One month later
aggie, read your latest poem to Mr. Tobin, do. I fancy he’ll love it every bit as much as I did.” Nell’s eyes danced with mischief as she made her request.
Maggie frowned at her once-again hostess, who had become a true friend to her. She wasn’t prepared to share her work yet, and Nell knew it. Especially not to a brilliant poet like Jonathan Tobin. “I’m sure the company would far prefer to hear Mr. Tobin’s poetry than mine,” she deflected, occupying herself with the drape of her evening gown.
Although she would have once been thrilled to keep company with the likes of the eccentric man who had penned some of the finest contemporary verse, now she felt hollow. Unable to appreciate the world around her. She had sought out Nell in a moment of weakness, too tired of spending her days and nights alone, fraught with fear. The dear woman had thrown an impromptu house party in her honor, inviting every great artist, novelist, and poet she knew. It was a glittering, entertaining group of fine minds, but it was mostly lost upon Maggie.
A fortnight had passed without word from Simon. And then another. She had no way of knowing if he would ever return. She had nowhere to send her letters, no hope of knowing what had become of him. Perhaps she would never know. She’d written every known associate of his. No one knew his whereabouts. None had heard from him.
He was lost to her.
Lady Billingsley’s suicide had been her final act of manipulation. And it had worked, for the tentative bridge Maggie and Simon had been building between them had crumbled into ash. She was once again alone.
“My lady?”
She glanced up from her lap, her hard thoughts disrupted by Mr. Tobin’s deep, gentle voice. He was indeed a handsome man, she thought, wishing it wasn’t lost on her. If only Simon’s defection hadn’t hurt as much, she would have been stronger. She would have been better off had he never trounced her train that fateful evening, for then she never would have realized her husband was a man she could love.
She shook herself from her troubles, forcing a smile to her lips. “My apologies, Mr. Tobin. I fear I was woolgathering.”
“About a dark and storm-tossed sea, it would seem.” He leaned closer to her on the settee they shared. “Do share. It simply isn’t fair to keep all your troubles to yourself.”
She relaxed a bit at his easy teasing. She rather liked him. He was enigmatic but humble, willing to appreciate a female poet in her own right. She found his way wonderfully modern. “I’m certain you don’t wish to hear me wax on about the miseries in my life.”
“But my dear Lady Sandhurst,” he drawled, “miseries make for the best poems. Surely you must know that.”
“It’s true,” Nell added, grinning in that unfettered way she possessed. “Miseries and lost loves were expressly created for the sake of beautiful poetry. Just as men were created for pleasing women.”
Mr. Tobin raised a brow at their hostess. “Indeed, Nell? Others would swear it’s the other way around.”
It was Maggie’s glum experience that neither women nor men pleased each other. “How can anyone truly please another?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“They say pleasure can be taught,” Mr. Tobin said, his eyes and tone suggesting an entirely naughty meaning hidden behind his polite words and gentlemanly exterior.
He wanted to bed her. The realization struck her with devastating clarity. Once she would have been too naïve to note the subtle hints. But Simon had changed that for her. Now she knew the workings of men and women, but it all just left her feeling empty. She didn’t want another man, couldn’t think beyond the frantic worry that edged her mind. Where had Simon gone? Where was he now?
“Perhaps,” she allowed, “but only if one wants to be taught.”
Mr. Tobin inclined his head and retreated a few inches, apparently understanding that she was not a society wife ripe for the plucking. “Eloquently spoken, my lady.”
“Shall we have a drawing room game?” Nell asked their small assembly at large then, trying to steer the conversation in a safer direction.
“I bloody well despise games of all sort,” offered Mr. Sedgewick, a well-known artist whose talent rivaled that of Burne-Jones. He was as thin as he was tall, his slight frame belied by a raffish air.
Maggie laughed at his response, grateful for the distraction of Nell’s house party. At least here she could tamp down the fear, the ache in her heart for a time. Surrounding herself with people wasn’t a panacea, but it was something. It was life rather than death.
“I’ve heard you don’t despise chamber games, Sedgewick,” ribbed Lord Montford, whose most recent poetry volume had set tongues wagging and books flying from the shelves.
The ladies tittered and the men snickered.
Mr. Sedgewick pressed a hand to his heart, affecting an air of affront. “Truly, Montford, I’m shocked at the suggestion. I fear you’ve got it all bollixed up, and the man in question is truly Mr. Tobin.”
Nell made a dismissive gesture with her hand, ever the imperious hostess. “Gentleman, please do calm yourselves. I’ll not have blood drawn in my drawing room unless it’s for a worthy cause.”
“Pray tell us, Nell. What is your idea of a worthy cause?” Mr. Tobin gave Maggie a rascal’s grin. “I’ve a notion to impress Lady Sandhurst, and if bloodletting is required, I’ve no compunction.”
Oh dear. She supposed she ought to have known that Nell’s gathering might take a wicked turn. But she wasn’t prepared for flirting and feigned courting. She wished she could stop loving Simon as easily as he’d disappeared. Life would have been much simpler. Easier, for certain.
“Poetry impresses me,” she returned. As did a strong man, an honorable man. One willing to fight for her. Simon had not fought. He’d given up and rode away. Perhaps it was better in the end. He never could have loved her, just as she never could have stopped loving him. Love had proven to give her all the joy of a festering wound.
“A recitation is in order,” Nell decided. “Jonny, you must recite one of your poems for us if Lady S. shall not.”
Mr. Tobin obliged her by standing. “Very well. You win, Nell, just as you always do.”
But before he could begin, a commotion sounded just beyond the drawing room. A door flung open. Lady Needham’s butler stood there, attempting to bar the path of an unseen foe behind him.
“His lordship, the Marquis of Sandhurst,” he announced grimly.
Maggie’s head swirled. It couldn’t be. Had she heard correctly? A gasp caught in her throat as the butler moved to reveal the man standing behind him. He was tall, slightly disheveled, and most certainly not wearing evening finery. In fact, he was muddied and looked as if he’d just slid from his horse after a two-hour ride. He was thinner than she recalled, his face a trifle more gaunt and covered in whiskers, though handsome as ever.
It was him. Like a ghost, he loomed over them, his green gaze scanning the faces of those in attendance until he reached her. The breath seeped from her lungs. Simon had finally returned. Relief hit her. He was alive.
Nell was the first to react. “Sandhurst, whatever are you doing here?”
“I’m here for my wife,” he all but growled.
He had come for her. She wanted to rejoice, run into his arms and kiss him. But she remained seated, wary, watching him. Because he was too late. Far too late in remembering he had a wife. And she had already closed and locked the door inside herself. She wasn’t about to give him the key.
Simon was in a grim mood. He’d just had to ride across the countryside in the dark and muck to find Maggie. He was cold and miserable whilst there she sat, looking brilliantly beautiful in a black evening gown with diamonds in her red hair and a man at her side. By God. He knew he’d been gone for a time, but did that give his wife the right to cavort with a gaggle of lecherous poets? Of course it didn’t. He was going to rip off one of Tobin’s arms and beat him with the bloody thing.
Nell gaped at him as if he’d grown a second head atop his shoulders. He wanted to shake the woman for her interference, the audacity she had to spirit his wife away. He had finally been able to return to Denver House. It had taken him some time, some railing and raging and bottles of whisky. But he had returned because he’d known Maggie waited there for him. He had needed her sweetness, her warm embrace, the comfort of her ready passion and easy caring. Yes, by the time he had fought off the demons chasing him down and the fog of whisky had lifted from his addled mind, he’d known he’d made a terrible mistake in leaving her in the first place. He needed her more than he needed air to breathe.
And then she had not been there. Coming home to Denver House, with its ghosts, had been hell enough. Without Maggie there to welcome him, he’d been lost. At least Mrs. Keynes had known her whereabouts, for he may have well and truly lost his bloody mind if he hadn’t discovered where to find her.
So here he was, cooling his heels while the company stared at him in dazed bemusement. He wasn’t accustomed to being the odd man out, to making scenes or wearing his emotions on his bloody sleeve, but none of that mattered now. He had come for his wife. He couldn’t not have her. He needed her. Desperately, he’d come to realize. He needed her to make him laugh again, to shore the loose pieces inside himself. But she remained seated, looking more as if she were about to leap into Tobin’s bloody embrace than his.
Damn it all. He’d regained his sanity too late.
“Welcome back, Sandhurst,” Nell said at last into the shocked silence that had descended over the drawing room’s inhabitants.
“Thank you.” The words felt rusty as he said them. He had been alone for many weeks, speaking to no one, lost in grief and blame and drink. “I apologize for intruding on your merriment.” There, that ought to do. He realized he’d bungled things a bit upon his entrance.
“Think nothing of it,” Nell said, smiling oddly at him. “You know I don’t stand on ceremony.”
Devil take it, did he look that poorly? He supposed he ought to have allowed his man to shave him. Suddenly, the audience felt as if it were going to rob his breath. He wanted to speak to Maggie. Alone. A glance in her direction found her watching him stiffly, her expression indecipherable. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, every inch the marchioness, from her perfect coiffure to her beautiful evening gown. She was at home here, and for the first time he felt the interloper.
“Lady Sandhurst,” he said to her, “might I have a word?”
Christ, he couldn’t wait to dispense with the formality, to take her in his arms and bury his face in her soft curls, to kiss her sweet mouth, to lose himself inside her body. He was expecting her compliance—he needed her compliance—so when she said something that sounded suspiciously like “no”, he was certain he’d misheard her.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, noting she remained immobile.
“No,” she said again, more loudly this time so that there was no mistaking it.
She was denying him, by God. He stared at her, dumbfounded. This was not what he’d imagined. Not at all. She turned her head away, gazing down into her lap as though she couldn’t bear to look at him. Tobin smirked at him as if he’d already taken her to bed. Yes, he was going to tear off one of the bastard’s limbs, he decided, starting forward.
Perhaps he was indeed a madman. He didn’t know who he was any longer, but he did know that he wasn’t about to let some fop of a poet run off with his wife. Who the devil did he think he was, sitting so near to her? Why, his bloody thigh was nearly touching her skirts.
“Haven’t you ever heard of propriety?” he asked Tobin, infuriated by the man’s insufferable air of smugness. “Your poetry is drivel, sir. Complete shite.”
He heard a few gasps at his lack of manners. He didn’t care. He’d been through nearly all the circles of hell, and he damn well wanted what he’d come here for. He stopped before Maggie, who was once again gazing at him with large violet eyes as if she didn’t know who he was and what he was about to do. But he supposed she was in good company, as neither did he.
He held out a hand to her. “Come with me, Maggie.”
Tobin stood, puffing out his chest in a barnyard cock style. “Leave the lady alone, Sandhurst.”
“Mind your own bloody business, Tobin.” He looked back down at Maggie, forcing her to meet his gaze. He didn’t want to plead before everyone, but bloody hell he would. “Please, Maggie.”
“Whatever it is that you need to tell her can be said right here,” Tobin demanded.
The man was an annoying fly buzzing in his ear despite repeated attempts to swat it. “No,” he said slowly, turning to his nemesis. “It cannot.”
Forget the arm. Before he realized what he was about, he took a lusty swing at Tobin’s chin. And connected with a satisfying crunch of knuckles on bone. It smarted, but he was too pleased with his handiwork to pay it much mind. Tobin keeled backward, his eyes rolling.
Maggie gasped and shot to her feet, her eyes snapping with accusatory fire. “You’ve knocked Mr. Tobin out, you lout.”
Well, bloody hell. That wasn’t quite the response he’d been hoping for from her either, but it seemed that he didn’t have much choice. If he wanted to speak with her alone, there was only one way for it to get done. He bent, pressed his shoulder into her midriff and his arm behind her skirts, and hauled her into the air.
“Put me down at once,” she insisted, though her voice was a trifle muffled. She actually had the temerity to strike him on the arse with her fist.
He ignored her. He also ignored the men and women rushing to their feet and trying to stay his progress from the room. He wouldn’t allow it. Nothing was stopping him now. He may have completely ruined what little emotion Maggie had once felt for him, but he had come too far to offer an olive branch now.
Nell threw herself in his path, twin patches of scarlet staining her cheeks. “Sandhurst, you cannot carry her off as if you’re a Hun.”
“Of course I can.” He gestured with his free hand to demonstrate the faulty quality of her logic. He already was carrying Maggie off, after all.
“Don’t be an oaf.” She walked backward as she continued to try—unsuccessfully—to halt his movement. “You mustn’t hurt her.”
“I promise not to hurt her.” He frowned at Nell. “You must know I’d never do that.”
She studied his face, her expression pinched, before nodding. “Very well. Take her to the study if you must.”
Maggie began pummeling his arse anew. “I don’t wish to speak with you,” she called out.
“You’re not,” he told her. “You’re speaking with the floor.” That earned him another swat. Good. Anger was an emotion he could appreciate. With a nod of thanks to Nell, he hauled his wife from the room.
Her husband was a maddening, arrogant, rude, heartless, blustering fool. Maggie pummeled him with all her might as she hung upside down. He’d tossed her over his shoulder as if she were a bundle of rags and carted her about Nell’s home as if he were a vagabond about to abscond with the family silver. He wasn’t about to take her anywhere, not if she had a say in it. She gave him another sound swat as the blood rushed to her head and dizziness began to settle over her. Her ears hummed.
“Sandhurst, cease this nonsense. You’re behaving like a barbarian,” she shouted. Dear Lord, the servants were sure to be witnessing this inglorious display. Mortification heated her cheeks. This was not the homecoming she’d envisioned, the one she’d longed for.
“Perhaps I am a barbarian.” He stalked over a threshold and kicked a door closed at his back.
Good heavens. They were alone. “You certainly are. Now cease carrying me about and put me down.”
As suddenly as he’d snatched her up, he crouched down. Her feet met with the carpeted floor of Nell’s study. At last. Heaving a breath, she stood and attempted to shake her dress back into order. Her silk was hopelessly crumpled. Her hands trembled as she righted the fall of her skirts. She was afraid to look up at him, afraid that doing so would ruin her defenses.
She still loved him. That would not change, even if he would never love her in return. She still ached at the way he’d left her, with no word, no warning, not even a change of heart. Not a single letter.
“There you are, on your feet again.” An indefinable emotion rendered his voice harsh. “Why the devil won’t you look at me?”
She clenched her fingers. “You’re thundering at me.”
“Bloody hell,” he all but yelled, quite proving her point. “I’m doing no such thing.”
Ever arrogant, ever Simon. Bracing herself, she gazed up at him at last. “I won’t be hollered at, Sandhurst.”
“Cease calling me by my title, will you?” He frowned down at her, ferocious in his pique. “I won’t have you acting as if we’re strangers.”
“But we are strangers.” She allowed her gaze to run over his face, at once hauntingly familiar and yet also different. He had not eaten well in his absence. His cheeks were nearly sunken, his powerful frame reduced to a wiriness he hadn’t before possessed. His hair was longer than ever, his whiskers in desperate need of trimming. He looked, for himself, awful. But yet still so handsome. Still so beloved. “I am sure I never knew you at all, my lord.”
His eyes burned into hers, unrelenting. “Have you forgotten just how well you know me?”
His question stirred a month-long-buried ache within her. She didn’t want to think about making love with him, for it would reduce her to a puddle of weakness. She couldn’t be weak before him now. He had left her, hurt her. She would not forgive so hastily. If ever she could.
She raised her chin, a small show of defiance. “There are other ways of knowing a man. Those are the ways I speak of, and I certainly never knew you as I’d thought I did.”
“I daresay the same could be said for you, madam,” he returned, his tone as cold as Wenham Lake ice. “I’ve scarcely been gone, and already you’re cavorting with poets and rakes.”
She gasped at his effrontery. “Cavorting? How dare you?”
“What else would you call it, my dear?” He gripped her elbow and dragged her against his body in a punishing grip. “I need to know something. Is Tobin fucking you?”
His crudeness took her by surprise. She had dreamt of Simon returning to her, but she had not dreamt of this cruel stranger with the taunts and the dead eyes. He had come back to her as the same man he’d been in his study that awful night, someone almost frightening to her.
“Of course not,” she denied. “How dare you suggest such a horrid thing?”
“I’m a man, darling. I know the ways of the world. Why would you come to Nell’s if you weren’t seeking a man for your bed once I’d gone?”
The “darling” he’d used for her sounded empty, a mere husk. If she had been hurt before, she was devastated now, crushed by his accusations and his desire to see the worst in her. “I am not Lady Billingsley,” she told him fiercely. “Nell has told me everything, you know.” It had been a small comfort, learning that the paragon who had taken Simon away from her was, in fact, a mere mortal after all. A deceptive, manipulative mortal who had done her best to ruin that which was not hers. “I would not betray our vows, not after what we shared.”
“I’m more than aware that you’re nothing like Eleanor.” His stare remained hard upon her, his touch hot through the layers of her gown and undergarments. “You speak as if our marriage is at an end. We are inextricably bound to each other, Maggie.”
She shook her head, sadness threatening to crush her heart. “We are wed, yes. But there’s no reason why we cannot continue to live separate lives just as we’ve done throughout most of our union.”
When she would have extricated herself from his touch, he held fast. “To hell with living separate lives. I forbid it.”
She had a notion to knock him over the head with a heavy object. His superciliousness knew no bounds. Had he truly believed she would fling herself into his arms when he had treated her as if she were no more significant to him than a piece of furniture? “You can’t return after disappearing for an entire month and expect me to act as if you’ve never been gone.”
“I didn’t disappear.” His brows snapped together, making him appear more grim than he had before. “I took some time to get my bloody head back into working order.”
Did he not realize how agonizingly long the month had been during which she’d had no word, no hope he’d ever come back to her? She searched his gaze, trying to understand him. “You left me without word.”
“I needed to, Maggie. After what happened the night of Eleanor’s death, I didn’t trust myself not to hurt you.” The admission appeared to be difficult for him to make. His expression was pained, his voice tinged with something like regret.
But her ice would not melt so easily. “Why could you not have at least left me a letter? Some sort of explanation as to where you’d gone? When or if you’d return? I feared the worst.”
“I wasn’t thinking properly. Everything was a jumble in my mind, but the last thing I ever wanted was to do you harm. I had to leave as quickly as possible. I didn’t trust myself, not after what had happened with Eleanor and not after I practically threw you to the floor in my study.”
“I could have helped you,” she said, giving voice to the thought that had been a constant, painful reminder during his absence. “You pushed me away when all I wanted was to lessen your suffering.”
His grip tightened upon her. “You would have thrown yourself beneath an oncoming carriage for me. I saw it in your eyes that night, and I couldn’t bear it. I had already hurt Eleanor, and I couldn’t bear to hurt you too.”
Had he truly been motivated by fear that he would do her harm? It would explain his abrupt departure, certainly. She wanted to believe him. He looked forlorn, the fierceness of his anger drained from him, replaced by a vulnerability he’d never exhibited.
“Your leaving hurt me more than anything else could have done,” she told him quietly, taking pity on him but not enough to relent.
“I’m sorry.”
The simple statement shocked her. The Marquis of Sandhurst, the man who had once lived with his mistress in flagrant disregard for their marriage, stood before her, thin and sad, utterly humbled. She never would have thought she’d see the day. Oh, he had apologized to her before, but only for trifling matters, and it had never been so complete, so earnest. In a sense, she was vindicated. In another sense, it was still far too little from him, given far too late.
When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m sorry I began our marriage as I did. I’m sorry for every hurt I ever inflicted upon you. And I’m sorry as hell that I left you in the manner I did. I have nothing to say for myself, Maggie. I don’t blame you if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me. I’ve done wrong by you, and I know it.”
His admission startled her as much as his apology had. She longed to show him a sign of tenderness, to cup his bristled cheek, to draw his mouth down to hers. But she could not. Her heart wouldn’t allow her to trust him. Another blow would be too much.
“I’m afraid your apology, while appreciated, is too tardy to be of consequence,” she forced herself to say, feeling numb.
“Goddamn it, Maggie, what would you have me do?” He reverted to the stern stranger who had strode through the doors of Nell’s drawing room not long before.
“Return to your life just as I shall return to mine,” she said, though it was truly the last thing she wanted. It had become a matter of what she must do instead. The choice was a heavy one.
“No.” His lips compressed into a firm line. “I don’t want my old life. I want a life with you. I want what we were beginning to have, damn it.”
So had she. Once. Now she couldn’t trust herself with him. She struggled to remove herself from his grip and succeeded this time. After taking a step in retreat, she hugged herself protectively. “If you require me to live with you, I will have no choice but to acquiesce. However, I’m afraid that our month as lovers is all we shall ever have.”
“If I require you?” He clenched his jaw. “What the devil do you think I am, some sort of tyrant?”
She stared at him, wishing it were easier, that they could go back and avoid all the misery between them. Wishing she did not have to remain so steadfast in her determination not to allow him back into her life in any way that truly mattered.
“I suppose I should be glad you didn’t answer,” he said grimly. “Christ, I won’t force you into anything you don’t wish. You ought to know that much.”
“Very well,” she said firmly. “Then I want to remain here with Lady Needham for the time being.”
“With that reprobate Tobin slobbering all over you like a dog in heat? I think not,” he scoffed.
“Sandhurst.” She grew frustrated.
“Damn it to hell, call me by my given name,” he bit out. “If you want me to fight for you, I shall. But at the least you can cease your pretense of unfamiliarity.”
He wanted to fight for her? A foolish spark of hope ignited in her breast. She forced herself to snuff it out. “You’ve proven to me that it’s not a pretense.”
He raised a brow, his eyes hot upon her. “Need I remind you, my love?”
There it was again, a glimpse of the polished gentleman she’d known still hiding beneath his rough exterior. How she wished none of the awfulness had ever happened. If only Lady Billingsley were still alive and well, if only Maggie had never left that day, if only Simon had not followed her, if only they had found love immediately instead of a year too late. The possibilities were innumerable for how they might have never reached this current, desperate crossroads.
But they had.
“I don’t require reminding,” she told him stoically.
“I think perhaps you do,” he returned, closing the distance between them in two strides.
He reached for her, his hands clamping on her waist this time, drawing her body flush against his. She couldn’t fight her response. She had missed him, his touch, his kiss, his glittering green eyes, everything about him. Even his arrogance and his bluster. Despite her misgivings, she slid her arms around his lean waist, splaying her palms on his back. He felt different now than he had before, harder, stronger. Her gaze never left his.
With a surprising show of gentleness, he caressed her cheek. She could almost believe that he cared for her. Emotion flickered dark and demanding in his eyes. Perhaps he had missed her as she had missed him. Perhaps he too had suffered in his self-imposed exile.
“My God, Maggie,” he groaned.
Before she could manage further thought, he lowered his lips to hers. She kissed him back because she had to, couldn’t not, and as much as she knew she shouldn’t allow him to breach her defenses, she reveled in the feeling of his mouth on hers. She hugged him to her, her breasts smashed against his chest, wishing she could wrap herself around him, cling to him always. Wishing there wasn’t so much melancholy hiding beneath the simmering desire between them.
His tongue swept inside her mouth, toying with hers, tasting and claiming as she longed for him to do. Her resistance unraveled, a great ball of yarn tossed down a mountainside. He sank his fingers into her hair, undoing her lady’s maid’s elaborate pinning of earlier in the day. She didn’t give a damn. They kissed again and again, neither one of them particularly caring for taking a breath. She remembered. She remembered everything, every glorious moment of being in his bed, in his arms.
Her breasts tightened, her aching sex going wet. She wanted him still. Wanted him more than she wanted to write another poem or take another dance in the rain. Wanted him more than anything, even after all that had transpired between them. Dear heavens. She had to stop the madness before she lost her head and her heart both.
She turned her face away, breaking the seemingly endless kiss. When she would have disentangled herself from his embrace, he held her fast with the hand that still clung to her waist. He pressed his cheek to hers, his whiskers a not entirely unwanted abrasion on her skin. His nose sank into her hair just behind her ear as he inhaled deeply of her scent. She tried not to notice that he held her as if she were precious to him. As if she were necessary.
“I need you.” He said this into her ear, his breath hot, his lips grazing the delicate shell. “You haven’t any idea just how much.”
Maggie squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall. So many emotions coursed through her that she couldn’t make sense of what she felt, what she ought to be feeling. Her heart was decidedly at war with her mind. “I cannot do this,” she managed to say.
“You can.” The hand that had undone her coiffure slid to the nape of her neck, gently caressing. “I won’t lose you, not now.”
“You already have.” She hated herself for saying the words, wished she could recall them the moment they’d been spoken. But it was compulsory, wasn’t it? She had to force him away, keep him at a safe distance while she rediscovered her defenses.
He drew his head back and looked down at her, pinning her with his gaze. “I haven’t, Maggie. I can feel it in your response to me.”
She wished he wasn’t so perceptive. “I will always treasure the time we shared, but it’s over now and can never be again.”
“Look in my eyes and tell me that you feel nothing for me,” he demanded, unrelenting in his quest to win the battle if not the war.
She couldn’t. He knew it. Her gaze went past his shoulder, focusing on the escritoire on the far side of the room. “Please release me.”
He surprised her by doing as she asked, removing his embrace and stepping away from her. She felt the absence of his touch immediately. “I’ll release you for today. But not for forever. You’re mine, and I’m bloody well going to win you back.”
Wrapping her arms protectively around herself, she turned to flee the room. She couldn’t remain in his presence a moment longer, for if she did, she feared she would lose herself to him again. And surely that would be the greatest mistake she’d ever make, even if resisting him would prove nearly impossible.