If she wasn’t careful, she would form permanent grooves in her forehead.
Finally, they’d arrived at the crucial moment. “Because you need money.” He glanced around their decaying surroundings to illustrate the point. “And I can give it to you.”
He could practically see the race and whir of her mind as his proposition penetrated deeper with each passing second.
“You would pay me topretendto be your fiancée?” A beat. “Why?”
“Don’t you wish to have…more?”
Complicated emotion flashed behind her eyes. “I’m getting by.”
“But you can do more than get by.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.Why?”
Dev felt like thatwhyencompassed what was being explicitly asked—and more, too. For now, he would address the explicit. “As you’ve mentioned, you’re the daughter of a marquess. Alady. No doors are closed to you.”
She nodded. She understood this.
“But…” she began.
Tension crept through Dev. She was about to ask about that otherwhy.
“Why is it so vital to you that those doors are open?” Her head tipped to the other side, as if in doing so she could view an angle she’d missed. “By every measure, you’ve achieved complete success.”
Temptation pulled at Dev.
The truth.
To tell this woman the truth.
To tell her that every success was a mere a milestone on the road to gaining what he truly wanted.
What he’d always wanted…
Imogen.
The temptation passed.
The woman before him wouldn’t understand that sort of passion for another person—the sort that penetrated through skin and bone and into the very cells of one’s being until those very cells were composed of nothing else.
So, he said, “My business interests will benefit, of course. Not to mention a solidifying of my position in society, which, of course, will serve to benefit my future progeny.”
She sat back and watched him speak—and didn’t believe a word issuing from his mouth. “Oh, yes,” she said. “One must consider one’sfuture progeny.”
Dev snorted. He couldn’t help himself. She was calling out his half-truths, and he didn’t mind all that much.
It made no difference.
By the end of this littletête-à-tête, he would have what he wanted—her agreement.
“If we were to pursue this idea of yours,” she said, “do you have a plan for announcing our engagement to society?”
“I do.” It had come to him only three seconds ago.
“Which is?”
“We’ll cause a little sensation.”
