Michelle Conder - Billionaire's Wife On Paper / Their Royal Wedding Bargain

‘Is anyone th-there?’ Her voice echoed in the silence, her heart thumping so loudly she could hear it booming in her ears. Who would be coming up to the north tower at this time of day? Logan, the new heir to the estate, was working abroad in Italy, and last time Layla had heard, Logan’s younger brother Robbie was doing a casino crawl in the US. Fear crept up her spine with ice-cube-clad feet, her breathing coming to a halt when a tall figure materialised out of the shadows.

‘Layla?’ Logan McLaughlin said, with a heavy frown. ‘What are you doing up here?’

Layla clasped her hand against her pounding chest, sure her heart was going to punch its way out of her body and land at his Italian-leather-covered feet. ‘You didn’t half give me a fright. Aunt Elsie told me you wouldn’t be back until November. Aren’t you supposed to be working in Tuscany this month?’

She hadn’t seen him since his grandfather’s funeral in September. And she figured he hadn’t seen her even then. Layla had tried to offer her condolences a couple of times before and after his grandfather’s service and at the wake, but she’d been busy helping her great-aunt with the catering and Logan had left before she could get a chance to speak to him in private.

But the upstairs-downstairs thing had always coloured her relationship with the McLaughlins. Logan and his brother and grandfather were landed gentry, privileged from birth, coming from a long line of aristocratic ancestors. Layla’s great-aunt and her, by default, were downstairs. The staff who were meant to stay in the background and go about their work with quiet dedication, not share intimate chit-chats with their employers.

Layla could never quite forget she was the interloper, the charity case—only living there out of Logan’s grandfather’s pity for a homeless orphan. It made her keep a prickly and prideful rather than polite distance.

Logan scraped a hand through his hair as if his scalp was feeling too tight for his head. ‘I postponed my trip. I have some business to see to here first.’ His dark blue gaze swept over the dust-sheeted furniture, the crease in his forehead deepening. ‘Why are you doing this? I thought Robbie was going to hire someone to see to it?’

Layla turned to pick up one of the folded dust sheets, flapping it open and then laying it over a mahogany table with cabriole legs. Hundreds of disturbed dust motes rose in the air in a galaxy of activity. ‘He did see to it—by hiring me. Not that I want to be paid or anything.’ She leaned down to tuck the edge of the dust sheet closer around the legs of the table and flicked him a glance. ‘You do realise this is my job now? Cleaning, sorting, organising. I have a small team of people working for me and all. Didn’t your grandfather tell you? He gave me a loan to get my business started.’

One brow came up in a perfect arc. ‘A loan?’ There was a note of surprise—or was it cynicism?—in his tone.

Layla pursed her lips and planted her hands on her hips like she was channelling a starchy nineteenth-century governess. ‘A loan I paid back, with interest.’ What did he think she was? An elder abuser? Exploiting an old man dying of cancer with requests for money she had no intention of paying back? She might share the genes of people like that but she didn’t share their morals. ‘I wouldn’t have agreed to the loan otherwise.’

His navy-blue eyes narrowed. ‘Seriously? He offered you a loan?’

Layla moved past him to pack up her cleaning basket. ‘For your information, I have never taken your grandfather’s largesse for granted.’

Feather duster. Tick . Soft polishing cloths. Tick .

‘He allowed me to live here with my great-aunt rent-free and for that I will be grateful for ever.’

She shoved the furniture polish bottle in amongst the other cleaning products in her basket. She had become closer to the old man in his last months of life, coming to understand the gruff exterior of a proud man who had done his best to keep his family together after repeated tragedy.

Logan let out a long breath, still frowning like he didn’t know any other way to look at her. Story of her life. One look at her scarred leg and her limp and that’s what most people did—frowned. Or asked intrusive questions she refused on principle to answer. Layla never talked about what had happened to her leg, not in any detail that is. ‘A car crash’ was her stripped-down answer. She never said who was driving or why they were driving the way they were, or who else had been injured or killed.

Who wanted to be reminded of the day that had changed her life for ever?

‘Why didn’t he just give you the money?’ Logan asked.

Layla’s old friend pride steeled her gaze and tightened her mouth. ‘Oh, you mean because he felt sorry for me?’

Logan’s covert glance at her left leg told her all she needed to know. Just like everyone else, he saw her damaged leg first and her later—if at all. Layla was fiercely proud of how she had made something of herself in spite of impossible odds. She didn’t want to be seen as the orphaned girl with the limp, but the gutsy woman with gumption, drive, ambition and resourcefulness.

‘No.’ His tone was weighted. ‘Because he was a wealthy man and you’re practically family.’ He moved away to look at some of the boxes she’d packed earlier. He peeled back the cardboard flaps of one box and took out a leather-bound book, fanning through the pages, his features set in lines of deep thought.

Practically family? Was that how he saw her? As a surrogate sister or distant cousin? At six feet four with a lean and rangy build, dark brown loosely styled wavy hair, a chiselled Lord Byron jaw and deep blue eyes the colour of a Highland tarn, it would be a crying waste if Logan McLaughlin were her brother or cousin.

It was a crying waste to women the world over that he hadn’t dated since the tragic death of his fiancée Susannah.

Not that he would ever date Layla. No one had ever dated her…well, not since she was a teenager. And she deliberately tried not to think of that one and only date and the excruciating embarrassment it had entailed. From that day on, she had decided her career plans would always be more important. More important than trying to go to parties or nightclubs in short dresses and heels that drew even more attention to her leg. More important than being told by a guy she wasn’t good enough. Could never be good enough.

Logan closed the book with a little snap and placed it back on top of the others. He turned to look at her.

Yep, with a frown .

‘Where will you and your aunt go if this place is sold?’

Layla’s eyes widened and her chest developed a tight, can’t-take-another-breath ache. ‘ Sold? You’re selling Bellbrae?’ She could think of no bigger tragedy…well, she could because she’d lived through one big hell of a tragedy, but still. Selling Bellbrae was way up there on the list. Who would she be without the shelter of Bellbrae watching over her? Her identity had been formed here, her sense of security and safety honed within the fortress-like walls of the centuries-old castle. ‘How could you do that, Logan? Your grandfather left it to you as his eldest male heir. Your dad is buried here along with your grandparents and generations of ancestors. You surely don’t need to sell it for the money?’

His expression went as blank as one of the dust sheets on the furniture, but his tone was jaded. ‘It’s not about money. I am unwilling to fulfil the terms of my grandfather’s will.’

Layla frowned like she was in competition with him for Best Frown in Show. ‘Terms? What terms?’

He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and moved to look out of one of the mullioned windows, his back turned to her. Layla could see the tension in his shoulders even through his clothes. The breadth of his shoulders had always secretly fascinated her.