Those were the facts.
He wasn’t breaking off a commitment. She’d failed to make one in the first place.
“You’re right,” she said briskly, blinking as fast as possible to keep the tears at bay. “Managing Lord Moneybreeches’s life will keep me busy. Nonetheless, I am sorry to have disappointed you. I thought you would know my heart by now.”
His gaze was shuttered. “I guess I wanted you to be someone you’re not.”
“Me too,” she whispered, then turned and walked away.
When she got home, she would put away her top hat and her breeches and her tailcoat. It was past time to return to the life of a debutante in search of a lord. Accept the cage she was meant to live in. The role Society expected of her.
She had no other cards to play.
Chapter 25
Max closed the door and walked back to his office on wooden legs.
Was he disappointed with the realization that Bryony might like his club, might like his body, might like his mind, but it still hadn’t occurred to her to think of them as a team?
Yes. That would always hurt.
But it wasn’t her fault.
He was the one who should have known better from the start. There had been nothing but signs. He had been shown his whole life that his needs didn’t matter as much as others’. His wants were unimportant. His feelings, not a consideration.
She had been the first person to make him believe it wasn’t true. That his desires could hold equal importance. That his experience was just as valid.
Clearly, he was not as intelligent as he had led himself to believe.
That her family had forbidden the match anyway was just as well. Max didn’t want a supplicant’s relationship with Bryony. He wanted everything. Her heart. Her respect. Her soul.
After all, that’s what she had taken from him.
He slumped back in his chair and gazed sullenly at his empty office. He hated how silent it was. Hated that he had let down his guard and changed what he expected from the world.
Without her, it was like each day dawned without music or color.
Before he’d met her, he had preferred it that way. Convinced himself gray and black and shadows were what he deserved. What he needed.
She had given him another perspective. A brighter one, filled with melody and laughter.
And now there was nothing.
He propped his elbows atop his desk and buried his face in his hands. His temples pounded. He hated to lose her. His heart ached as though it had been squeezed by rough hands and wrung dry.
At least he still ran the Cloven Hoof. That was something, was it not? He lifted his head and stared at the empty settee across the room.
Frances was right. The club wasn’t Max’s anymore. In this, at least, he and Bryony had been partners. Every room, every table, every bottle of wine now reminded him of her.
He slapped open his agenda and glared at the week’s entry.
Three more days before she was meant to decide what to do with the deed. Sell the property to him? Or keep it for herself?
He might be angry and he might be hurt. Above all, frustrated that even if they hadn’t argued, they still couldn’t be together. Her mother was only echoing the thoughts of all their peers.
But when it came to business, he knew Bryony well.
This past month, she had worked as hard as he had to optimize and improve every aspect of the Cloven Hoof.
