Priscilla’s heart raced so quickly that her head grew dizzy. She hadn’t thought he’d be back. But he was here. And on one knee.
He knew what he was asking, and he was asking it anyway.
She wished they could be together. But they’d never be able to keep their relationship a secret for a year and a half. And if she married him now, there went her inheritance.
More importantly… marriage was forever.
Her stomach roiled with fear. It was too hard. Too much. She loved him, but she couldn’t do it. Her fingers shook. How was anyone ever certain enough about someone else to agree to give up her only opportunity for financial freedom, for independence, for a chance to pursue a dream?
Her throat locked as she replayed her own words. She loved him. She knew it, but had been too frightened to admit the truth even to herself. She loved him and she wanted him—and she couldn’t bring herself to say yes. Now or ever.
“Mon chéri…” she whispered miserably.
He closed his eyes.
She wished she could close hers. It wouldn’t help. The image before her was burned into her memory.
He wanted her now. She believed him. But it had nothing to do with tomorrow.
She was a baby when her father left. Nine, when her mother stopped getting up in the mornings. She was a little girl. She needed her mama. But wishes never made anything come true.
Mother had distanced herself emotionally, stopped replying verbally, stopped responding physically, and then was gone altogether. If a mother could leave, a grandfather, a father, what faith was Priscilla meant to have that any husband she chose would be different?
The only way to protect her heart was to keep it locked inside.
“What if I don’t answer?” she said hesitantly. If she said no, she would lose him. Right now, tonight. “Can I think it over?”
“You already have.” His voice was resigned, defeated. But his gaze was hot and fiery, as if the story was not over, but barely begun.
Of course she had thought it over. She’d thought of nothing but him for the past month. Every chance meeting, every hand-delivered letter, every stolen kiss and the thousands more she wished they could have stolen.
“Secret lovers” wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but it was one she could give him. Not a long, drawn-out romance, but perhaps a time or two, with no other public contact that might garner attention. The slightest slip would void the terms of the trust.
Even if they could somehow hide their longing glances and midnight trysts from society, stringing things along for a year and a half would be torture for them both—and particularly unfair to him, when they both knew how it would end.
He’d said it himself: he couldn’t provide the life she’d dreamed of. The life she was so close to having. The life she would have to give up, and simply hope that he would always take her with him, that if he left, he would always come back.
And yet, how could she say no to the man who held her heart? A life of endless adventure had once seemed like everything, and now felt like something would be missing. Like someone would be missing. She could fill her days with wonder after wonder, but how would she ever fill the aching hole in her chest?
“I do need to think,” she said at last, her stomach in knots. “I thought I had thought every possible thought to think, and now my mind is all topsy-turvy again. I know what I want. I’m trying to work out how to have it. Can you… give me a little time? At least until tomorrow?”
She expected him to say no. That if she couldn’t say yes now, obviously no yeses were forthcoming. She expected him to be disgusted or angry or hurt.
She did not expect a smile to spread across his face, or for him to leap to his feet and swing her about the room as if they’d just won a war.
“What are you—” she tried, laughing, but he was covering her with kisses.
“It’s not a no,” he said, kissing her between long glances of wonder and shock. “I was so certain…”
“You thought I would say no, and you asked me anyway?” she said in surprise.
“I had to. You’re my Everest, my Athens, my Baoulé,” he said, his tone wry but his gaze hot and passionate. “A man can’t walk away from something like that.”
Priscilla wrapped her arms about him and kissed him with all the love in her heart.
“Intrepid explorer,” she murmured between kisses. “Can I interest you in a different adventure?”
“What are you saying?” His tone indicated he was very, very interested.
