Five months.

Five sodding months.

Five months of watching her light up in the mornings when I woke her with my touch. Five months of twisting that bloody ring on her finger and wanting to replace it with something proper. Five months of pulling her into dark corners and keeping the press guessing. Five months of delighting in the way she went soft on me when she forgot she was supposed to be marching through her independence—in those moments she’d relax into me, melt under me, and make me fucking crazy for her.

The number ran through my mind as I drew circles across her warm naked back. I’d just given her the afternoon shag she needed—I needed—and now she slept, her petite frame draped over me like a gorgeous blanket, her caramel-colored hair tickling my arm, her wide brown eyes hidden behind her sleepy lashes. We lay there in our room at Humboldt, the one we’d recently refitted, and I fucking cursed those five months.

When she’d told me that she wanted time to “adjust to the idea”—I think those were her words—to think about how she was going to handle a life that would be “full of compromises,” I understood. Fuck, I wanted that for her too. There’d been a reason I’d wanted us a secret in the first place—I’d seen what being in a public relationship with me could be like. “Normal” it was not and “full of compromises” it definitely was. There’d be paparazzi, there’d be spreads in architectural magazines about our homes, there’d be parties, ceremonies, monthlong international diplomatic trips, and there’d be a generation of girls wanting wedding dresses that looked just like hers. She wasn’t quite ready to tell the world, and as much as it fucking killed me to wait, I’d give her the time.

A year ago I wouldn’t have entertained the idea of ever being in this position—desperate to publically claim a girl as my future wife. But bloody hell, Lydia, that chaste, delightful, brown-eyed, smart-as-a-whip, fierce-yet-gentle-as-a-goddamn-bunny damsel of mine had turned my world upside down. Without my quite realizing it, she’d taken the reins and was now the one guarding our relationship from the world. Had she been a business associate and not my fiancée, I would have considered myself one hundred percent rightly played, except there wasn’t a Machiavellian bone in her little body. The girl just wanted a few months of normalcy and independence before hitching herself to my chaotic star.

At least I’d taken advantage of the situation. I put the time to good use. For the past five months I’d been reorganizing my life now that I was duke. Overnight I found myself juggling two companies. I was acting president of Hale Shipping, the family company my father had led into bankruptcy and that was in desperate need of stable leadership. I’d spent hours every week acquainting myself with the company, slowly developing a plan to reestablish it, and figuring out how in the hell I was going to run a bloody shipping company in addition to my own architecture firm. There was also the task of getting Humboldt Park back in order—it had become evident that my father had left our estate in no better shape than he left Hale Shipping.

And as if that wasn’t enough, there were my father’s misguided efforts to save the shipping company from his own mismanagement. In some act of desperation, he’d taken a loan from a Russian crime family, the Bresnovs, under the condition that both Hale Shipping and Humboldt Park would be collateral. And I wouldn’t be able to undo any of this mess until the criminals were apprehended. This lovely disaster was how I found myself working with MI6—in an effort to save my family’s legacy, I’d agreed to help them in exchange for the amnesty for Hale Shipping. Somehow I’d ended up in the plot of a bloody James Bond movie. A bleeding mess was what it was.

All of this meant I had certainly been occupied over the previous five months, even without a wedding to think about. But I also wasn’t sure how much waiting I had left in me. I just looked at her and turned into some kind of caveman, wanting to mark her like a bloody animal, wanting to march her down the aisle, over my shoulder if necessary.

I’d had the ring ready since December, and I couldn’t wait to get it on her finger. Not the delicate little band she liked to call her engagement ring—that was all well and fine while we kept it a secret, but I was ready to put the ring on her finger, to open up the floodgates, and make a three-carat canary-colored announcement that she was mine.

I’d known exactly which ring I wanted her to have—it just had to be resized and cleaned before I could slip it on her finger. And she had to agree to wear it, of course—something I’d mistakenly thought would be a minor detail. I recalled feeling downright eager when the squat kind-faced old jeweler, in his neat suit, the same man who’d been serving my family for approximately fifty of his seventy-odd years, handed me the velvet pouch, heavy with the jewelry inside it.

“The resizing was not a problem, sir,” he said, eyeing me through his bifocals.

I nodded as I removed the ring and stared at it, the memories flooding back to me. My grandmother had worn it her whole life, and I’d seen it daily as a child. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her without it. A brilliant square canary diamond guarded by four small exquisitely clear white diamonds, all nestled in the antique platinum setting. It was unique and delicate—not a hint of severity—regal and elegant. Quintessential Lydia.

“Thank you,” I said, letting the weight of the ring sink into my palm as I looked back to the jeweler. “Charge it to my account?”

“Of course, my lord,” he replied. He was one of the few people, a member of the old guard, who said my title in a way that didn’t make me jerk slightly with ambivalence. It was a term of habit and respect for him, not sycophantic or servile. “And might I say, sir, that whoever the lovely lady is, I sincerely hope she enjoys it. I cleaned and repaired that ring many times for the duchess, your grandmother, god rest her soul. And I remember the very first time your grandfather brought the stone in to have it set. I was just a lad then myself.”

I nodded. I’d heard the story, or stories rather, about the ring so many times as a child, and my grandfather’s leathery voice was alarmingly vivid in my mind. He’d ask my sister, Emily, and me, sitting by his feet in the library at Humboldt, fire roaring behind us, “Now you children know where I got that special yellow stone in Grandmamma’s ring, don’t you?” and we’d look wide-eyed at him, ready for whatever tale he was about to spin for us. “From a gentleman tiger across the high seas.” Another time he’d said it was from a pirate he’d had a scuffle with whilst sailing off Samoa. He’d tell us a different adventure story every time. Eventually, I couldn’t be sure when, I’d learned the truth: The stone had been a gift from the king of Monaco, and he’d had it set as a gift for his engagement to my grandmother.

I found myself smiling at the memories, at the idea of sharing them with Lydia, and it was as though the ring announced itself in my palm—she was going to bring new life to it. To me. She already had.

“Thank you,” I’d said. “And, I hate to mention it, of course, but I know I can count on your discretion.”

“Of course, sir.”

That was months ago, and I’d never intended to let my damsel get away with waiting so long before we went public with our engagement, but the truth was I’d probably give her anything she wanted. Not to mention, being secretly engaged had turned out to be one of the sexiest goddamn things I’d ever experienced.

I turned onto my side and brought my girl with me, gently stroking her arm, urging her into wakefulness.

“Damsel,” I said, kissing her warm cheek, loving the fucking adorable way she grumbled when she was waking. “We need to get back to London, baby. Time to wake up.”

A day later, an otherwise normal Monday night in April, I was reminded just how unbelievably hot it could be to be secretly engaged to Lydia. I was also wondering how the fuck I was going to make it through the dinner party we’d just walked into when all I could think about was the gorgeous woman beside me. My damsel. My fiancée.

There were ten of us seated snugly at the dining table in the newly purchased flat in some new modern monstrosity in Hampstead. The other couples, mostly married or engaged, all swank and pompous, were blissfully unaware that there was a vixen in damsel’s clothing in their midst.

Given that we were trying to keep our relationship low profile, we didn’t do this often, venture into the social sphere together. But dinner parties in apartments seemed relatively safe as far as paparazzi went, plus this social obligation would just be too fucking boring to attempt without her. The flat belonged to Roger, a chap from Cambridge, and he’d just moved into the place with his French model girlfriend. I kept forgetting her name. Madeleine? Mathilde? Manon? I couldn’t keep it straight, which was almost certainly due to the fact that I could see Lydia’s garter out of the corner of my eye. She’d allowed her innocent-looking floral skirt to slide high up her thigh. And I knew she wasn’t wearing knickers, which meant she was only wearing those stockings with the garter belt. Bloody hell. Now I was hard at the dinner table.

I’d bought her the garter belt when I happened by a lingerie shop whilst walking from the office, thinking of nothing but her like some kind of sodding teenage wanker. I was beginning to think I’d bought my own instrument of torture.

“Hale.” Roger’s three-drinks-in voice interrupted my thoughts. “Saw in the Financial Times today that HS might merge with Maersk—is it true?” Ever since my father had died, business interests were lined up to see where I’d take the company, how I’d run it, looking to see if it might be for sale. “Is an acquisition on the table?”

“Ahh, Rog, you know never to believe what you see in print,” I started, putting on my best public show, knowing that whatever I said would be spread across town by noon the next day. “I honestly can’t tell you where that rumor started—I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a member of the board, hoping to drive up interest, nab an offer I wouldn’t be able to refuse.” This was actually what I thought—the board would be thrilled if I were to sell.

“Does such an offer exist?”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “You know that Hale Shipping has been in my family for three generations. It will stay in the family.”

“You’ll run it then?” a woman from down the table chimed in. “And the architecture firm?” Christ, this was like talking to my mother.

“Working on the details, but I have no doubt it will resolve itself soon.” Lydia took my hand under the table and squeezed it. I loved her for knowing when to do that. She knew, more than anyone, that I had no idea how I was going to solve that little conflict at the moment; she also had an unwavering belief that I’d figure it out.

“Stay in the family, eh?” another one of the guys asked, sitting across from us, eyes wide, hoping for gossip. “Does that mean we hear wedding bells for you two?” He gestured towards Lydia with his wineglass, the arse, then his eyes were on me. “What do you say, Abingdon? Going to make an honest woman out of this one?” It was a shocker we got through the starters before any of this had come up. They were digging. As a rule we hadn’t confirmed anything about our relationship for months, and it was driving them all bleeding mad.

“Oh no,” said Lydia immediately, her warm body so close to mine at the table that I could feel the heat radiating off of her. “I can’t imagine Dylan ever settling down, can you?”

She said it as though she couldn’t give a frog’s arse, and she looked at me with that sly little smile making me pause mid-swallow of wine. That delicious little wench. If fifty minutes earlier in the car, we hadn’t been joking about whether or not Lydia should really wear white at our wedding, I might have actually believed her. “I mean, this is the Dylan Hale we’re talking about.”

“Oh, well, it’s hardly just me,” I said, leaning back in my chair, taking a sip of wine and playing along, doing my best to maintain a stoic believability. “Lydia is brilliant, of course, but she’s a workaholic, aren’t you, darling?” I gripped her knee under the table, but the cheeky little thing took my hand and moved it between her legs, mid-thigh. Then she lifted her napkin daintily to her lips, as if to suggest that was what her hand been doing, moving about in her lap.

“I learned from the best. I just don’t think we’re the marrying kind, are we?” she said, looking briefly down at her engagement band—the thin diamond ring she wore on her pointer finger. She twisted it against my hand, reminding me of just how much the marrying kind we were. The table bought our little show, seemed to find it dull if anything, and I was infinitely relieved to hear the conversation turning to Manon’s, or whatever her name was, modeling career. I took the opportunity to make the entire evening worth our while.

I slid my finger farther up her thigh, and my damsel had the nerve to spread her fucking legs beneath the tablecloth. She was going to be the death of me. I could practically taste her from where I sat. How did this woman make commitment sexier than all bloody get-out? Then she calmly took a sip of wine—a bloody sip of her wine—as I slipped my finger into her. As though she were completely unaffected.

I’d created a monster. No one would believe this innocent-looking girl with her big brown eyes and generous smile was waltzing around London without her knickers and letting her fiancé feel her perfect pussy at dinner parties.

I could feel her pulse within her, and my own was beating like a goddamn marching band in my head. Getting through this dinner was going to be torture.

For another hour, we took turns provoking each other. I “dropped” my napkin and grazed her bare thigh with my teeth after picking it up from the floor—she didn’t even flinch or miss a beat in her conversation about fashion commerce with the American finance arse. A moment later she looped her foot around my ankle and pulled, forcing my leg towards her just as her hand landed in my lap. My balls were so fucking tight, my jaw tense, and my fingers itching to explore every inch of her. There was something about being secretly bound to this woman, being the only one to know that she was mine, that was better than goddamn Viagra. Doctors should bottle that shit.

We finally left, politely declining the offer for another round of post-dinner drinks and dodging more inane questions. There was no goddamn way I was waiting until I got her home before getting inside her. I’d been hard for an eternity, and I needed to get my girl under me, against me, whatever.

I had Lydia’s hand firmly gripped in my own as I pulled her closely behind me, down the stairs of the house, and onto the sidewalk. She was laughing, giggling at her success in having worked me up, and fuck me if I wasn’t laughing too. I felt sorry for my pathetic younger self—I’d spent a decade not understanding how fun it could be to love someone. But then again none of the someones had been Lydia.

She tried to move towards the car, logical little thing, but I pulled her past it and against my side. She obviously had no idea just how serious I was about getting my hands on her, and I didn’t want to be inside that confined space with our driver, Lloyd, just a few feet away. I was feeling too goddamn randy for that.

I could hear her heels hitting the cobblestones beside me, could feel her palm warm in my own. I eagerly dragged her around the side of the building, down some darkened cobblestone mews, and lifted her little body up against the brick wall behind her. It was a cold night for April, fucking freezing actually. But I didn’t give a shite, and thankfully neither did she.

For a moment, I just held her there, against the wall, my palm on her face, her eyes fixed on mine. I swept her long hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, really just another excuse to touch her. She was smiling, and I knew I was too, but she was also as primed as I was. Then she was kissing my neck and unbuttoning her coat, and I was hiking that evil skirt above her hips. Because apparently neither one of us could wait another second.

Christ, I fucking loved this woman.

She was muttering her delightful sighs and eager little pleas that did nothing to calm my greed. She wrapped her long legs around my waist, her arms around my neck with a desperation that matched my own. I could feel her breaths get shallow the way they always did when she was turned on, little gasps that had me ready to come on a dime. Had there been enough light, I’d see her cheeks flush and the pink spread across her chest.

Taunting me had ripened her.

I reached into her coat, held her where her back met her perfect ass, and I slid my free hand between her legs, stroking her with my fingers.

“You like provoking me, don’t you, damsel?” I whispered, knowing I sounded needy as fuck. To be fair, I was. I wanted nothing more than to remind her who she belonged to. To sink into her. To remind her just how engaged we were.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she panted, playing dumb in the sexiest possible way. Steam came with my breath and met with the steam coming from hers.

Our faces not a hair apart, I kissed her. I kissed her to remind her, to show her. Our first kiss flashed before my eyes—the deepness, the desperation of that moment on a moonlit path in Canada flooding my mind. Fuck, how had we gotten from there to here? And how had I not seen how utterly perfect for me she’d be?

“One of these days, damsel, I’m going to put my ring on that finger of yours, make it official, show the whole goddamn world…,” I whispered as I unzipped my trousers and lifted her onto my cock. She panted deeper, gasping for breath, and I knew she was already close. I only regretted that I couldn’t see her clearly. When she came her face was fucking majestic. “And there’ll be no denying just how much the ‘marrying kind’ we are.” I barely recognized my own hushed demanding voice.

We fucked as quietly as we could against that brick wall—our harsh exhales and desperate inhales the only audible hints as to what was occurring tucked away in that mews—and it was thrilling as hell. Fucking was never just fucking anymore. It would never be “just fucking” again. It was simply the most feverish version of what we did to each other. Lydia was strong, willing, and she trusted me to know when we could take risks like that one, me bringing her to the edge of getting caught.

I loved it, respected it.

“But in the meantime, this is pretty fun,” she whispered as she kissed my neck, coming down from her high.

“I love you,” I said, because, fuck me, I really, really did.

“I love you too.”