Page 155 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
“Ava,” he said, his voice carrying the full steadiness of the love she was familiar with. “Ye have never lacked courage, and ye have never been one to go meekly where yer heart says nay. If this isnae yer choice after all, then there is still time. Say the word, and I will take ye back home.”
The room went very quiet.
This was it. The open door. This was the opportunity Ava had scrambled to find when she tried to hop over the wall. It was being offered to her by her father on a silver platter. It was as legitimate as it could get. She could use this opportunity andhead back home. She didn’t need to look back or tie herself into a marriage with a man like Ciaran.
She would no longer have to deal with his smirks or sharp tongue. She wouldn’t have to see that scar around his neck again or the way his white shirts always clung to his skin. She wouldn’t have to deal with those deep green eyes and that long dark hair.
Christ.She wouldn’t see those anymore. Not ever.
She stared at her father.
For one suspended moment, she felt the shape of his offer. Home. Safety. Escape. Bruce underfoot in the corridor. Her father’s hall. The life she had come from. She could have it. He meant it. There was no duty in his face stronger than love.
And with that realization came another.
If she left now, the wound would remain exactly where it was. The silence. The distance. The unanswered hardness of the man she was about to marry.
Ava drew a long breath. When she spoke again, her voice still trembled a little, but the panic had left it. “I daenae want to flee.”
Her father watched her closely.
“I want him to answer me,” she said. “Properly. Before I stand beside him. I want truth from him, and compromise, and the courage to say aloud what he means to build with me. I cannae walk to those vows with silence sitting between us like a third witness.”
Something in Rory’s expression changed then. Not relief exactly, but recognition.
“I was hoping ye would say that,” he admitted, his voice softer. “This is a challenge, and I ken ye never back down from a challenge.”
Ava rose before her nerves could return and reclaim her. Isobel called her name, but she was already moving toward the door.
She was still flushed and standing on the edge of possibly the largest moment of her life, but she was no longer bracing herself merely to endure it.
She was going to him.
Ava pushed into his chamber without waiting to be announced, breathing too fast from anger, nerves, and the speed with which she had crossed the passageway. The door clicked shut behind her.
Ciaran, who had turned at the sound with the clear intent to rebuke the interruption, stopped short the instant he saw her.His gaze moved over her at once, not slowly, but fully enough to make heat rise straight into her face.
For one brief moment, neither spoke. Then he gave that smirk again, with a dryness that might have been composure or self-defense.
“It is bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”
Ava leaned back against the door. “It might be even worse luck if he doesnae speak to her and she decides to run away.”
His eyebrows arched, and at that very moment, the air felt smaller and hotter.
Ava was suddenly mortifyingly aware of herself in the gown meant for him and the bright red heat in her cheeks. She had just stormed into his private chamber on the morning of their wedding like a woman half mad.
None of these facts made her retreat.
“I ken I shouldnae have come like this,” she allowed. “But ye have avoided me all week, and I am done letting ye hide as though that changes what ye are asking of me.”
His expression lost its trace of wryness. “Ava.”
“Nay.” She stepped closer before her courage could desert her. “Ye daenae get to look grave and expect that to silence me. From where I stand, yer silence has meant only one thing—that ye mean to take me into marriage while giving as little of yerself as possible.”
He watched her without interrupting, and that somehow made the words come harder and cleaner.
“Ye call it a marriage ofconvenience,” she continued, “but ye cannae call it that if it is convenient to only one of us.”
