What had begun as a schoolboy infatuation had only blossomed over the years with each new headline or gossip column mentioning her name. Father obsessively followed news of the Harpers for opposite reasons, but Eli had cherished each word as though witnessing a legend unfold before him.
He delighted in every one of Miss Harper’s stunning accomplishments. She was on his mind from dawn to dusk. For years, he’d dreaded the day he’d spy her name in a marriage announcement, whilst simultaneously hoping for it to happen, because at least then the waiting would be over.
Now he was here. She was not a schoolboy fantasy; some rose-colored memory whose ending had been rewritten a thousand times in his mind. She was larger than life and right in front of him. Every bit the Athena the papers proclaimed, and so much more besides.
“I’m never riding Rudolph again,” he informed her. “His ‘plodding’ speed is appallingly inconsistent.”
She lifted her hand to hide a smirk. “I’ve a hobby-horse you can borrow.”
He pulled her hand away from her lips and placed it on his chest instead. Her eyes widened. He did not want her to hide her delectable mouth. He wanted to kiss it.
He wasgoingto kiss her. Self-preservation be damned.
She almost let him.
At the last moment, she jerked her hand from his chest and turned away, her beautiful mouth twisted into a snarl of disgust.
“No.” Her voice shook. “Not a second time.”
Her voice wasn’t the only thing shaking. Her breath shook. Her fingers shook. The goddess who feared nothing was frightened of Eli’s kiss.
Hehad done this to her. He wasstilldoing it. There did not exist a bigger cad.
His heart twisted. “I am so—”
She held up a palm, stopping him as effectively as she’d halted her horse.
“You were horrid to me.” Her shoulders were curved, her voice much too small. “You, your father, all of your little friends. I did not deserve your cruelty. I did not deserve a year full of nightmares, followed by a lifetime of flinching at my own reflection.”
His stomach twisted. “You’re right. You didn’t deserve any of that.”
Every time Eli remembered that day, he felt like he deserved every one of his scars.
“Theywhinniedat me,” she whispered. “You let them.”
Worse than that.
He had started it.
When the marquess had prompted,A Harper what?Eli had known precisely what had been expected of him. He was expected to think of her as a thing to be despised, not as a person to be admired.
Eli had not wanted to wound her.
He also knew the price of disobedience.
When he looked in the mirror, he had to live with the fact that he gave the punishment to him more weight than the undeserved consequences to her.
So he’d said it. Those fateful three words.A Harper horse.
The children whinnied and neighed.
And Miss Harper never appeared at a competition again.
“I beg your forgiveness.” His throat was almost too tight to force out the words.
She shook her head. “You shan’t have it.”
Eli knew that, of course. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, then or now.Obeying my father’s commandsexcused nothing.
