"Shall I hum?" Ian asked, his lips carefully arranged now in a smile.
He had hummed that day. That day. When what she felt for him was new and unexplored and her anticipation of its fulfilment was a tantalizing expectancy that existed only in her own heart, secret and guarded. And in the intervening months, instead of the fulfilment she had hoped for, there had been nothing between them but betrayal.
The caustic knowledge of her father's. And then Travener's. And if she did nothing to break the hold those had taken...
Ian was still waiting, she realized, her left hand resting lightly on his shoulder and her right trembling in his. He was waiting for permission to hum. Waiting for her to take the first step. Waiting to do, once again, whatever she asked of him.
