Those words might have undone her once, but now? Now, they only hurt.
She lifted her chin. “Do I? Ye’ve done everything ye could to show me the opposite.”
His grip flexed, tightened, then slackened all at once as if he had caught himself doing something he didn’t want to do. The struggle on his face might have moved her if she had not already spent so many nights trying to wonder how exactly to get through to him.
“Ava, listen to me,” he started.
“I have done little else.”
“Ye must understand. Everything I said on the cliff was for him. I needed to say something to get to ye, and ye ken that. That was forhim.”
“And the annulment was for whom?” Her voice shook, but she pushed through it. “Was he there during all those times as well?”
He looked as if she had struck him.
Perhaps she had. She had wanted the words to hurt because she was tired of being the only one who seemed to bleed openly from this marriage.
Around them, the yard had gone very still. No servant looked directly at them now, which only meant they were listening harder. Her father had turned his face away with studied restraint, though Bruce kept craning his neck to peer at both ofthem as if he understood what they were saying and would want nothing more than to contribute to the conversation.
Ciaran lowered his voice further. “Ava, ye must understand that I came for ye.”
Ava’s throat tightened. “Aye, ye did.”
“Ikilledfor ye.”
“Ye cannae mention that and then think it will make me forget everything else.”
His hand slipped from her arm to her wrist.
That should have softened the moment, but if anything, it only deepened the pull she was fighting. He knew that, too. She saw it in the rough breath he took before speaking again.
“Ye ken what I had to do.”
Shedidknow. That was part of the misery.
She was not stupid. She understood danger. She understood what Laird O’Malley had meant to do and why Ciaran had tried to shift his attention. But still, that wasn’t enough. She felt her eyes sting and hated that as well.
“What I ken,” she said, “is that every time I have needed the truth from ye, ye gave me half of one.”
“Ava.”
“Nay.” The word came out steady now. “I cannae build a life on what ye feel in moments when terror or wanting drags it out of ye. I cannae keep collecting scraps and calling itlove.”
The last word hung between them.
Ciaran’s face changed again, more deeply this time. Still, no full rescue came with it. He stood close. He held her wrist. He looked at her as if the truth was inside him and yet could not come out, no matter how hard he tried.
Even now, she wanted him to say it.
Clearly.
Fully.
Once.
Still, he did not.
Ava looked down at his hand around her wrist, then stepped back. The loss of contact hit them both. She saw it. She felt it,too. Her whole body wanted to lean back toward him. She did not let it.
