Page 193 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
For a little while, neither of them spoke.
Then Ava looked at his hands and exhaled. “Ye play beautifully.”
His gaze flicked to the keys above them. “I hadnae played in a while.”
“Why nae?”
He paused. “I almost thought I wouldnae be able to anymore.”
She turned that over in silence. He had meant more than the instrument. She could hear that much in his words.
“Ye were marvelous,” she said softly.
His eyes came back to her face, and heat rose into her cheeks again, though she had already given him more than praise. She did not take the words back. They were true.
He started to move, perhaps out of habit, perhaps because remaining here in the silence with her felt harder than touching her had been.
“We should go,” he uttered.
Ava reached for his hand before he could rise fully. The contact stopped him at once. “Stay.”
His gaze dropped to where her fingers held his. “Ava.”
“Only a little longer.”
There was no urgency in her voice now. She did not ask for more. She only wanted his presence. She wanted this—the tower, the floor, the minutes after—before either of them put distance back in place and pretended they could still stand where they had been earlier.
“We can stay for a few more minutes,” she added.
He looked at her, then sat back down without argument.
That small concession touched her more deeply than she had expected.
They sat there together on the floor by the piano while the night air drifted through the tower. Ava let her hand remain in his, and he did not pull away.
Warmth spread through her slowly, mixed with astonishment and the plain knowledge that their marriage had crossed into something neither of them could describe.
She turned her head and looked at him.
He was staring ahead, quiet and hard to read, but she could feel the weight of whatever sat inside him. He had no easy road back from this. Neither of them did.
The room held them in stillness for those few extra minutes, and Ava understood with sudden clarity that nothing between them was simple now. And when they rose to their feet, neither of them would be able to call their marriage a convenient arrangement again.
It had becomecomplicated.
CHAPTER 20
Ciaran helpedAva up from the floor with steady hands, and she came into his arms easily. Her cloak had slipped loose at one shoulder, and her hair was still mussed from his hands.
He had done that. He had wanted it and done it with full knowledge.
The knowledge sat in him like a wound.
He set her on her feet and kept his hands on her a second longer than was needed. Then he let go and stepped back.
The tower had gone quiet as the piano stood open and the bench sat crooked. His breathing had still not evened out, but neither had hers. He looked at her and saw the softness still alive in her face, the warmth, the openness.
He could not stay inside it.
