Page 221 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
Ciaran did not move.
The loch lay dark at their side as the cold touched his face and hands. The coat beneath Ava had shifted when she turned, one edge dragging over damp grass. She looked up at the sky as if she meant to pull the whole night back to herself by force.
“I am nae leaving ye here alone.”
That drew her eyes back to him.
“Ye daenae get to decide every part of this,” she scoffed. “Ye have already done enough of that for one night.”
He felt the hit of it and swallowed. “Ava.”
“Nay.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “If I wish to lie here and watch the comet, I shall do it. If ye wish to go, go.”
He stayed where he was.
She released a short, angry breath. “Ye hear one thing and turn it into a command. Ye feel one thing and decide to run away from it instead of confronting it. To hell with what I think. Ye daenae ask. Ye daenae wait. Ye simply choose.”
Ciaran went down on one knee beside her. For some reason, towering over her in the dark made the whole exchange worse. “I said I am nae leaving ye alone by the loch at night.”
“And I said ye arenae the master of every choice I make.”
He had no answer that would not turn the fight the same way again. He could feel that with full clarity. The old instinct to press harder sat ready in him. So did the newer, far more dangerous instinct to give in wherever she pushed simply because it was she who pushed.
Before either of them spoke again, Ava’s gaze lifted to the sky. The change in her expression stopped everything. Her lips parted, and her eyes widened, her anger forgotten.
Ciaran looked.
The comet was clearer than anything. It was magical the way it burned clean across the sky, pale and bright and steady enough that even he, who had waited for no such thing all his life, felt the force of it. The tail stretched long behind it, and the stars around it remained sharp. Even the loch caught a broken reflection of its light in the dark.
He saw the smile that settled on Ava’s face before the whisper escaped her lips. “I did it.”
The words reverberated through him.
She did not say anything else for a few seconds. He could hear her breathing. He could see the tears gathering again, not from the fight this time, though the fight still sat between them.
“I did it,” she said again, her voice barely audible now.
Ciaran reached out before he thought better of it. His thumb brushed the tear from her cheek. The skin there was warm where the tear had been.
Ava turned her face sharply under his hand and sat up. “And ye ruined it.”
The words came out with such force that he dropped his hand at once.
He stared at her. “Ruined it?”
“Aye.”
“Ava, I didnae mean to?—”
Ava’s breath shook. “Aye, but ye did, did ye nae? Ye ruined it with yer distance, yer decision—everything.”
He said nothing.
She pressed one hand hard against her mouth for a second, then dragged it away and looked squarely at him as though whatever held her back had broken clean through.
“Ye do this to me, and then ye tell me ye want an annulment.”
Ciaran felt every part of his body go still.
