Page 103 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
“Aye, I do.”
He looked at her, truly looked, and saw the flicker of fear behind her calm. “We can still turn back, ye ken.”
She shook her head. “Nay.”
The finality in her voice stopped him cold.
She turned to face him fully. “I need to do this meself.”
“Do what?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “Beg for some apology he’ll never give? Let him hurt ye again with whatever bile he’s waitin’ to spit at ye… or worse?”
Amara blinked at him. Her face was calm. Still. But it wasn’t cold.
“Nay,” she said softly. “I’m nae here for him.”
Rhys’s brow furrowed.
“I’m here for me,” she continued. “To end this chapter. To look the man in the face who gave me away and tell him I lived through it. That I made it to the other side. That I’m more than what he had hoped for me.”
He sat still, watching her, thunderstruck.
She smiled, but it was faint. “I used to dream he’d regret it. That he’d call me back. That he’d realize what he’d done. But now, I just… I want peace. Even if it comes without apology.”
Rhys was quiet for a moment. Then he huffed out a breath, shaking his head.
“Ye’re braver than I am,” he said.
“Nae by a mile,” she said. “Just tired.”
The wind stirred again. Her curls fluttered at her temple.
“And what’ll ye do after?” he asked, softly. “After ye’ve stared the bastard down?”
She hesitated.
Then, she said, matter-of-factly, “Come back to ye.”
His breath caught.
What?
She said it so simply as if it had always been the plan. But for Rhys, it was a sword through the ribs. He’d prepared himself to say goodbye — to guard the gates of her father’s fortress like a loyal hound and then let her go, since that is was what she chose.
But this…
He couldn’t find his breath at first. It knocked the wind out of him, her certainty. Her calm.
She’s coming back.
It was a thought he hadn’t dared to shape until now. And yet, here she was, giving it to him freely like it wasn’t a gift at all. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I…” he began, but stopped.What in hell was there to say?
His pulse was thundering too hard to let words through. The world, once sharp-edged and grey with foreboding, now seemed to flicker with the smallest ember.
He looked at her and saw a woman who had walked through the fire of betrayal and pain and had somehow come out stronger. And she was choosing to walk back through it… not for her father, but for herself.
And maybe, god help him, forhimtoo.
