”

Sarah met her gaze steadily, the carefully constructed mask slipping just enough for Harper to see the barest flicker of guilt or regret before it vanished again beneath cold professionalism. “I’m sorry. The facts speak for themselves.”

Her heart sank, the full, awful truth settling heavily within her chest. This betrayal hadn’t been instant, it had been methodical. Planned. Executed with precision. And she’d handed Sarah everything. Her trust, her work, her friendship.

Dr. Mitchell rose smoothly from his chair.

“Considering the irregularities that have occurred, and in appreciation for your significant contributions over the past few years, the Institute has decided to reassign you to a new position immediately, rather than terminating your employment. You’ll receive details from HR this afternoon. ”

He turned toward Sarah, smiling warmly. “Congratulations, Dr. Owens. I look forward to your groundbreaking theory at the International Geological Congress next month.”

The door closed softly behind them, leaving her alone, the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights echoing in her ears, the realization of Sarah’s betrayal unfolding in agonizing clarity.

Harper sat rooted to the chair, pulse pounding in her ears as the room seemed to shrink around her.

Betrayal writhed sickeningly in the pit of her stomach, anger and humiliation locked in a painful knot.

How could she have been so blind? Sarah, the one person she had allowed herself to trust, had meticulously unraveled years of painstaking work with a few carefully chosen lies.

Hot tears stung her eyes, but she forced them back, unwilling to grant Sarah or anyone else the satisfaction of seeing her crumble.

Every insecurity she’d ever harbored, that she was fundamentally unlovable, too strange and intense ever to be truly valued, echoed in a deep ache that spread through her chest. The betrayal cut deeper than professional sabotage, it reopened every wound she’d spent years trying to heal, leaving her raw, exposed, and devastatingly alone.