Page 19 of Utterly Dauntless (Return to Culloden Moor #3)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

G rey had just turned on the gas fireplace when someone knocked. His heart stopped when Aries' voice came through the wood.

"Grey? It's me."

He opened the door and stepped back, openly shocked that she'd come. He had asked her not to leave until they had a chance to talk, but obliging him wasn't her usual style. After years of hunting her across continents, it seemed too simple.

She was wrapped in a hotel robe with her damp hair pulled back from her face. Her feet were bare. Somehow, she looked more vulnerable like this than she had in that borrowed swimsuit. Hardly running attire.

"Come in." He gestured to two chairs positioned near the fireplace. "Though I warn ye, that fire's just started. No heat yet."

"Better than nothing." She settled into one of the chairs and tucked her feet under her. "I can't believe how cold I got after swimming. I forgot what Scottish humidity does to me."

Nervous as a wet hen, he took the other chair, and when he looked up, his gaze caught on her mouth just as she licked her lips. One look in her eyes and he knew they shared the same problem—that kiss from earlier just hadn’t been enough.

She cleared her throat. "You wanted to talk."

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees—an excuse to look down. "I need to tell ye what it was like the first time ye left."

She tensed but didn't stop him.

"I was mad with worry. Ye were just...gone. No word, no warning. I thought something terrible must have happened. Then when I finally accepted ye'd left by choice..." He shook his head. "Finding ye became everything. I thought of nothing else. I thought I could convince ye to give me another chance."

"Grey—"

"Let me finish. Please." He waited for her nod. "Then Italy happened. I thought everything was right again. But when ye disappeared, I should have faced the truth. Should have stopped hunting ye then and there. Because it wasn't just about us anymore, was it? There was something else."

Her eyes glistened in the firelight. "I can't?—"

"I know. I can see ye want to explain, but ye willnae. And if ye can't trust me with whatever is causin' ye pain..." His voice cracked. "Then I can't help ye. And what was between us was over long ago."

A tear slipped down Aries' cheek. She brushed it away quickly and hoped a faint smile could postpone the shattering of her heart until she could get out the door. Her gaze drifted to the large bag beside the bed. "You're leaving?"

"Aye." He finally straightened and glanced at the duffel.

"Is there...someone else? Do you need me to sign papers? Or do we do some sort of un -handfasting?" Her voice hitched. "The house—surely you're not taking another woman to our house?"

He coughed on a laugh. "Nay. Nothing lives in there now but ghosts. Tables and chairs all covered in sheets. Every little thing exactly where it was."

"You didn't sell it?"

He shook his head slowly, sadly. "It's there if ye want it."

He still wouldn’t answer the real question, so she pressed again. "Then where will you take her?"

A smile he didn't feel creased the lines around his eyes. “There is no her , Aries. And I'm done with Inverness. Done chasing. Go where ye please—I'll not interfere again." He met her eyes and held steady. "Just know that I loved ye with every wee bone in my body. I will never forget ye."

Seconds dragged by as pure pain filled the space between them.

She moved first, launching herself from the chair into his arms. He stood in time to catch her and pull her close to finally finish that kiss they'd started. Mindless, they ended up on the bed, both fully clothed, both wrapped around each other like their lives depended on it.

But it wasn't a reunion, wasn't the start of something new...it was a farewell.

One more minute. One more kiss. One more hour of holding each other before they would need to let go.

Aries remembered falling in and out of sleep. At one point, he got up to turn off the fire they no longer needed. She should have left then, but she pretended to sleep through it. Each time he woke, he would press his lips against her head. Then he would sleep again, his light snoring like a kitten purring.

She wished morning would never come.

When she woke from a deep slumber, she knew the sun was up before she ever opened her eyes. Pale light filtered between the curtains and promised another sunny day—maybe for the rest of the world. But hers would be cold and empty, just like the bed.

Grey was gone.