Page 60 of A Highland Bride Disciplined

Something shivered through her chest at the way he said it. The warmth in his eyes wasn’t the kind that came from politeness or even approval. It was heavier, richer. Like the way whiskey clung to the tongue, lingering long after the swallow.

She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat, breaking his gaze just long enough to glance at the fire. “Careful, Kian. That almost sounded like affection.”

“Maybe ye’re just hungry, lass,” he said.

Scarlett’s heart thudded hard enough that she was sure he could hear it. She masked it with a faint, skeptical tilt of her head. “All business… aye?”

“Aye,” he said, rising from his chair and rounding the desk with measured steps. “But I ken that nae everything can be run like a ledger.”

She kept her eyes on him as he approached, willing herself not to shift back even as the air around her seemed to thicken.

“Some things,” he continued, stopping just before her chair, “daenae balance neatly. They’re… unpredictable.”

He was close enough now that she could smell him. An aroma of oak cask and smoke mixed with a hint of the crisp Highland wind still clinging to his clothes. Her pulse jumped.

“And ye daenae like unpredictable things,” she murmured.

His eyes caught the firelight as he leaned a fraction closer. “Nay. I daenae. And yet…”

The unfinished thought hung between them, warm and heavy. Scarlett’s fingers curled against the chair, resisting the urge to reach for him.

She tilted her head just enough to meet his gaze fully. “And yet?”

His eyes dipped briefly to her mouth before finding hers again. “And yet here I am.”

The space between them had narrowed to a dangerous sliver, every inch of it charged. She could feel the heat radiating from him, the steadiness of his stance at odds with the tension in his shoulders.

Her lips parted. Though she didn’t know whether she should try to respond or just close that last inch between them.

Neither did he, apparently.

Because instead of moving away or forward, they both stayed there, suspended, pulses hammering just fast enough to make the moment ache.

It was only when her breath grazed his jaw that she realized how badly she wanted to taste him.

But Kian was the first to shift, straightening just enough to let the cool air seep between them again.

Scarlett masked her disappointment with a slow, knowing smile. “Unpredictable indeed.”

His lips twitched like he wanted to say more, or do more, but instead, he simply stepped back toward the desk.

The moment was gone. But the tension remained like another person had been lingering in the room.

Scarlett sat very still, pulse still thrumming, as if moving might betray just how close she’d been to leaning in.

She was about to say something sharp, something to remind him that she wasn’t so easily cornered when an assaulting sound sliced through the moment.

Elise.

High and plaintive, it pierced the quiet of the study, bouncing off stone and wood until it reached down into Scarlett’s chest.

The crying didn’t ease. If anything, it grew more insistent, hitching between breaths. Scarlett could picture her little fists bunching the blanket, her mouth red and trembling.

Without a word, Scarlett rose from the chair.

Kian’s eyes flicked back to her, but he said nothing.

“She needs me,” Scarlett said, smoothing her skirts as she stepped around him.