“Oh yeah.”

“And?”

“I’m going to settle,” Gwen said, staring through her terrace window. She fingered the pane of glass in a foolish attempt to soothe—what or whom she couldn’t say. “There’s plenty of money in the trust, and honestly, I don’t know if I can ever go back.”

“Don’t do anything rash,” Sara cautioned.

“Helllooo…I walked away from a career I envisioned my entire life. I took the first vacation I’ve had in years, and I did it all rashly.”

“That’s not true. You agonized for weeks. You agonized your entire life.”

“That’s not true either,” Gwen remarked honestly. “I always felt like I was doing the right thing. I never questioned following in my parents’ footsteps.” And that was true.

“You didn’t just follow in their footsteps,” Sara corrected her. “You set the Olympic records for academic, athletic, and professional achievements.”

“They’d be so disappointed if they were here.”

“Don’t give them that power, Gwen. You always said you were their lab experiment, and their prodigy repaid them in spades.”

“Well, that prodigy feels like a lost puppy.”

“You’re lying, Gwen. You sound better than ever.”

Gwen’s smile widened. “Truthfully, Sara, coming here is the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Greylen arose from his third sleepless night well before dawn. Foregoing his usual bedside ritual, he donned a pair of breeches and made his way through the darkened hallways of Seagrave Castle. Once outside, he nodded to the men who stood sentinel at the keep’s main doors and continued to the stables. Then he took the narrow path to the shore.

He would watch the sunrise.

He stood barefoot on the sand, greeting a day that could only be called glorious. ’Twas the day that marked the anniversary of his thirty-third year. His anger grew by the second. His roar of outrage was lost to the waters and cove.

On this day no one would escape his wrath.

Of the many attributes for which Laird Greylen MacGreggor was revered, his barely veiled contempt for this day was not one of them. Few understood the reasoning behind it, and one seemed not to care.

His sister. Lady Isabelle MacGreggor.

Greylen had just returned to the keep, intent to order his mother never to breathe a word of that blasted infernal prophecy ever again, when Isabelle passed him. Obviously in her haste she hadn’t noticed he was there. Exuberance radiated from her very being as she hurried down the steps and all but flew through the keep’s main doors.

He turned and was about to order her back to her quarters when Gavin at last made himself useful. His first-in-command caught her about the waist just as she made for the first of the steps that would take her into the courtyard.

’Twas at first a comical display. Isabelle’s head tilted back, her lips forming an O as she came flush against him. Gavin, too, showed surprise for just but a second before his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed in an angry line. “If you know what’s good for you, Isabelle, leave your brother be,” Gavin snapped.