Page 22 of Beyond Dreams

“Ceri,” he growled a warning, “do nae mistake me for a—”

“I’m not mistaking you for anything. I’m just telling you that was why I was...well, almost happy to see you, a familiar face. But I get it, it makes no sense.”

“Ceri, you are—”

“Okay, stop. Can you not call me that?”

His mouth thinned with displeasure. “Why the bluidy hell would I nae call you by your name?”

“I don’t like that name. My name is—I prefer Holly.”

Duncan nearly gaped at her, for all that she was so vexing for everything she said that turned reality upside down.

“You canna simply change your name,” he said, the only rationale he could imagine at the moment.

“I can,” she asserted. “Holly is my real name. Ceri was only—”

“The bluidy contract names you as Ceri,” he reminded her, growing angrier by the second.

“Well, yes,” she said, her expression dissolving into a wince. “Okay, that is...um, the name of your bride—I mean, that’s correct on the marriage certificate. But I don’t like it. It’s not...fitting. I prefer Holly.”

“Bluidy hell,” he seethed, “and what next? You’ll say you prefer a different husband or keep? Or claim that you are nae Ceri at all or that—” He stopped and fixed a rabid and accusatory glare upon her when her eyes widened in alarm.

But only briefly did she lose her poise, showing him that panicked reaction.

Clever girl she was, turning around this most perplexing conversation.

“What did you want anyway?” She asked with her own glower. “Why have you—what are you doing here?”

A cold, unyielding expression tightened his features. What the hell did she think he was doing here?

In a voice cool and implacable, Duncan answered, “It is our wedding night. It is time to consummate the union.”

Chapter Seven

Surprised siphonedall the blood from Holly’s face.

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