Highland Secrets (English Edition) (10 page)

The priest smiled. “Are you scared of heights, my love?”

“I have to admit, being up here is making me feel a little nervous.”

“You don’t have to be nervous. Fear of heights doesn’t really exist. Being scared of heights is just a fear of falling.
And as long as you remain stood there and don’t get too close to this hole”, he pointed to the opening beneath the bell, “it isn’t possible for you to fall. And I’m sure Adam wouldn’t allow anything to happen to you.”, said Priest Jenkins with a broad grin. Adam strengthened the grip he had on me a little and let his arm drop.

“What can I do for you?”

“You see this rope? A new one needs to be attached.”

“Hasn’
t the bell sounded automatically for a while now?”, asked Adam broaching the subject again with a frown on his face. He looked as if he couldn’t believe that the priest had got us up here just because of this.

“You’re right. However, please don’t call me old-fashioned, but I don’t trust the new-fangled tec
hnology. What would happen if it stopped working, then I wouldn’t be able to sound the bell.”

I looked at the rope that was attached to the bell and then at the chasm down below and I immediately
felt sick at the thought that Adam could fall down there.

“Where is the new rope?”

“Behind you.”

Adam
turned around to pick up the rope that was lying on the floor, then looked at me concerned, moved me further away from the chasm and stroked me reassuringly on my naked forearm. I briefly closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Just a few minutes, I reassured myself, but all I wanted to do was to grab Adam’s arm in desperation so that he didn’t leave me standing here alone.

“Don’t worry, it won’t take very long”, Adam whispered and put his hand on my cheek. I nodded tentatively and I just about noticed the priest looking at us.

Adam grabbed the worn-out rope of the church tower bell, while the priest headed towards me. “I’ll protect you in the meantime”, he said quietly.

I looked at Adam who was just exchanging the old rope for the new one. “Thank you.”

The priest took my hand and stroked it. “Yes, you are something special, I can see it in you. And Adam has also noticed that. I haven’t seen Adam treat a woman respectfully for a long time or try to protect them.”

I looked at the priest with a frown on my face. “You’re very much mistaken. He can’t stand me.”

Priest Jenkins just shrugged his shoulders and looked contentedly at Adam as he tied the new rope to the bell. When Adam moved away from the bell, it made a quiet gong sound. The rope was still shaking a little, so Adam then tied it to the holder that was provided.

“Are we finished now?” He looked at the priest defiantly. Had he heard what he had said to
me. My stomach started to get tighter. I hoped that he hadn’t heard it.

Adam also took my hand when going down the steps and walked in front of me to give me the feeling of security. The fact that he did
that, warmed my heart. I hadn’t believed that he could be so caring. Maybe that was just part of being a true playboy. He had to win over the women somehow. And his good looks alone couldn’t help him there. It flattered me at least that he took care of me.

Lanterns
, chains of lights and a mixture of voices, music and the sound of various rumors greeted us at the harbor. Adam had left the car in the small lane next to the church and we had walked to the harbor. This gave me the opportunity to see a little bit more of Dunvegan.

Large and small fishing boats were anchored, a yacht had also been left here in error and a small passenger ship could also be seen.
There was a sign offering harbor tours and a trip past one of the seal islands. A trip to see the dolphins living off the coast was also part of the package.

“Let’s go on one of those trips”, I suggested in excitement. Dolphins! Can you imagine it? I had loved dolphins since I was a young girl, but which girl didn’t love dolphins?

“Then we should take a tour now, because when it gets dark you won’t be able to see very much.” Adam nodded in the direction of a waiting ferry and took my hand. I was amazed at the twinkle in his eyes. He was almost jolly and I hadn’t seen him like this before. I followed him over the jetty, Adam purchased tickets for us and then we sat down at one of the tables on the sun deck. The ferry was designed like a restaurant. Even before the anchor was aweigh, a waiter had come to us and asked if we needed anything. It sounded like only seafood was on offer. I wasn’t a food connoisseur which is why I chose pasta with salmon. Muscles, as Adam ordered, were too unusual for me

“
How much longer do you think you’ll stay?”, Adam enquired after we had got the small talk over with.

I looked at him quizzically. Did he want me out of his house? “About another two weeks, then everything should be complete.” Was that a semblance of disappointment I had seen on his face?
“Do you want to get rid of me so desperately?”

My heart was pounding and I was finding it difficult to get rid of the increasing lump in my throat. I had known that he didn’t want me here. He had made no secret of that right from the start, but couldn’t he at least act as if he could put up with me?

“No. I just wanted to know”, he answered concisely and started picking at the food on his plate.

“Do you eat muscles often?” I wanted
the relaxed atmosphere back again, so I changed the subject. “Have you ever found a pearl in one?”

Adam
laughed softly and looked up. “No.” He put the fork in his mouth, looked around at the deck and then looked at me seriously. “Are you only doing it because of the money?”

I was alarmed and let my fork drop on my plate. “What?
”, I squealed. Oh. Did he think I was like his ex-wife and only in it for the money? I took a deep breath. “It’s not like that. You’re mistaken. Of course I need the money. I am not exactly swimming in it. My parents only left me a little bit of money behind and that has all gone towards my studies. I don’t even have enough in my account to cover my costs for the next month.”

Adam looked amazed and looked at me with raised eyebrows. I didn’t want him to look at me like that. I wasn’t like
his ex-wife, but I must have seemed like that in his eyes. I had ultimately come here to undertake work that was completely overpaid and in his opinion it was just an attempt by his father to tie him down to a woman.

“I know you think I’m like her, but that’s not true. Ok, I could have financed my studies by working somewhere as a waitress. But I was brought up differently. Driven by success. My grandmother who I grew up with only paid attention to me when I was successful. It wasn’
t even enough when I did my best. The only thing that mattered was success. My grandmother punished me for my whole life with ignorance and only gave me recognition when I was good at something. And at some point, I started to work for these little moments of her attention. I was always completely focused on achieving my and her goals”, I said sadly.

That must have sounded quite pathetic to Adam and as if I was a person without much self-confidence. If he thought that, he would have been right. I was that kind of person.

It was inconceivable for me to work while I was studying. As time went by, this focused way of working towards an objective became second nature to me and I didn’t want to disappoint her. And my work is important to me, not just because of my grandmother. I have always wanted to restore paintings. My mother also did this. So that’s why all my money went on my studies and now I don’t have a job.” I sighed quietly. “I am not greedy at all. It would also be sufficient if you just paid me the true value of my work. You can gladly keep the rest”, I said genuinely.

And after I had taken a bite of my pasta,
I paused alarmed. Why did I say all that to him? Why did I feel the need to defend myself against him? Was it important to me that he viewed me differently to his wife?

Adam seemed pensive and looked at me as if he was trying to
assess which parts of what I had said were true. “I know that feeling when you have a real fear of failure. My father always motivated me too. He also warned me about Wendy. He knew that she was no longer the little, innocent girl I fell in love with at school. But I didn’t want to listen to him. Sometimes I think that I only married her because my father warned me against it.”

I reached my
hand out across the table and put it on Adam’s. “That’s not true, you loved her, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to hurt you like that. And what happened wasn’t your fault. You trusted her and she took advantage of that and walked all over you.

He looked up at me taken aback with a smile on his face
that hit me like a bolt of lightning in my bosom. When he looked at me this time, there was something different in his glance. It wasn’t the fire that always made me feel so hot, but a warm feeling. Friendship? Trust? At least it wasn’t sexually oriented.

“I love this open an
d sincere nature. You seem like an honest person to me. I think that’s what my father saw in you and what convinced him that you could be right person for me. Maybe he thought that I needed somebody like you to teach me to trust women again. But it’s not as simple as that.”

He interlocked his fingers with mine and bent over the table. Now desire was written all over his face again and my body reacted immediately to this.
I could feel the sparks that suddenly flew between us. I bit my lower lip nervously. I wanted to avoid his gaze that was so fervent. But I wasn’t able to.

“
I might not be able to give you what my father had hoped for. But there is something between us. And that’s why you should keep your distance from me, because I can’t deal with it any longer. Linda, I crave your soft lips. You can’t imagine how much. I have really tried to stay out of your way and when that didn’t work I tried to hurt you. But just knowing that you are in the next room and that your full breasts are moving up and down with every breath you take has pushed me to the limits of my resistance. Linda, I want you.”

My pulse trembled in my throat. I swallowed, but my mouth was dry and between my legs
the echo of my heart beat pounded. Never before had the words of a man aroused me so much. I looked up at Adam with heavy eyelids and pulled my hand away. “I can’t.”

Adam
raised his eyebrow, but then leaned back smiling. “You’ll have to explain to me why you’re so shy. And you should know that exactly that turns me on even more.”

I swallowed
, took a deep breath and focused on my plate. “I’m not shy. Just careful. You just want to play games with me, have sex with me and then forget me. But that’s not going to happen”, I said worried because I knew he would ask questions.

“Why?”

I closed my eyes in desperation. I couldn’t explain what was making me say that to him. Maybe it was the emotional turmoil I was feeling? Maybe it was the hope that, if I said it to him, he would stop trying it on with me because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could fight against this desire to give myself to him.

My fear over the last few years of experiencing this anguish again had always
detered me from sleeping with men. There hadn’t been anyone besides Steven. And it was easy to keep my distance from him. He wasn’t even close to triggering such intense emotions in me as Adam did.

It was easy for me in most cases to
stay away from men so that I didn’t even fall into temptation. I always gave my studies as an excuse. But since I had been on the Isle of Skye and seen those blue eyes for the first time, I had started to let my guard down. And at this moment, only the remains of it were left over.

“He was called Aidan Lance”, I whispered silently and concentrated on breathing calmly which wasn’t easy because my heart was beating faster than back then when I found out the truth. “I was seventeen. Aidan was my teacher. He had just left university at the time. And he was the
best-looking man I had ever seen. All the girls at school were crazy about him. But he only looked at me in that special way.

When we were alone in the classroom or he met me on the school grounds and nobody could hear us, he would tell me how beautiful I was. He wooed me and soon I was crazy about him. I hadn’t had any experience with boys before, let alone with men. At some point, he invited me to study with him in the afternoons because I had
flunked my last English test. That was super, I was delighted and incredibly excited. It was the first time I had ever fallen in love and I was very happy.

He seduced me, deflowered me and then acted as if nothing had happened. I was so ashamed that I never spoke to anybody about it”
, I closed myself off and suppressed my feelings. I locked these feelings away in exactly the same place I had put them over the last few years.

“You had to see him every day at school.” Adam sounded angry and, when I looked at him quizzically, I could see that he was grinding his jaw. “He chose you because you were vulnerable from the death of your parents and were easier to influence. Pig”, cursed Adam.

“It’s a long time ago”, I said avoiding the issue, but he was right. That’s exactly why I was an easy target for him. I didn’t have any real friends. I was always known as the outsider at school who was only interested in studying. And I longed for a little warmth and affection so much that it didn’t surprise me that Aidan showed an interest in me.

“No long enough for you to be able to forget it.” Adam stood up and walked round to me, he lifted me up and put his arms around me. “I’m sorry if I have hurt you in any way.”

I kept my distance when hugging him because I felt like he saw me as a victim, but I wasn’t one. At least I didn’t want to feel that way.

“You haven’t hurt me. I don’t want to sleep with you because I am worried that I will develop feelings for you and
experience all that all over again.”

“But sex doesn’t always have to go hand in hand with love. You can be intimate with each other just because it’s fun. It won’t always be li
ke this”, said Adam taken aback.

I shrugged my
shoulders. “I’ve definitely had sex with a man before without having loved him. But the thought of sleeping with you makes me scared.”

“Why?”

I couldn’t tell him that, which is why I just shrugged my shoulders. I then went to the railing where the other passengers were already cheering a group of dolphins enthusiastically. I no longer wanted to think about whether it was possible for me to have sex with Adam without having to go through all that again. My body reacted so strongly to him. And maybe not just my body.

Part of me sometimes wished that I could be more like other women
of my age. That I could let go more and be more open. I just wanted to abandon my cautious and rational side. But then the pain that I felt when Aidan pushed me away so cruelly started to take hold of my heart again and I didn’t have the courage to just let go. Was I too cowardly?