“Because that’s all you’ve presented it.”
“Because that’s all they want. They want their sunshine in a smile.”
The question in her eyes released, and in its place entered certainty. He wasn’t sure he liked that.
“Ah,” she said.
He most definitely didn’t like it. “Ah?”
“They like the Lord Archer?—”
“Archie,” he corrected.
“They like the Archie who is always up for a lark and a laugh.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
The question was flimsy, at best. He felt its protection giving way.
“And you like being liked.”
“I’m not unique in that.”
“You think the world only wants to see the light.”
“Do you want to see that dark?”
“I’m seeing him now.”
“Do you like him?”
“I believe I do.”
To be seen. To be known. To be liked for the parts of himself he kept carefully hidden from view…
“You are overtired, methinks,” he said, needing a safe distance from the intimacy fast forming between them. “Perhaps this was a mistake.”
He was dismissing her. They both knew it. But her feet remained planted. She wasn’t finished. “You are an artist.”
“I am a viscount, who shall be an earl someday.”
“You cannot simply shut away and deny the largest part ofyourself. You cannot be happy unless you’re authentic to who you are in your heart.”
He laughed, again. How he was coming to hate the sound of his charming laugh. “I am almost too authentic for my own good. Ask anyone.”
Valentina remained unmoved. She wasn’t letting him charm his way out of this conversation. “Butthisis you.” She indicated the piano, the thirty-one composition folios lining his bookcase, the one on the music stand. “Hematters. He may matter most.”
Her ideas took instant root inside him, and her words were their nourishment. Of a sudden, he wanted—needed—more of them.
He wanted—needed…craved—this intimacy that existed between them.
He felt he must warn her.
He must give her one last chance to flee.
“You don’t understand the effect of your words on me.”
“Don’t I?” she asked, low and certain and…inviting.
