I hung up. It was finally done.

It had not been an easy couple of days and there were several times I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing.

This was right though. This was the only thing I was sure was right.

Getting back to L.A had been the easy part. Eli seemed to have had a change of heart when he landed, perhaps brought on by the first phone call I made.

That call led to the meeting with his lawyer. “I want to be clear Mr Caffrey is not accepting any liability in his offer of settlement,” he said, all white teeth and slicked back hair as he tapped the file in front of him on the desk. “But if you were willing to withdraw your complaint in the light of realising a simple misunderstanding took place, I am authorised to finalise this deal today.”

There were two options available to me. “Just give me a minute,” I replied.

“Take all the time you need,” he replied, getting up and heading for the door. “Give me a shout when you’ve made your mind up.”

I turned to my mom, roped into coming to the meeting with me. “What do you think?”

“What matters more to you, sweetie?” she replied.

“That doesn’t help.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“I want you to make my mind up for me.”

“I know you do. You want someone to tell you what to do but you’ve got to choose this one. No one else can do it for you.”

She was right but I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted her to tell me what mattered more. If I went through with my threat to share what had happened in the office, it might go in my favour. The world had changed in the last few years. Eli wouldn’t be the first producer to get in trouble for harassment. That was, of course, if people believed me. I’d get nothing but he’d maybe stop doing it with anyone else.

The other option was to take the money. Eli would be on guard in future which would hopefully make life easier for any other women who worked with him. More importantly, I’d be able to use the settlement to put right the thing I’d made wrong.

I chose the money. I thought about it for a long time before making my mind up but in the end what mattered most to me was making things right with Robert. I found out the house was on the market because I had a newsfeed on my phone, set up from last time I’d been over to Doon. Any mention of Doon castle anywhere and I knew about it.

So when the for sale ad ran, I knew about it at once. I also had a check for a million dollars. I rang William Dacre at once and made him the offer. I’d pay the asking price as long as I got to remain anonymous. I didn’t want him to know it was me. That would lead to questions I didn’t want to answer, like why I’d screwed things up in the first place.

I hung up to find Mom looking at me from the computer desk. “You remember last time we were sat like this?” she said. “You saw this picture.” She clicked her mouse and there was Doon castle. My heart soared to see it again despite my efforts. “I bet you never thought you’d own it.”

“I don’t own it yet,” I replied. I thought about seeing it for the first time, how it had looked on the screen, hearing Angela’s voice on the answer machine.

The trip from Glasgow airport, the epic journey just to get to Doon village. Then the castle itself, the mountains surrounding it. And Robert. Meeting him for the first time. It seemed like a lifetime since I’d sat desperately looking for the right castle for Jurgen Harbor, the man who’d gone back into hiding after production shut down.

“I think you should go see him,” Mom said, looking at me closely.

“Go see who?”

“Robert of course.”

“Mom, he won’t want to speak to me. I’m the reason he’s having to sell.”

“But that wasn’t your fault. That was all Eli’s doing. You can’t have known he’d be so cruel as to burn millions just to prove a point to you.”

“Still, I can’t go. I bet he hates me.”

“Then this ticket’s going to waste.”

She slid her hand into the desk drawer and brought out an envelope, tossing it across to me.

“What’s this?”

“It might be a ticket to Glasgow.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you’re getting a million and using half of it to buy the castle from him, the least you can do is tell him in person.”

“Mom, I’m not sure…”

“I am.” She sounded stern. She never sounded stern.

“You make me feel like a kid who didn’t eat her greens and got found out.”

“Then do as your mother tells you. Get that flight and go talk to him.”

“But why?”

“No whys, no thinking. Just go. Trust me on this one, I’m a lot older than you.”

“All right, fine, I’ll go. But I’m telling you he’s just going to close the door in my face.”

“He can’t do that if you own the place can he?”

“I guess not.”

I was on the plane the next morning. I never expected to be flying back to Scotland so soon. With production shut down I had a gap in my diary though and with the whispers Eli put out, the gap might stretch out forever. I had half a million left after buying the castle, thereabouts anyway. After paying Mom back for the various flights and paying off her mortgage, I should have just enough left for the other thing I wanted to do. Whether I got to do it would depend on how this trip went.

I didn’t sleep, I was too anxious. I was worried about seeing him again, not knowing how to begin telling him it was my fault he was having to sell. But then I had an ace up my sleeve about that.

The journey was Glasgow to Doon was much quicker this time. First time, a saga of a journey that seemed to take forever. Second time with the crew in the trucks. This time I was alone in my hire car.

I got to Doon while it was still daylight. There was the castle I’d just bought. It didn’t seem real. I stopped at Dacre’s real estate place to sign the papers on the way and transfer the money across. “Congratulations,” he said, shaking my hand. “Can I ask why you want to keep your name out of this?”

“I have my reasons,” I replied, taking the file from him and heading back out to the car.

I drove on until I got to Hedley’s cafe. I left the car outside and went in to look for him. “I wondered if I could get a lift across the loch,” I said, making him look up from his newspaper.

I might have imagined it but I thought I could see a flicker of a smile on his face as he saw who it was asking him. “Let’s go lassie,” he said, folding the paper before marching past me and out the door.

As the boat chugged across the loch, I watched the castle getting closer, rehearsing what I was going to say. “Would you mind waiting?” I asked when Hedley began tying the boat up at the jetty. “I won’t be long.”

He nodded and that was good enough for me. I walked along the track, the castle looming up above me. I took a deep breath when I got to the door and then knocked with my closed fist, waiting and trying not to hyperventilate.

The door opened and there he was. Another man was standing next to him. “Tilly,” he said, sounding shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see the place I’ve just bought,” I said, holding out the file from Dacre.

“What? You bought it? What for, to gloat at me for not being able to keep it?”

“Look at the file,” I said.

“Why? What’s the point?”

“Just look, you idiot.”

He took the file out of my hand and glanced down at the contract. “I don’t understand. That’s my name.”

The man behind him glanced down at the contract, nodding to himself.

“I bought it for you.”

He blinked then looked up at me, frowning his head turned slightly sideways. “Sorry, what?”

“I bought it for you.”

“As your banker, I’d say you don’t need me to talk about your debts anymore,” the man behind him said. “If that’s genuine.”

“It’s genuine,” I said. “Trust me on that.”

“What does your boyfriend think about it?” Robert asked.

“What? What boyfriend?”

“Don’t act all innocent. Eli told me all about him.”

“Robert, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“What? But Eli told me…”

“Let me guess, he told you have a boyfriend and you believed him. Didn't think to check with me? Didn't think he might say that to keep you away from me while he tried it on himself?"

"I'll kill him."

"You might want to be grateful. Eli is the reason you have that file in your hand.” I quickly summed up what had happened, telling him about Eli and the settlement.

“So you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asked when I was done.

“That’s the bit you want to focus on?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just a bit of a shock.”

“I can’t believe you took his word for it,” I said, turning to walk away. “You should have talked to me. Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“I had no reason to think he was lying.”

“That’s your answer?”

“I’m sorry, this is a lot to take in.” He looked down at the contract again. “Why have you bought it?”

“To give to you.”

He didn’t say anything. He just stood there not saying anything.

“See you around,” I said, reaching over and kissing his cheek. I spun on my heels and didn’t look back. I had done what I came to do. It was time to go home for good. “Goodbye, Robert,” I said quietly as I reached the boat. “Let’s go.”

Hedley nodded and the engine roared into life. I looked across at the castle. Robert was still standing in the doorway holding the file in his hand, his banker gesticulating towards me. I looked away at the water as we started to move out onto the loch.