Page 122 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
The answer landed with awful force.
He had listened then. He had remembered. He had gone and bought this for her while she still lived in his castle and his silence.
She set the map on the table because her hands had begun to shake. “Ye are making a poor impression so far, me Laird.”
A small breath left him. It might have been close to laughter if there had been any ease between them to carry it.
“I ken.”
He took one step closer. Slow enough that she could have told him to stop. She did not. She should have, but she did not.
“I have always loved ye,” he admitted.
The words hit her harder than any apology had.
“I wanted ye from the start. I cared for ye from the start. I listened when ye spoke and bought a foolish map and watched ye fill rooms and thought of ye when I should have been thinking of anything else. Ye are so…” He paused for a moment, his jawtight. “Ye are so perfect that I couldnae help but fall in love with ye.”
Ava’s eyes burned.
He was speaking plainly, at last. Too late, perhaps, but plainly.
“Me whole life,” he continued, “I thought love ruined everything it touched. I thought it made men weak and foolish and blind. I thought if I kept away from it, I would keep everyone safe.”
“And look how well that went,” Ava scoffed.
“Aye.”
She turned away from him. If she stayed facing him, she might forgive him too soon, and she had earned her anger better than that.
“Daenae stand there and say beautiful things now as though the rest vanished.”
“It didnae vanish.”
“Nay.”
She took one step toward the door, but his hand closed around her wrist before she could reach it. His grip was firm, careful, and desperate enough that she felt it through her whole body.
“Listen to me.”
She did not turn back.
“What ruined me,” he said, his voice rough now, “wasnae loving ye. It was trying to livewithoutye. It was hearing that our marriage ended and finding I couldnae breathe around it. It was a week in me castle with every room empty of ye and every hour worse than the one before.”
Ava closed her eyes.
“I am done running,” he murmured. “I am done hiding behind caution and letting fear make me choices and then pretending I made them for yer own good. I love ye.”
The words settled into the room with a weight that made her knees feel weak.
“I love ye,” he said again, quieter now. “And I will never let me love hurt ye again.”
Ava turned to him then.
He stood before her without title, distance, command, or any shield she had learned to hate in him. For the first time since she had known him, he looked like a man who had come to lose if she chose it and would take that loss without hiding from it.
Her heart gave one painful thud after another.
She was furious with him. She wanted him. She believed him. She did not know yet what to do with that. For several seconds, she could only stand there and look at him.
