“I don’t.” His eyes narrowed. “You were supposed to be mine.”
“Yours?” She let out a sharp laugh. “I am not a horse, Your Grace. I do not belong in your stable. Or your collection.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You would still make me a fine wife.”
“Pity for you, I have no intention of making you a fine wife.” Maddie crossed her arms andlegs, back rigid, chin high.
She had to escape. Some way or another.
He leaned forward slightly, menace cloaked in elegance. “And yet here you are. Alone. With me. There is no other option than for you to be mine now.”
There was always another option.
She met his gaze, steel for steel. “You’ll return me, Paisley. Because men like you don’t understand the power of real friendship. And if you think my friends won’t come for me—if you thinkhewon’t come for me—you are far more foolish than I thought.”
His eyes glittered, but she could tell she’d struck something vital.
“Sebastian?” he sneered. “He’ll come. And I’ll be waiting.”
His left eye twitched.
Maddie jerked back. He looked wrong. Too taut. Like a man barely holding his shape.
“By now, Miss,”—he rocked his head back and forth as if bestowing himself a terrible compliment—“your reputation can’t be salvaged.”
“I know that!”
“You do, of course. And that’s why you’re mine.”
“Never!”
“You are! I have you right here! I claimed you.”
He grimaced in a terrifying manner. The mad fox. She remembered it suddenly—her father’s story of the one that foamed and snapped and vanished into the woods.
But I won’t be his prey.
“You can’t claim what’s already been—” but she didn’t finish.
His eyes glinted. Something in them had cracked.
“What did you say?”
She inhaled sharply. He wanted Sebastian to follow. He wanted Sebastian to see how he’dwon.
How broken must a man be to call that love?
Her heart pounded—but not from fear.
Not entirely.
Yes, she was scared, but she also knewhewould come. And Paisley had no idea what kind of trouble he had just invited into his carriage.
Because she wouldn’t cooperate.
Already, her mind spun with ways to stall this man.
But first, she needed to find out his plan.
