Page 207 of Marrying the Savage

The room feels too quiet.

“She said I’m fine,” I lie.

I look at him. The rest of the truth sits behind my teeth and refuses to become sound.

His expression changes. Not much. Enough. His attention sharpens, and I know he sees the fear because Damir sees everything when I least want him to.

“What happened?” he asks.

I turn back to the piano and press another key. “I don’t know how to play this thing.”

“I know.”

“You bought it anyway.”

“Yes.”

“I was joking when I said I knew piano.”

“I know.”

“That was a stupid thing to do.”

“Buying it?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

I glance up at him. “You are impossible.”

“You already told me.”

“I’ll keep telling you until it fixes something.”

He moves to the bench and sits beside me. The bench isn’t large enough for a man his size and my need to keep distance from him. But he sits carefully, leaving whatever space he can. His thigh still brushes mine. Heat moves through me immediately, annoying and familiar.

“Play,” he says.

“I just told you I can’t.”

“Then play awfully, I don’t care. I just want to hear you.”

I stare at him. “That is a terrible instruction.”

“It seems to be what you were doing before I came in.”

I hit his arm. He catches my hand before I can pull it back with enough pressure.

My breath catches anyway, because his thumb moves over the black thread around my finger. His father’s ring still hangs there, too big and too heavy for my hand, tied like a claim, like a question, like something neither of us knows how to remove.

He releases me and places his hand over mine on the keys. “Here,” he says.

“You know piano?”

“A little.”

“I should have known,” I mutter under my breath.