Page 116 of Scars and Crowns

"I told you before," he says softly. "I never let you become my past." His fingers brush mine for the briefest second. "So eventually my skin stopped pretending it could either." I can't answer.

Anything I say will probably come out as a sob. Instead, I uncap the yellow marker. Very carefully . . . I begin filling in the tiny petals. Slow strokes. Gentle. The marker glides over warm skin. Every now and then my fingers brush lightly against his chest. Each accidental touch sends something ridiculous fluttering through my stomach.

He's watching me. Not the tattoo. Me. With so much quiet affection that it's almost impossible to concentrate on staying inside the lines. "You missed a petal." His voice is barely above a whisper.

"I know."

My hand freezes as he guides my hand to the exact place, his thumb stroking the inside of my palm.

I look up.

He's smiling. Completely unashamed of flirting with me while a five-year-old sits six inches away colouring birds. Heat floods straight into my cheeks.

"Yuvaan."

"Hm?"

"Behave."

"I am behaving." His eyes sparkle. "I've been remarkably well behaved."

"Mumma." Sara glances over critically. "You coloured outside." She points with great seriousness. "Right there."

"There." I obediently fix my terrible artistic crime. "Better?"

Sara studies it like an art professor. " . . . Acceptable."

Yuvaan laughs. "I see perfectionism runs in the family."

"It does not."

"It absolutely does."

He tilts his head slightly toward me. "You've reorganised the same bookshelf three times."

"That was different."

"It was alphabetical, Daisy."

"It needed . . . " I search desperately. " . . . better alphabetising."

He chuckles under his breath. "I stand corrected."

Sara is now entirely absorbed in colouring the swallows. "They need adventures."

"What colour is adventure?" Yuvaan asks solemnly.

"Blue." She answers without hesitation. "And sparkly."

"I don't think markers come in sparkly."

"They should."

"I'll write a formal complaint."

She nods approvingly. "I think that's wise." I have to bite my lip to stop laughing. For the next half hour the room fills with easy conversation. Sara explains, in exhausting detail, why the ocean should always be turquoise. Yuvaan agrees with every artistic decision she makes as though she's the country's foremost tattoo expert.

Every so often his gaze finds mine. Every single time my pulse stumbles.