Chapter 15: I Hate You

How to make this moment last forever, Cian brooded. It was the first time he was... waltzing because he wanted to.

He had been to numerous blind dates, courtesy of his grandfather, and he had done one too many waltzes with lasses whose names he couldn't recall.

But this...this was different.

He had known she would be different the moment she had walked around him in that club and grabbed his butt shamelessly. It had destabilized him, and he had never been the same since that day.

In his arms, she was wee, yet his hands rested perfectly against the curve of her hips as though, they belonged there. He gazed down at her and he found her sharp gaze already on him. He couldn't read the look in her eyes and he hated that.

"Tell me what you're thinking," he whispered, tightening his hands on her waist and he swung them left, matching the rhythm of the song.

"You go first," she murmured breathlessly.

His eyes searched hers as he said, "You have beautiful eyes, lass."

Red crept into her cheeks and she looked around the room as she blushed, murmuring under her breath, "Don't look at me like that."

“How, pray tell, do I look at you lass?”

She shook her head, releasing a sharp sigh when he rotated them over and over, counting the steps mentally, spinning them in a natural fleckerl. The lass moved impressively, matching him step for step. Her eyes brightened and let out a breathy laugh as her fingers tightened around his.

“Lessons?” He said with a small smile, dipping her slightly.

Her cheeks flushed, turning rosy and she laughed again, a beautiful sound that caused his gut to squeeze. “It’s been years,” she said and he smiled at the quiet joy in her voice. “You’re not doing bad yourself.”

He snorted, spinning them again. “I am yet to find something I am not great at.”

She snorted in response, but her gaze was bright with humor. “Why do you speak that way? No one’s gonna throttle you if you drop the medieval speech, you know.”

“I grew up in the Highlands. ‘Tis embedded in me. I cannot simply. . .remove it when it so pleases me—and it doesn’t please me to.”

She arched a dark brow and regarded him with an expression he didn’t quite understand. “And you have been managing CG Enterprise all the way from Scotland? I can hardly believe that.”

“I travel from time to time, lass, but the Highlands remain my home. There is not a place in this world that I’d trade for it,” he paused, observing her before adding very carefully. “I should like to bring you with me, so you see it for yourself. If you would like that.”

“Pass,” she said, but there had been hesitation and he could see the gears turning behind her eyes.

“Should you change your mind, I shall be within an arm’s reach.”

She laughed again, squeezing his hand with her wee fingers. The movement made him weak-kneed as he imagined those blood-red nails around a specific part of him, feeling him out, stroking—

He shuddered. Ivette King did things to him. She made him feel vulnerable and powerful at the same time. She made him feel the hammering of his blood in his veins. When he touched her, everything in his bleak life regained color and bloomed again. A part of him that had died along with his parents in that accident began to stir as if to announce its existence to him. His heart stirred, and he knew he was in deep, deep shit.

He pulled her closer instinctively, and it had nothing to do with the dance. He’d been meaning to do that all evening. The lass had no idea how tempting she looked in that dress that hugged every lush curve of the body underneath his fingers. One small movement and he would be cupping her fat backside but he respected her too much to touch her that way.

Even if he was dying to.

“You’re doing it again, Scotty.”

He looked directly into her eyes and he glimpsed a flash of vulnerability beneath the usually tough exterior, but it was gone in a second. “What am I doing, lass?”

“Staring at me like I’m something special,” she whispered.

“I would not classify you as something special, lass. It does no justice to how I see—”

She stumbled a step and had he not tightened his grip on her, she would have stumbled out of his arms as well. There was doubt in her eyes and he could see her defenses rising again. She was en guarde again.

Burning hell. He hadn’t thought about it before he spoke. He couldn’t think when he was around her. What must she think of him?

Her eyes turned stormy. “Is that what this is about? To get me to lower my defenses so you can spew whatever nonsense you believe will get me into your bed again?”

He’d never felt so stupid in his entire life. “Nay, lass. I do not speak lies and—”

“Let go. This was a mistake.”

He let his grip loosen and when she began to pull away, he pulled her into his arms and the scent of her filled his nostrils. “But the dance is far from being done, lass. You conceded to dance with me,” he buried his nose in her hair, not minding the eyes on them.

He didn’t care.

He had stopped caring about the world the moment she’d taken his hand.

“Let me have this with you, lass. Stay with me. . .” He swallowed painfully as he forced out the word he had told no one else but her.

“Please.”

****

Aaron was going to be mad as hell.

The press was going to read meaning into this proximity between her and Cian.

Her father would scold her endlessly.

Kerry was going to be displeased and find some creative and hidden way to call her a whore again.

But Ivette couldn’t seem to bring herself to leave his warm embrace. They glided across the floors slowly and gently, going from the limb-shaking waltz to something gentler. He didn’t release her to do the twirl, and she didn’t want him to either.

She remained in the hug, breathing in his scent that had melded with a cologne she didn’t recognize, and gripping the back of his jacket lightly.

He cleared his throat. “'Tis quite refreshing. Perhaps, I shall attend these events a little more,” he paused. “Only if you promise to be here every year.”

Ivette glanced up, swallowing.

Better to end whatever this was now before it became something she really couldn’t walk away from. She wouldn’t be here next year with him. She wouldn’t have this with him ever again. It was all borrowed time anyway. Why prolong the inevitable? It didn’t matter if she spent the entire night dancing with Cian MacGregor. It would change nothing. After the event tomorrow, they would return to Seattle and she would marry Aaron. There would never be more. It would never be more than a night shared. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted when it came to Cian. She was still mad at him, but he gave nice hugs.

“What is it, Ivy lass?”

Her cheeks flamed at her name but it didn’t last long as her expression turned solemn again. Her lips parted to tell him, but she shut them, forcing a smile to her lips. “It’s nothing.”

She could have this dance with him. After this, she wouldn’t see him again. There was no need to tell him. She refused to entertain the notion that she’d even want to see him after the event. She wasn’t some lovesick puppy in need of Scotty’s affection and perfectly sized sock.

Overly sized.

“You stood me up,” he said after a long moment of silence and Ivette was grateful for the sudden change of topic.

“I did,” she replied, not quite meeting his gaze for fear that she might get lost in them.

“You still hold a grudge, yet you won’t let me apologize to you.”

“Why do you need to apologize to me? Why do you make it sound like it is my fault that I’m mad at you? So what? A burger and I’m your slut again?”

There was ire in her eyes and she didn’t bother shielding her hurt from him. He had done that to her. His had hurt almost as much as Aaron’s betrayal had—though she didn’t understand why. She could almost hear Riley’s voice at the back of her head saying, “It must have been the sex.” There was also Ann’s strict voice saying, “It was definitely the sex.”

Cian winced at the accusation. “I dug that hole myself,” he muttered. “There isn’t a day that passes that I do not regret my words that day. You do not believe me,” he added when he noted the blatant distrust with which she observed him. “and I do not expect you to. However, I wish you to know how sorry I am. I would truly love to start over with you, Ivette King.”

Ivette’s breathing slowed. “What do you mean by start over?”

His eyes guttered as he said in a low voice that made her toes curl, “I wish to know you, lass. Companies and business aside, I wish to know the woman behind the tough exterior. I wish to know the woman with the smile and laughter that swept me off my feet the first night we met. I wish to know the woman who had been. . .free and without ties and heavy weights, the woman who had shared my glass with me. I wish to court you, Ivette. If you would have me.”

Ivette wasn’t sure she was breathing anymore. Her throat had closed up, and she couldn’t form words, or even think of them.

“I came to Seattle for reasons I am not proud of, but I found you,” his grip tightened around her waist, pulling her closer to him and pressing her chest flush against his. “and I do not think I can live with myself if I let you go.”

Tears stung Ivette’s eyes and she blinked them back furiously. When had she become such an emotional mess? Since when did a man’s lies leave her hot and breathless and teary-eyed? She needed to find something to fight the emotions warring within her. She needed to find something to fight it. Him. “That morning—”

“Has a perfectly understandable explanation for what you heard me say. Should you let me explain everything to you, you would understand. I do not deny what my plans had been when I arrived in Seattle, and I do not care how long you spend hating me for it. I will keep trying to atone until you accept it. Me.”

Ivette’s lips quivered slightly and she pushed back, halting them in the slow dance movement. “I can’t.”

His brown eyes searched hers and she looked away, unable to bear the weight of it as he asked, “Why?”

She backed away a few steps as she felt invisible walls closing in on her. “I’m—” She couldn’t find the voice to say it.

Still, she tried again. “I’m getting married in two days. I can’t do this with you, Cian. I. . .I can’t.”

His dark brows furrowed together in confusion, but he soon pieced things together, judging from the darkening of his eyes. He went still and for a few seconds, Ivette considered reaching for him to ask if he was alright, but then, he suddenly spoke.

“No.”

Ivette frowned. “No?”

He was undaunted. “You can’t. You don’t love him.”

She closed the distance between them, poking his chest with a sharp red nail. “You do NOT tell me what it is that I feel, and for whom I feel what. You don’t know shit—”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer with it and she tipped her head back to stare into his deep-set eyes. “ ‘Tis not that I do not know you, Ivette. Tis that you do not remember who you are. The lass I have come to know would never be bound against her will.”

How he had come to that conclusion, Ivette didn’t know, but his words had struck her like a blow to the cheek and tears sprang to her eyes. “I hate you. You’re an asshole.”

“Ivy—”

Ivette turned around and left the hall, leaving the miserable trophy behind, as well as the curious stares of the people. They could all go to hell. Cian could go to hell as well.