She swallowed, hard. “I was invited by my sister. Duchess of Stone.”
“Ah, the lovely April,” he said, releasing her hand. “She is quite the hostess. But you—” He circled her, slow and predatory, “—are not like her.”
June crossed her arms. “Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“It is a compliment, though I suspect you will not take it as such. Most women wish to be like their sisters. You, on the other hand, seem to take pride in being the exception.”
“Perhaps because I am not valued for my similarities, only my differences.”
He laughed, low and dangerous. “Spoken like a woman who knows her own mind. That is a rare thing, and rarer still that it is not an act.”
She turned her back to him, if only to regain some sense of control. “I do not need your approval, Your Grace.”
“Yet you crave something,” he said, voice now just behind her. “Tell me: does the knowledge that you should not be here make it more thrilling?”
She closed her eyes. “It makes it mortifying.”
His hand brushed her hair from her shoulder. “And yet you remain.”
She spun to face him, refusing to be cowed. “You are insufferable.”
“And you are intoxicating,” he said. “Though perhaps that is merely the punch.”
She wanted to slap him, or kiss him, or both. The air between them shimmered with possibility.
He tilted his head, studying her as if waiting for her next move.
“You know,” he said, “most women would use this situation to demand satisfaction. A proposal, at the very least.”
June glared at him. “Most women are not as desperate as you seem to think.”
He stepped closer, their bodies nearly touching. “Then what are you?”
She met his gaze, steady and cold. “Unimpressed, as I said before.”
He grinned. “That cannot be true.”
She could not bear it. Not his certainty, not his teasing, not his utter indifference to the ruin he had wrought in her girlhood. She acted before she thought, grabbing him by the lapels and pulling his mouth to hers.
For a moment, he did not move. Then he kissed her back, hard and urgent, as if he meant to make up for all the years he’d ignored her. His arms wrapped around her, crushing her against him. It was nothing like she had imagined; it was better and worse, electric and devastating.
She broke away first, breathing hard. Her composure snapped into place, brittle and perfect.
“I expected that kiss to be better,” she said, smoothing her dress as if she had not just turned her world upside down.
He blinked, genuinely startled, then laughed—a deep, astonished sound.
She strode past him, refusing to look back. At the doorway, she paused, just long enough to deliver the coup de grace.
“At least you have affirmed my decision to never wed,” she said, and shut the door firmly behind her.
Two
"Iwould wager you're about to crack a tooth if you clench any tighter," Theodore Roth, Duke of Stone, remarked, glancing sideways at Dominic.
Dominic should not be annoyed, but he was. He relaxed his jaw with conscious effort, but his eyes remained fixed on the figure walking along the garden path below the terrace.
The morning sun caught on her brown hair, turning it to amber where it escaped her bonnet. She moved with the same unmistakable confidence he remembered from the night before—back straight as a blade, steps purposeful.
