The door closed behind her with a soft click that seemed to echo in the sudden silence.
Liang Jian stood motionless, his hand still raised where he had caught her wrist, as if he could still feel the delicate bones beneath her skin, the flutter of her pulse against his fingertips.
What was I thinking?
He moved to the low table and poured himself wine. Drank it in one swallow. The liquid burned down his throat, sharp and bracing, but it did nothing to clear his head.
Do you perhaps have a personal interest in her?
His brother's words circled in his mind like carrion birds, filled with mockery.
He poured another cup. Drank again.
Personal interest. As if attraction were something so simple, so easily named and dismissed. As if the way his chest had tightened when he saw her tears, the way fury had flooded his veins at the thought of her locked in that room, the way his hand had moved of its own accord to catch her wrist...as if any of that could be reduced to mere interest.
