“As usual,” she prodded. “What does that mean?”
Ian stared at her for so long she wondered if he had forgotten the question.
“I wanted to work for the family business my whole life,” he finally said. “All four of us were groomed for the roles we’d eventually take, including me. The day I was named chief PR officer, it was supposed to be the crowning achievement of my life.”
“But it was not? I recall what you said about your . . . job.”
“I’m good at what I do. These past few years have been hell. My mother’s disappearance was like a black cloud over the company, over our family . . .”
There was a certain hopelessness in his voice she did not like. Màiri wanted to reach out, to comfort him. But she didn’t dare.
“Somehow, we got through it. I did my job, but . . .”
“You do not enjoy it.”
He’d told her, aye, but she would have guessed it anyway. It was plain to see.
“No. I hate everything about it, actually. Except for working with my brothers.”
“Can you not fill another role?”
Ian frowned. “If your brother decided not to follow in your father’s footsteps, could he walk away from being the new laird? Maybe become a blacksmith or something that suits him better?”
The bitterness in his voice was so unlike him, Màiri did not know what to say.
“Nay. He could not do that.”
They fell silent. Ian finally stood, and so Màiri did the same. He gestured for her to walk ahead as he turned to reach for the wall torch. She anticipated him moving in the opposite direction and slammed into him quite ungracefully.
“Pardon—” She pushed against his chest to steady herself.
Ian grasped her hand before she could push him away to separate them. Just like he had that day in the tub.
She froze.
Waiting. Wanting. But knowing she had to pull away.
18
Don’t do it.
You didn’t spend the last week trying to figure out how to start over with her, to make it right, only to fuck everything up again.
Ian’s impulsiveness had gotten him into this mess, and he wasn’t going to let it continue to screw with Màiri. Not when he knew he would have to leave her. He let her hand go.
But she didn’t move. Instead, his wife looked at him as she had that night in the tub. As she had earlier tonight at dinner. It was the look of a woman who’d never experienced passion—and wanted to start with him. Maybe Ambrose could show her . . .
The hell he would.
Ian wove his hand into the hair just above her neck, pulling her head close. And then he kissed her.
For real this time.
One minute, he was coaxing her tongue to tangle with his own, the next, his hands were everywhere. As Màiri kissed him back, all he could think about was showing her more.
Showing her everything.
Blood pounded through his veins, urging him on. To kiss her harder. To feel, and let her feel too. He was being reckless. Some part of him knew it, the part that had stayed away from her door at night, despite the hundreds of times his eyes had strayed to it. The part of him that had stopped her from washing him in the tub, that had ignored the desire in her eyes.
