It was the wrong woman’s lips touching him.
“Cassanova,” she whispered.
Cassanova.
Before this audience breathless with excitement, he was to play Imogen’s lover.
Right.
Instinctively, his gaze flashed to the spot where he’d last seen Beatrix.
She was gone.
He could’ve growled.
Except…wasn’t he getting what he wanted?
The way Imogen was smiling up at him… He could have her—now. It was plain. All she needed was the slightest encouragement, and she would be his.
It washewho wasn’t ready.
If he crooked his little finger, and Imogen came running, that was the conclusive end of him and Beatrix.
No.
They hadn’t yet talked.
Urgency and frustration clamored within him. He and Beatrix were running out of time. Tomorrow was the last day of the house party.
They would talk tonight.
But first, he must play Cassanova to a woman who was increasingly feeling like the wrong woman.
CHAPTER THIRTY
FOUR IN THE MORNING
The house was silent in the way only the long deep of night could inspire.
Beatrix had lain stubbornly awake in her bed for hours, waiting for the last tendril of the evening’s laughter to flutter away into the indigo ether.
She’d waited another quarter hour, just to be sure.
Only then did she slip from between the covers and make her way through the still house on quiet cat feet, a single destination in mind—the kitchens. Her infallible nose had led her straight to the desserts table. No sweet was ever entirely safe from her.
Now, she sat alone at a square, knife-scarred table, a feast of confections arrayed before her.Profiteroles…macarons…shortbread…trifles…truffles…bon bons…eclairs…pies…cake. She nibbled a macaron—mmm, strawberry—as she contemplated which sweet to sample next.
Her eye kept returning to her heart’s true desire—chocolate cake.
She sliced a wedge twice the size she could reasonably consume in one sitting and took a slow, savoring bite, her eyes drifted shut in a moment’s bliss. A good chocolate cake was a perfect symphony of complimentary textures—the moist densityof the sponge…the sugary slick of icing that lit up the tongue…Scrumptious.
Her mouth had just closed around her third bite when a voice sounded, “Are the sweets up to your standards?”
Beatrix’s gaze startled open to find Dev, his large form filling the doorway, one shoulder propped on the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, his mouth curled into half a smile—watching her.
“What in the blazes are you doing here?”
Her righteous indignation would’ve commanded more authority had it not been muffled by a too-large bite of cake.
