Page 59 of A Highland Bride Disciplined

Scarlett arched a brow at him, deliberately settling back in the chair opposite his desk instead of leaving. “More than one evening? That sounds suspiciously like a stall.”

Kian’s mouth curved, just barely. “Maybe. Or maybe I just ken when a question deserves a proper answer.”

“And here I thought ye gave proper answers to everything,” she teased, letting her gaze sweep the neat desk, the precise lines of the ledgers, the perfectly stacked correspondence.

“I give useful answers,” he corrected, “whether they’re proper or nae depends on the listener.”

Scarlett tilted her head, eyes narrowing in mock appraisal. “Useful, aye. That tracks.”

He gave a soft huff, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the desk. “And what of ye, Lady Crawford? Do ye always demand the full story before ye’re satisfied?”

“Only when the subject is worth the effort. Do ye always try to deflect, or is it just with me?”

The air between them seemed to tighten, though neither moved. His eyes were dark and watchful, and locked on hers in a way that made her pulse skitter. She wanted to look away, to break the tension, but that felt too much like retreat.

He wouldn’t give her an answer. So, she pressed instead. “Tell me something real, then. Something nay one else kens.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Nay one?”

“Aye. Nae even Tam.”

The corner of his mouth ticked upward in a slow, infuriating way. “That sounds dangerously like an invitation.”

Scarlett’s lips curved despite herself. “I’d call it a challenge.”

He leaned back again, considering her, the chair creaking faintly beneath him. “When I was sixteen, I tried to leave the Highlands altogether. Took me faither’s coin and a stallion, rode south. Thought I’d make a life in Edinburgh. A life that wasnae part of Crawford’s ruin.”

Scarlett blinked. She hadn’t expected his answer.

“What stopped ye?”

“Me faither drank the rest of the coin and gambled away the horse before the day I had planned to leave,” he said dryly.

“That must have been…” She searched for the word, then gave a wry smile. “Humbling.”

He smirked faintly. “That’s a word for it.”

Scarlett studied him for a long moment, wondering how much of this was shaped by memory, how much by the armor he wore now. “And yet here ye are, with yer ledgers and fine whiskey, running the clan like a general at war.”

“Because that’s what it was,” he said, his tone dipping lower. “A war to keep me people from starving. A war to reclaim what me faither squandered. And I won.”

The heat in his voice pulled at something deep in her, something she didn’t want to name. She forced herself to smirk. “Victory suits ye.”

“Does it now?”

“Aye. Though I imagine ye’d be insufferable about it if I told ye so directly.”

He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a scoff, but his eyes softened just a fraction. “Ye’re nae wrong.”

The room felt smaller somehow, the desk between them less a barrier and more a tether. Scarlett found herself tracing the edge of the armrest with her fingertips, restless, too aware of the way his gaze tracked the motion.

“Why the sudden curiosity?” he asked. “Last week ye’d have been content to tell me I was a brooding tyrant and leave it at that.”

She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Maybe I still think ye’re a brooding tyrant. But ye’remebrooding tyrant now, are ye nae?”

The words were out before she’d thought them through, and heat crept into her cheeks at the sound of them. His brows lifted slowly, and for a moment, she thought he might laugh outright.

Instead, his voice dropped, low and deliberate. “Aye, I am,wife.”