Page 239 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
“I am nae defending him. I am deciding how best to kill him.”
That almost coaxed a broken smile from Ava.Almost.
Her father leaned forward in his chair. “Lass, if this is truly what ye want, then ye will have a place to go.”
The support in it nearly undid her more than anger would have.
“It is,” Ava said, even though the words hurt. “Because if I stay now, I shall only humiliate meself further. I cannae go on being wanted in one breath and rejected in the next.”
Isobel made a furious sound and turned away, then back again. “Ava.”
Ava’s throat tightened. “I ken.”
“Nothing I can say can stop ye, can it?”
“Nay.”
Her answer did not waver. That was how Ava knew it was real. She’d had enough.
She looked down at the half-packed trunk, at the open drawers, at the dresses laid out on her bed. Her father rose carefully fromhis seat and came to stand beside her. He did not touch her at first. He only looked at the trunk and then at the bed and then at her face again.
“Then we shall get ready to leave,” he said.
Isobel muttered a curse under her breath.
Ava pressed both hands flat to the trunk lid and nodded once.
For the first time since Ciaran had walked into her life, she stopped waiting for him to choose her and chose instead to leave before he could hurt her again.
Ciaran didn’t know exactly when his hands began to shake, but he only noticed it when he closed the study door behind him.
He hated that most because it was so small and so visible. Blood on his sleeves, he could ignore. Mud on his boots, he could ignore. But a hand that would not stay still, that was too much.
He crossed straight to the sideboard and poured whiskey without measuring. All he could see now, as the drink burned down his throat, was Ava’s face on the cliff.
He drank again.
There was always one thing he looked for in his study—refuge and distance from others that made him revert to his old self, the Laird and thinker everyone seemed to know and respect. Here, he was the man who could put feelings aside long enough to decide what needed to be done next. He stood with the cup in his hand and tried to fit himself back into that shape.
Nothing was coming to his mind. All he could register was the fact that Ava was alive and the vile man who had tried to take him down was dead, just like several others who had tried before him.
Ava would hate him for a while. Perhaps longer.
Perhapsforever.
The thought lodged in his chest like iron, and he tried to adjust to whatever that would look like. It was better to be resentful and alive than dead at the bottom of a cliff. Better wounded by words than buried.
He held onto that because the other truth was worse.
The other truth was that when he had seen her over the edge, something inside him had turned so feral that the rest of his life had dropped away. There was no caution or annulment or any other form of noble release.Only Ava.
He drained the glass and set it down too hard.
He was about to grab the bottle again when the door flew open and Isobel came in without knocking.
Uh-oh.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair had begun to come loose from its pins. She looked like someone who had run here with anger keeping pace beside her.
