Page 151 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
There. The first real pause.
So ye arenae as sharp as ye think, Ciaran Nairn.
Ava stepped closer, not enough to crowd him, but enough to make it plain that she saw the contradiction and meant to hold him in it.
“Then until that heir is born, ye will spend time with me. Ye will make someeffortat companionship, and this marriage will be what it is: a marriage.”
For a moment, he only looked at her. The sounds of the yard carried faintly behind them.
Ava held his gaze and finished it cleanly. “Until then, ye’ll spend time with me. Or else ye willnae touch me. Yer choice, me Laird.”
He did not answer at once, and that alone told her enough.
The look on his face told her that he had not expected this. When she told him she had terms, he had probably thought they were simple things, not terms shaped to fit around his own words and trap him inside them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “Ye bargain boldly.”
Ava lifted her chin. “Ye chose me boldly, did ye nae?”
An unreadable emotion passed over his face, but he did not object, and that was enough.
Ye want to play this game, Ciaran Nairn?Then we are going to play to yer heart’s content.
CHAPTER 7
For the firsttime in a long time, Ciaran felt cornered.
Ava had stood up to him and made her opinions known. Even when she turned around and walked away, all he could think of was her newfound confidence.
Where in God’s name had she gotten that from?How was she able to turn from the woman who would do anything to escape him to the woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it?
The thought made him uneasy. Too uneasy, in fact, to look the other way. So he decided to do the one thing he was still capable of—he would not seek her more than was required before the wedding.
The matter was already settled. The vows would be spoken within days. Her conditions remained troublesome, and to begin indulging them before she was even his wife would onlyencourage the very thing he had no wish to foster. So it would be better to let the week pass in order and silence.
At least, that was what he told himself. It sounded sufficiently practical when arranged properly in his mind. He needed to find a way to preserve structure. Marriage would come soon enough. There was no need to begin its more troublesome obligations early.
So he simply did not seek her out.
If he learned she had taken breakfast in one room, he went to another later in the morning. If some natural crossing of paths presented itself in the corridor, he altered his route. He even made sure to keep to business, land matters, and men who needed instruction. He did not present himself in the gardens or linger where company might make an encounter with her likely.
This was a simple enough strategy. Or at least it should have been, as it required that he see Ava less. However, the consequences of this action stung him much more than he could have imagined. Or even prepared for in the first place.
Every time he thought of avoiding her was every time he thought of her.
He had to anticipate where she might be and remember what she had asked. He also had to account for the possibility of being drawn into talk if he entered one part of the castle at the wrong hour. Even his absence became organized around her.
That fact alone irritated him more as the days passed.
Ava herself irritated him too, though not in the simple manner he might have preferred. It would have been easier if she had merely been lovely or just troublesome. Instead, she remained just as sharp and intelligent as he had seen in the auction. He could still see the look she had given him at the training grounds and the way she had firmly held her own without letting him control her.
Perhaps he should have chosen the crier. He was sure that one would not have caused him as much trouble as Ava Fraser did.
By the time the week drew to its end, the distance he had chosen began to feel different in his own hands. Less like a strategy and more like avoidance.
Tomorrow, she would become his wife. Tomorrow, the space he had preserved so carefully would disappear, and he would no longer have an excuse to avoid her anymore.
Again, this fact did not make him go to her.
