Page 238 of My Fake Dating with the Grumpiest Highlander
Of course she already knows.
I tilt my head slightly.
“Cameron or Connor?” I ask.
“Both. They’re very worried about you.”
I take a sip of tea.
It’s perfect.
Warm. Comforting. Exactly what I need.
“I’m guessing you want to know whether I’m going to accept,” I say eventually.
Maggie sets her cup down carefully and looks directly at me.
“No. I want you to know something before you make your decision.”
My stomach tightens.
“What?”
“The truth.”
She pauses like she’s weighing every word carefully.
“I manipulated you, Mary. From the very beginning. The flooding in your house, the castle supposedly being full because of the Highland Games, Finn getting pushed out of the inn at the exact same time… none of that was an accident.”
I stare at her.
My brain struggles to process the words even though somewhere deep down, I already suspected.
“You arranged the flooding?”
“Not directly. But I may have mentioned to Fergus that your plumbing needed to be ‘inspected.’ And Fergus is… extremely enthusiastic about his work and absolutely terrible with pipes.”
Of course.
“And Finn?”
“I may have suggested to Moira MacTavish that I required an in-house doctor. She was very cooperative.”
My jaw tightens.
“You trapped us.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Maggie rises gracefully and walks toward the window overlooking the Highlands stretching endlessly beyond the castle grounds.
“Because I watched both of you dying of loneliness from opposite sides of the village, and I couldn’t bear it anymore.”
Her voice softens.
“Finn arrived in Glenfield looking like a man who’d already given up. And you… you smiled all the time, but your smile was empty. The two of you were lost.”
