CHAPTER 7
Oddly enough, there was no guest wing in the house. The East wing had three sets of bedrooms, a drawing room, a study, a library, a music room, and a gorgeous view of the backyard.
Gazing out at the yard, she spotted a low, T-shaped ramshackle building. The stone walls had the patina of age—its sagging roof resembled a collapsed soufflé. The pale walls were surrounded by thick knolls of grass.
“Is that the outbuilding you are going to reconstruct?” she asked, pointing.
“Yes,” Cassian nodded, grabbing her arm and steering her to the West wing.
That wing was a mirror of the East wing, only instead of a music room and a study, it had an expansive solarium, a billiards room, and a suite of rooms she could use for her own offices.
“But the West wing—” she spun “—has the library.”
He sighed. “You want to see the library again.”
“Yes.”
As they walked back to the library, her shoulder brushed his lower arm, yet she held her head straight. It made no sense how the air seemed to crackle and sizzle around her when Cassian was within two feet of her.
Cecilia could not wait to escape it—to escapehim.
Five minutes later, she entered the dimly lit library and gazed in admiration. His collection of books had shelves spanning from the floor to the timbered ceiling.
She could spend two lifetimes exploring the literary hedgerows circling the plush seating in the middle. She could imagine the now-banked hearth flickering at the center of the room, and constructing a window seat at the far end near the tall bow windows overlooking the moonlit gardens.
“But the solarium and my own study….” Cecilia spun in circles.
Cassian was rubbing his eyes. “Do you want to see the East wing again?”
“Yes, please.”
As they took a second trip to the other wing, Cecilia peeked her head into the billiards room and sighed, “Can we move the library here?”
“No.”
“But we can easily—”
“No.”
She turned to him and crossed her arms. “I can change the rooms if I want.”
Cassian rolled his neck a second before he grabbed her and hoisted her on the billiards table, slamming his hands on either side of her and staring into her eyes.
“Cassian!”
His eyes were predatory slits while his voice took on an authoritarian growl that she had never heard before. “If you do not make a decision in the next five minutes, I will choose for you and put you in any room that I decide on, and that will be where you stay for the next two months. Do you understand?
“I am exhausted, I need a meal and a hot bath, possibly half a day’s worth of sleep to catch up on the sleep I have missed in the last few days. Do you not want the same?”
The words were stuck behind the substantive lump in her throat. What was thismesmerin his eyes?
“I—”
“Oh,” a female voice gasped at the door. “I-I am so sorry.”
Cecilia’s eyes darted to the maid at the doorway, clutching a broom and dust pail. “I-I will return.”
“No, Abigail,” Cassian exhaled. “Stay. Andyou—” His eyes were set on Cecilia. “Ignore her and answer me. Do you want to relax after a long, trying day?”
