Page 66 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
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.
He crossed to the bench, set it straight, and closed the fallboard, gathering control in those small motions. His marriage was supposed to have shape, distance, and rules that kept him safe from himself. He had just destroyed all three with his own hands.
Ava watched him.
He felt her gaze on his back and hated that he was already withdrawing from her while her body still carried the proof of how close he had been. He hated it because it was cowardly. He hated it even more because he could not stop.
When he turned back, she was standing where he had left her, one hand at her throat, her nightgown pulled closed. He knew that look in her eyes. She had learned him too well in so little time.
He forced his voice into order. “I should see ye back to yer chamber.”
Her gaze did not leave his. “If ye like.”
He led her down from the tower in silence.
The castle was deep in sleep, and their steps on the stairs sounded too loud. Even the light had dimmed, as most of the candles had been snuffed out. Only a few remained at the end of the passageway, enough to light the path and do no more.
His shoulder brushed the stone wall once when the bend narrowed, and the brief pain there almost helped. It gave him something to feel, even if not for long.
At her door, he stopped. Ava turned to face him, and the candlelight from within spilled across the threshold and caught the color still high in her cheeks.
He should have kissed her again. He should have stayed. He should have done anything that matched what had just happened between them. Instead, he cleared his throat and looked down at the floor. “Good night.”
“Is that it?” she asked, her voice as soft as his.
He looked up from the floor. “I daenae ken what else to say.”
Ava held the door, but did not move to close it. “Well, ye could tell me after what happened tonight that ye arenae going to disappear tomorrow morning.”
The question struck cleanly because it carried no surprise in it.
She knew what he was. She knew what he was about to do. She asked anyway and gave him one last chance to be better.
He looked at her and answered with the only truth he had. “I probably will.”
The words hung in the air.
Her face tightened, though she kept her back straight and her voice level. “Then goodnight, me Laird.”
