Chapter 4 - Ask Her Yourself

Callum should have left when Ailsa Fraser opened the door for him.

Instead, he stood beside the small meeting table and called his sister again.

The first attempt went to voicemail.

Ailsa did not offer to intervene.

That annoyed him enough to notice.

He called a second time. Eilidh answered before the fourth ring.

“Callum.”

Relief did nothing useful. Her voice sounded steady. No crying, no panic, no obvious sign that someone was standing over her.

“Are you safe?” Callum asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you alone?”

A pause. “Does that matter?”

“It matters to me.”

“I’m safe.”

Across the table, Ailsa had gone still. She was not trying to hear more than the room made unavoidable, but she was not leaving either.

Callum looked at her. “I’m at Exit.”

“I guessed.”

“Ailsa is here.”

Another pause.

“Do you want me to step out?” Ailsa asked, directing the question toward the phone rather than Callum.

Eilidh answered immediately. “No. Stay.”

Ailsa sat down again.

Callum put the phone on speaker and set it between them.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“No.”

His sister had learned that answer quickly.

“Eilidh,” Callum said.

“You already know I’m safe. I’m not giving you an address so security can appear at the door.”

“I told them not to trace you once your safety was confirmed.”

Ailsa’s attention shifted to him.

It was a small reaction, but Callum caught it.

Eilidh did too. “You did?”

“Yes.”

“Dad won’t like that.”

“This conversation is not about Dad,” Callum said.

“That would be a first today.”

Callum let the remark pass. “The ceremony can still be contained.”

Ailsa’s expression changed, but she said nothing.

He continued before either woman could turn the word contained into an argument.

“Guests can be sent home. The press can be told there was a private family matter. You can come back without walking down the aisle today.”

Eilidh did not answer at once.

Then she said, “And tomorrow?”

“We deal with tomorrow tomorrow.”

“That means you still think I should marry him.”

“I think you made a decision in the worst possible hour to make one,” Callum said.

“I made it before today.”

“You were dressed for the wedding,” Callum said.

“Yes.”

“You let everyone believe it was happening,” Callum said.

“Yes.”

“You let the Campbells bring half their family into a public alliance with ours.”

Ailsa’s gaze hardened. She still did not interrupt.

Callum kept his attention on the phone.

“You had other moments to stop this,” he said. “Before the guests arrived. Before the press knew. Before Malcolm could treat it as a humiliation.”

“I know.”

“Then why wait until today?”

Eilidh exhaled. “Because every earlier day, I thought I could make myself want it.”

“I thought wanting the life everyone had already arranged would be easier than blowing it up,” she continued. “It wasn’t.”

“You could have talked to me.”

“I’m talking to you now.”

“After you left,” Callum said.

“Yes.”

He walked to the window. Rain had thinned to a gray film over the glass, turning the street below into smudged reflections.

“Lachlan is downstairs in a hotel full of people who watched his bride disappear.”

“I know.”

“Malcolm has already paused work involving both families,” Callum said.

“I know.”

“Dad is treating this as a threat to Sinclair stability,” Callum said.

“I know, Callum.”

Her steady tone made the list sound exactly like what it was: information she already had.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep listing consequences as if I didn’t understand there would be any.”

Ailsa looked down at her hands.

Callum turned from the window.

“Responsibility does not disappear because a decision is personal.”

“No.”

That stopped him.

Eilidh went on. “I’m responsible for leaving. I’m responsible for doing it late. I’m responsible for hurting Lachlan. I’m not pretending any of that is free.”

“Then come back and face him.”

“I will face him.”

“Today,” Callum said.

“No.”

“You owe him a conversation,” Callum said.

“I probably do. I don’t owe him a wedding.”

Callum had no answer to the distinction that did not collapse the two things again.

Callum looked at Ailsa.

She did not look pleased. She did not look vindicated. She simply waited, as though the answer belonged entirely to the woman coming through the speaker.

He had expected influence from her. A cue. A nod. Some tiny confirmation that Eilidh was following the logic Exit had handed her.

There was nothing.

Callum tried another route.

“Come home, then. Not the venue. Home. We can get you out of the public mess and talk this through with Mum and Dad before anyone decides what happens next.”

Eilidh was quiet long enough that he thought she might agree.

“No.”

His hand tightened against the back of the chair.

“Why?”

“Because if I come home before I’m ready, Dad will turn coming home into the first step toward fixing the wedding.”

“He can’t make you marry Lachlan,” Callum said.

“No. But he can make every minute before I say no again feel like a negotiation.”

Callum glanced at Ailsa.

Still nothing.

Not even when Eilidh’s voice softened.

“I need one night where nobody is trying to get me back into the future I just left,” Eilidh said.

“You can have a night.”

“Can I?”

He opened his mouth.

The answer he could honestly give was more complicated than yes.

Eilidh heard it.

“That’s why I called Exit.”

Ailsa gave him no satisfied look to argue with.

Callum sat down.

“Tell me one thing clearly,” he said. “Forget Dad. Forget Malcolm. Forget what happened today. Do you want to marry Lachlan?”

“No.”

No hesitation.

No explanation attached to make the answer easier to negotiate.

Callum stared at the phone.

“Not today?”

“Not ever.”

Ailsa finally moved, only enough to lean back in her chair.

Callum kept his voice even. “Does Lachlan know that?”

“He knows I left.”

“That isn’t the same thing,” Callum said.

“I’ll tell him when I can do it without six people in the room deciding what my words mean.”

“You understand that refusing him does not end the family problem,” Callum said.

“I know.”

“And you still mean it,” Callum said.

“Yes.”

The answer left no room to blame Ailsa.

Not panic. Not abduction. Not Ailsa Fraser putting language into his sister’s mouth.

Eilidh’s choice.

Callum disliked the choice. He disliked the timing, the damage, and the fact that every available consequence now seemed to be waiting for him downstairs, on his phone, or in a boardroom.

But he could no longer pretend the decision had come from anyone else.

“I need to speak to Dad,” he said.

“I assumed you would.”

“I’m not promising what happens after that,” Callum said.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

For the first time since he had arrived at Exit, Ailsa looked away from him.

Eilidh spoke again. “Callum?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t send anyone.”

He looked at Ailsa, then at the rain beyond the glass.

“I won’t send anyone to bring you back tonight.”

Ailsa’s eyes returned to his.

“Thank you,” Eilidh said.

The call ended.

Callum let the dead screen go dark in his hand.

Then Ailsa stood.

“You asked her yourself.”

Callum picked up his phone.

“And I got an answer.”

His screen lit before he reached the door.

Alistair.

Callum answered.

“Tell me you know where your sister is,” his father said.

“I know she’s safe.”

“Is she coming back?”

Callum looked once at Ailsa.

“No.”

He left Exit with the problem intact.

Only now he knew exactly whose choice had created it.