That purr gliding over my name?
It was the single most beautiful thing to ever hit my ears.
Shit.
“Okay, fine. We have an agreement,” I conceded.
He uncrossed his arms and offered me his hand to shake, stating, “Brilliant.”
Considering I passed out when I first laid eyes on him, I was more than a little scared to touch him.
I did it anyway, putting my hand in his, watching and feeling his long, strong fingers curl around, annnnnnnnnnd…
Yep.
An electric pulse shot up my arm from our connection, exploding at my shoulder and scattering deliciously across my back, neck and chest.
Fortuitously, I didn’t slide into unconsciousness at the contact, but this was partly because he broke our connection, his focus on our hands, his brows inching together in confusion, like he felt it too.
“I think now, I should go lay down for a little while,” I whispered like I couldn’t talk louder (and I couldn’t because…what the hell was going on?).
“I believe that’s for the best.”
He shifted, and since I didn’t, he raised his arm for me to precede him, so I did.
I also tried to salvage this situation by saying, “I appreciate you coming up with a compromise.”
Under his breath, he replied, “If I was a diarist, I’d tally this as one of the few instances a female could agree to such a thing, albeit not without some headache.”
And thus, I stopped dead. “Pardon me?”
His patronizing brown eyes came to mine. “We have a détente, Vivienne. It’s lasted all of two minutes. How about we nurture it for a bit longer?”
“A good way to do that is not to mutter about women not being able to compromise. We can compromise.”
His wide, burgundy-cashmere-sweater-covered chest expanded before he released another beleaguered sigh.
All right.
What was I doing?
This was my host.
Sure, he was kind of an asshole, but I was going to be living under his roof, eating his food, reading all about his family history, and he’d come up with a doable compromise so I wouldn’t be thrown into a career tailspin that would have my agent and editor hunting me down to strangle me.
“Okay, yes, you’re right,” I said swiftly. “Détente, Duke.”
He scowled at me, and let me tell you, the man could scowl.
It was gorgeous, and petrifying.
“You could fortify that by calling me by my bloody name,” he said.
“Of course,” I mumbled.
“Are you always this disagreeable?” he asked irately.
I opened my mouth to retort.
