Page 64 of Duke of Storme
“Didn’t it?” Diana’s voice remained calm, but something steel-strong had entered her tone. “Then why are you so determined to punish us both for it?”
Finn stood abruptly, moving to the window with sharp, agitated steps. “Ye don’t understand what ye’re talkin’ about.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“There’s nothing to explain. We had a moment of... proximity. It won’t happen again.”
“Proximity,” Diana repeated. The word carried a weight of disappointment. “Is that what you call it?”
“It’s what it was.”
“No. It wasn’t.” Diana rose from her chair, moving closer to where he stood silhouetted against the dark glass. “And your determination to pretend otherwise doesn’t make it less real.”
“Diana–”
“You don’t have to shut every door, Your Grace,” she said quietly, the words carrying across the space between them like a bridge he was too afraid to cross. “Not in this castle, and not in your heart either.”
His shoulders went rigid as every line of his body radiated with tension. “Some doors aren’t meant to be opened.”
“Then why do you keep standing behind them?”
The question hung in the air between them, weighted with all the things neither of them had been brave enough to say. Diana watched Finn’s reflection in the window glass. She saw the way his hands clenched into fists at his sides and how the muscle jumped in his jaw.
For a moment, she thought he might answer. Thought he might turn around and let her see whatever war was being fought behind his carefully controlled expression.
Instead, he straightened his shoulders and walked past her toward the door, not trusting himself to speak.
“Running away won’t make this disappear,” Diana called softly as he reached the threshold.
Finn paused, his hand on the doorframe, but he didn’t turn around. “Goodnight, Duchess.”
And then he was gone, leaving Diana alone with the dying fire and the echo of words that had found their mark whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Finn made it halfway to his chambers before the words caught up with him and wrapped around his chest like iron bands that made breathing difficult.
Why do you keep standing behind them?
He pressed his back against the stone wall of the corridor, closing his eyes as Diana’s voice echoed through his mind. The question was simple enough on the surface, but it cut straight to the heart of everything he’d spent years trying to avoid.
Because opening doors meant vulnerability. It meant letting someone close enough to see all the ways he was inadequate; all the reasons he’d never deserved the title that had fallen to himby accident of birth and tragedy. It meant risking the kind of rejection that had shaped every relationship he’d ever known.
But Diana wasn’t asking him to open doors for just anyone. She was asking him to open them forher. And that was what terrified him most of all.
Seemingly overnight she had become the woman who’d commanded a room full of Highland nobility with quiet grace. The woman who’d looked at his cruelty today and responded with patience instead of anger. The woman who refused to be dismissed, no matter how cold he became.
He’d married her expecting compliance, grateful acceptance of a marriage of convenience that would benefit them both. Instead, he’d gotten someone who saw through every defense he’d ever built, who challenged him to be better than he’d ever believed possible.
Diana was someone who might actually care about him enough to keep trying, to keep fighting for whatever connection they might build together, if he could find the courage to let her.
But courage had never been his strength when it came to matters of the heart. On a ship’s deck, facing enemy fire, he’d never hesitated. But standing in front of Diana, seeing the hope in her eyes when she looked at him... that required a different kind of bravery. It was the kind that meant risking everything he’d carefully protected for years.
Every cruel word, every dismissal, every attempt to drive her away only seemed to strengthen her resolve to understand him. She wasn’t retreating the way he’d expected, the way everyone else eventually did.
She was standing her ground, meeting his coldness with quiet strength and facing his cruelty with unwavering kindness.
And that terrified him more than anything he’d ever faced.
Because if Diana Brandon – Diana Hurriton now – if she truly saw him, all of him, and chose to stay... then he might have to admit that perhaps he was worthy of something more than mere tolerance after all.
