Page 97 of The Heir's Bargain

I scoffed. "An exaggeration."

Fynn tapped his fingers on top of his knee. "Said you looked as if there was something wrong."

"Oh?" I could feel Fynn's gaze, but I refused to acknowledge it.

"Dani," Fynn said, my name a plea on his lips. In my periphery, he reached out as if to touch my face, but his hand fell as though he thought better of it. "Talk to me."

"About?" I asked, watching the morning sky melt into an array of colors. The summer solstice was over. Last night was over. We had nothing to talk about.

We made a promise.

"Everything? Anything? It doesn't matter, but don't shut me out now."

"I'm not." From the corner of my eye, I saw him lean forward.

"You are," he said. "If you could sink into that cushion right now, you would."

I snapped my head in his direction, my mouth opening to argue, but he cut me off, arching a brow.

"Don't try to lie to me right now." His attention dropped to my arms, pressed tightly over my chest.

My nails dug into my triceps as I pushed my back against the cushion. I loosened my grip, revealing crisp crescent moons marking my flesh. I tried to relax. I dropped my shoulders and uncrossed my legs, but no matter what I did, my heart still thumped in my chest.

"Why did you leave without saying goodbye?" The question was soft on his lips—lips I definitely was not admiring. He shifted to the front of the bench, his hands falling in front of his lap and dangling between his legs.

I shrugged. "I didn't want to wake?—"

Fynn's lowered gaze forced me to swallow the lie.

"Dani."

I bit down on my tongue. He wasn't going to let this go. His eyes were as fixed on me as the roots of a thousand-year-old oak tree, ingrained into the very soil and unmoving.

"If you can't say whatever it is, perhaps. . ." The rest of his thought melted away.

But Fynn was right. I might not have been able to say the words aloud, but there were other ways of expressing myself when Fynn was around.

Focusing, I imagined a window in one of the tall concrete walls of the fortress I had spent years building within my mind. I cracked it open. Only prying it open enough for a single thought to release—a whisper on the breeze, barely there and easily missed if one wasn't looking.

"What were you scared about?" Fynn asked in response.

I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut.

Everything, I said through the mental window.

Fynn reached forward, but when I balled up my hands, his hand fell to my knee instead. His touch was warm and familiar, and somehow, it stabilized me. "Dani."

Last night was a?—

"Dani," Fynn said, interrupting me, "before you even finish that thought, let me say one thing." He wrung his hands together.

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought Fynn was nervous. But what did he, of all people, have to be anxious about?

"We've been pretending to court each other for almost three months. We have two months left." He swiped a hand through his hair, his chest rising as he took a deep breath. "What if we. . .stopped pretending for the last two months?"

The window in my mind slammed shut.

"We're friends, Fynn, we can't just. . ."

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