Chapter 8 - Amber
Amber stepped into the house and, for a wild moment, wondered if a tornado had blown through the living room.
Scraps of wood lay on the ground, along with an open, half-empty box of nails and a power drill.
Her eyes slid across the chaos, trying to make some sense of it.
It was all construction debris, the sort of stuff one might find if someone were redoing a room.
The scents of wood shavings and metal wafted up her nose.
And, above it all, was the unmistakable smell of fresh paint, acrid and strangely pleasant at the same time.
Before she could even fully process what she was seeing or come up with a reason as to why someone had converted the living room into a construction zone, Cillian appeared.
He was wearing old jeans splattered with paint, some of which was the same color as the paint crusting on his hands.
He brushed his hands against the sides of his thighs, adding new smears of paint across the denim.
She looked him up and down. For a wild moment, a spasm of lust cut through the confusion.
As much as she hated to admit it, he looked good in jeans.
The shirt, plain white but clearly a tattered work shirt, did nothing to conceal his muscles.
His hair was slightly disheveled and shaggy, the way it might get after hard work, or—and she really hated her mind for going here—a different, more carnal activity.
It shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was.
It shouldn’t have made longing shoot through her.
Then he broke into a lazy grin, and that smirk only made him more attractive.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Amber replied, still dazed by the state of the house. She glanced around again, trying to figure out how to ask what he was doing to create this much of a mess.
Before she could come up with the correct words, however, he was already speaking.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. Then, without waiting for her to respond, he took her wrist and guided her down the hall where he had come from, the still-wet paint transferring to her arm.
She let out a squeak that was somewhere between confused and surprised, but let him guide her around the debris.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Instead of saying anything, he simply kept going until he came to a stop in front of a door. With a smile, he turned and tugged her inside.
Her jaw dropped.
The room had been a bland study, a space she hadn’t focused much on when she first explored the house or really thought about since. There hadn’t been anything special about it or any reason to go in. She didn’t think Cillian had even used it.
Now, however, the entire wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A tiny, comfortable nook with plush pillows lay beneath the large window that let sunlight pour into the space.
“What do you think?” he asked as she continued to gawk, speechless.
“I know the shelves are a little spartan at the moment, but that’s mostly because you never had a space to collect books until now.
But you mentioned you missed being around books and the library, so I thought you might like something like this. ”
At first, words wouldn’t come. When they finally did, the only thing she managed to choke out was, “How?”
He raised an eyebrow. “How did I build this? Well, see, I used my hands, and then put pieces of wood together, then I—”
She shot him an annoyed look, and he gave a playful grin that lit up his whole face, making him somehow even more attractive.
“I used to do woodworking when I was younger,” he said. “I was really into it. I thought about going into carpentry before deciding to join the military.”
Instead of answering right away, she stared into the room again, giving herself time to come up with a response.
The little nook by the window would be perfect for reading.
The cushions looked comfortable enough to sleep on, and he had even added a pull-out end table on one side.
The warm colors of the shelves gave the room a cozy feel.
She would be able to spend hours in here and still never want to leave.
In short, it was perfect.
Cillian was clearly waiting for a response. She finally managed to find some words.
“You really remembered me mentioning offhand that I missed having books around, and then went through all the trouble to do this for me because of it?”
Another eyebrow raise. “I mean, I feel like the evidence speaks for itself. But in case you do need verbal confirmation, then yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
When she continued to stare dubiously at him, he asked, “Why on earth are you so surprised by that?”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t decide if she was keeping the answer to herself because she didn’t want to admit it to Cillian or because it was silly.
The truth was that she couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something like this for her—not just remembered something she barely remembered saying herself, but acting on it.
Most of the time, the men in her life expected her to do things for them.
She couldn’t count all the times she had worked a grueling day, only to come home and hear Eric immediately bark at her to make dinner, calling her lazy if she took so much as a five-minute breather after walking through the door.
A lump formed in her throat, a mix of emotions swirling inside her as she tried to gather her thoughts. She suddenly felt self-conscious, as if she didn’t deserve this sort of kindness. She shifted back and forth on her feet, unsure how to feel or how to respond.
“Is there something wrong with it?” he asked. “I’m happy to make changes if there’s something you don’t like.”
“What?” She blinked, the question bringing her back to earth at its sheer absurdity.
“It’s just, you don’t exactly look thrilled.” He smirked, a teasing glint in his eye.
“No,” she blurted. “No, I love it.”
He frowned. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it doesn’t look like it. You look like someone who has never seen a library before, which I know isn’t true. So, what’s up?”
What was up was that she felt almost guilty accepting this sort of gift, like she didn’t deserve it. It felt strange having someone know her well enough to take the initiative to create this perfect thing for her.
Cillian was still staring at her. Heat flushed through her once more, and she grasped for an answer, for an explanation.
“I guess I wasn’t expecting it,” she managed to say. “That’s all.”
He shrugged, looking a little more nervous and sheepish than she might have otherwise expected from him. “I had some time on my hands,” he said. “Carpentry helps me think, so it was a double win for me.”
“Yeah,” was all she could say.
“Anyway, we should get these shelves stocked so we can actually call it a library. I don’t remember you bringing many books with you when you moved in,” he said. “Are they in storage or something?”
She shook her head. “To save money, I always borrowed from the library,” she said. “I only have a couple of books that I’ve held onto, and they’re practically falling apart at the binding from how much I’ve handled them.”
“Well, feel free to buy as many books as you want,” he said.
Again, that took her by surprise. She blinked, trying not to gape. “Really?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, these shelves aren’t going to fill themselves, and I definitely didn’t build them so that they could stand empty. Of course, I want you to fill them.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. Again, she didn’t know what to say to that.
When she had been dating Eric, he’d called any purchase of hers a waste of money.
He’d berated her for hours when she had splurged with her tip money to buy a paperback novel she’d been dying to read for a year, saying that she was worthless and should know better than to buy things without his consent.
He’d taken the novel and thrown it in the trash as punishment, adding that from then on, she was going to give him all the money she earned because it was clear that she didn’t know the first thing about handling it.
When Amber remained silent and instead continued staring at Cillian like an idiot, his smile dimmed.
“Is it all right?” he asked. “I didn’t think you’d mind, and it wasn’t like I was using this room. Honestly, I’ve sometimes felt like this house is a bit big for one person.”
“No, no,” she said, finally finding her words. “It’s great. It’s… perfect, really.”
Cillian broke into a relieved grin. “Good,” he said. “Because the look on your face made me wonder if I’d somehow royally fucked up and that you were secretly in love with the bland, empty office that no one was using.”
She burst into laughter, a grin spreading across her face, one of the first genuine ones she had given in a long time. She wanted to tell him that this was the nicest thing anyone had done for her, and she would never forget it.
Just as she was about to open her mouth to say just that, something stopped her. She swallowed. He had done this for her, but one kind gesture didn’t excuse everything else he had done. He had still forced her to marry him.
Except that resentment was getting harder to hold onto.
He hadn’t forced himself on her, though she’d noticed the way he looked at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.
He checked in on her regularly, and he never expected her to wait on him hand and foot.
It didn’t help that she had been fighting back her own attraction to him ever since she had moved in.
Even now, she found herself noticing the way his muscles rippled whenever he moved.
The paint speckling his wrists drew her attention to his forearms, and she wondered what it would feel like for those arms to pin her down, for his hands to run across her skin.
It was too much. She sucked in a breath, barely managing to keep her face a mask.
“Thanks,” she said after a long moment. “This is… thanks.”
She couldn’t seem to say anything else, and she didn’t want him to see the way she was holding back tears or her continued bewilderment.
So, she turned and walked out of the beautiful room Cillian had built just for her.
She listened, wondering if he would call after her to demand to know what was wrong. He didn’t, and she kept moving.
She didn’t stop until she got back to her room. Once the door had closed behind her, she stilled for a moment. She pushed her hair away from her forehead and stared, moving mechanically deeper into the room.
She lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Cillian had done that for her. He had gone through all that effort because of an offhand comment she’d made. A rush of warmth swirled through her.
That doesn’t change what he did to you, a voice whispered in her ear.
The voice was right, of course. He had still forced her to marry him and had still not listened to her when she said she hadn’t wanted to.
Closing her eyes, she tried to remind herself of that. But it took only a couple of minutes for her to realize she was thinking about what books to buy and picturing herself in the room he had made just for her.