Page 27 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
Ava opened her mouth to offer something light and failed before the first word formed. Her throat tightened.
Her father’s face softened further, and that finished what little strength she had left for pretense.
“Yer mother would be proud to see ye today,” he said quietly.
That cracked something open inside her.
“Would she, though?” she asked, her voice cracking on the words. “I’m about to marry a man who wants nothing to do with me. A man who wants this marriage just for the sake of convenience and nothing else. If she were alive, I doubt she would even want to witness this.”
Silence followed, and a while after, Ava broke it. She was preparing to arrive at the altar anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to make all her grievances known now, especially to her father and best friend. The truth, she had found, never stopped at one sentence. It came out in waves and waves.
“He doesnae want love,” she continued. “He doesnae want closeness. He wants a wife the way a man wants a lock on a door, something useful and fixed in place, and I am meant to stand before everyone and smile as though that is enough. I daenae even ken what place I will have in his life beyond what herequires of me, and yet today I am to bind meself to him before God as if none of that matters.”
Her father’s hand tightened on her shoulder, his own way of showing that he had always been there for her and would always be.
Ava looked down, ashamed now of the tears pressing hot behind her eyes.“I can bear fear better than this. It is the coldness of it I cannae bear. The uncertainty. Please forgive me. I daenae ken where all of this is coming from.”
No one interrupted her. Even Isobel stayed still, her face contorted in grief and guilt and something like helpless love.
Then Rory bent a little so she could not avoid his eyes.
“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.
