Chapter 5 - Her Choice

Ailsa had expected the Sinclair family to make Eilidh’s refusal difficult.

She had not expected them to make it look so civilized.

The following morning, a private salon at the hotel had been stripped of wedding flowers and rearranged around a polished table. Coffee waited untouched. Curtains stayed half closed against the press outside.

Eilidh sat beside Ailsa because she had asked her to.

That was the only reason Ailsa was there.

Across the table, Alistair Sinclair looked as if he were chairing a meeting that had begun badly but could still be brought under control. Malcolm Campbell looked as if control was no longer enough.

Lachlan had not come.

Callum stood near the window, one hand in his pocket, saying nothing.

Malcolm broke first.

“You have had a night to reconsider.”

Eilidh’s shoulders tightened. “I didn’t need a night for that.”

“Then use it to understand what you have done,” Malcolm said.

“I understand.”

“You embarrassed my son in front of half of Edinburgh.”

Ailsa kept her hands still in her lap.

Eilidh had asked her to stay, not fight for her.

Malcolm leaned forward. “You allowed two families to proceed with arrangements, commitments, introductions, and business expectations built around this marriage. Then you disappeared.”

“I left.”

“You disappeared.”

“I told Callum I was safe,” Eilidh said.

“Afterward.”

“Yes.”

Alistair’s voice was quieter. “Eilidh, no one is pretending the timing was harmless.”

Eilidh looked at him. “I’m not pretending that either.”

“Good. Then we can discuss repair.”

Ailsa saw Callum’s attention sharpen.

Eilidh did too.

“What does repair mean?” she asked.

Alistair folded his hands. “At minimum, you speak to Lachlan. Privately. You stop the public speculation. You allow time for both families to decide whether yesterday was a collapse or a postponement.”

“No.”

The word landed cleanly.

Malcolm stared at her.

Eilidh went on. “I’ll speak to Lachlan when he wants to hear me say I’m sorry for how I left. I won’t speak to him so everyone can turn no into not yet.”

“You do not get to dictate the terms of every consequence,” Malcolm said.

“No. But I get to decide whether I marry him.”

Ailsa felt something inside her settle.

Not relief. Eilidh was not safe from consequences just because the decision was hers.

But the decision itself was intact.

Malcolm turned toward Callum. “You see the position this leaves us in.”

Callum’s face gave nothing away.

Malcolm continued. “Campbell participation in pending joint Sinclair business is suspended. We will review every shared commitment that depended on confidence between our families.”

Ailsa did not know the numbers. She knew enough about the Sinclairs to know none of those sentences were decorative.

Alistair looked at his son. “The Group will absorb disruption. The family will absorb more.”

Callum finally moved from the window.

“What are you asking me to do?”

Malcolm answered before Alistair could.

“Bring your sister back to the table.”

Eilidh’s expression went white with anger.

Callum looked at her, then at Malcolm.

“She is at the table.”

“Do not play with words,” Malcolm said.

“I’m not.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Callum’s tone stayed level. “You want me to make her reopen the marriage.”

“I want you to act like the man responsible for containing the damage your family has caused.”

Ailsa remembered the first time Callum had stood in Exit and treated responsibility like a lever that ought to move everyone around him.

His jaw tightened now.

Alistair spoke. “Callum, we can still prevent this from becoming permanent.”

Eilidh looked at her brother.

Ailsa did not.

She watched Alistair instead.

There it was: the cleanest version of pressure. No threat to drag Eilidh anywhere. No order pretending she was not an adult.

Only a room full of costs, placed carefully around her until choosing freely became expensive enough to resemble disobedience.

Callum crossed to the table.

“Eilidh,” he said.

She met his eyes.

“Do you want me to ask you again?”

“No,” Eilidh said.

“Do you want me to negotiate with you about Lachlan?”

“No,” Eilidh said.

“Do you want me to convince you to reconsider?”

“No.”

Malcolm pushed back from the table. “This is absurd.”

Callum looked at him.

“No. It’s an answer.”

The room changed.

Ailsa felt it before anyone spoke again.

Alistair’s expression hardened. “Think carefully.”

“I have.”

“You are CEO of Sinclair Group because I trusted you to separate personal instinct from family responsibility.”

Callum’s gaze did not move. “I’m doing exactly that.”

“You are choosing your sister over an alliance with measurable value to the Group.”

“I’m choosing not to turn the Group into leverage over her marriage.”

Silence.

Then Alistair nodded once, almost to himself.

“Fine.”

The word carried more weight than shouting would have.

“Effective today, Campbell-linked negotiations no longer sit under your direct authority. I will handle them personally. Any family shareholder mandate attached to those negotiations returns to me until I decide otherwise.”

Callum’s face barely changed.

Ailsa’s did.

He was still CEO. He was still wealthy enough to make most consequences look temporary.

But his father had just removed a piece of his power in front of everyone at the table.

Because he would not use that power on Eilidh.

Malcolm stood. “This does not settle the debt between our families.”

“No,” Alistair said. His eyes stayed on Callum. “It does not.”

There was something in that exchange Ailsa could not yet name.

A consequence without a solution.

She refused to speculate beyond it.

Eilidh rose.

The meeting was over in every way that mattered.

Outside the salon, the hotel corridor had filled with staff and two Sinclair security men trying to hold a path toward the side entrance. Someone had leaked that Eilidh was inside. The moment the outer door opened, voices crashed through the lobby.

Questions.

Cameras.

Her name.

Lachlan’s.

Exit.

Ailsa stopped.

Callum stepped into the corridor ahead of them, assessed the crowd, then looked back.

He did not tell Eilidh where to go.

He did not take Ailsa by the arm.

He simply held out his hand.

For her.

Ailsa stared at it for half a second.

Yesterday, she would have read the gesture as instruction.

Today she had watched him lose something because he refused to turn his sister’s no into a problem he was entitled to solve.

She put her hand in his.

His fingers closed only when hers did.

He guided her through the first crush of bodies, then let go as soon as the path widened.

The contact lasted seconds.

Respect, Ailsa discovered, could be just as dangerous as anger.

Behind them, Eilidh walked out under her own power.

And nobody asked her to go back.