Only a fool would let such a woman go. Even if the fool had reasons for doing so.
Reasons that remain.
It was difficult to hold on to his convictions as she regarded him with grey eyes that starred in his every fantasy. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t smoky with desire the way he’d imagined them but cold as steel. How the goddess Athena’s eyes might look before a battle. Yet it was her indifference that chilled him to the marrow. The Charlotte he knew was a woman of strong feeling, who never pulled her emotional punches, who’d fought and fucked and loved him with everything that she was. He expected a goddess’s wrath at being betrayed. God knew he deserved that from her.
Instead, she gave him…nothing. Ashes instead of fire.
And it pulverized his last stubborn pebble of hope.
“What a surprise.” She sounded almost bored. “Hello, husband.”
Ten
He’s alive. Sebastian is alive. I knew he wasn’t dead.
For an instant, her heart felt like it might burst from her chest in some ridiculous parody of joy. Reality slapped the traitorous organ back into its cage, locking it inside for its own good.
Splendid. He’s alive. That means I can bloody murder him.
Despite her inner turmoil, Charlie managed to maintain her composure. She refused to give Sebastian the satisfaction of knowing that he affected her—that he had any power over her. For his own reasons, he’d seen fit to abandon his naïve young bride after a year of marriage. Left her to grieve under the most heinous of circumstances. Now he had returned, again for his own reasons, and he would not find that same girl any longer.
That girl was dead. The woman who stood in her place had been through too much to believe that his return had anything to do with her. What Charlie needed to discover was why he’d come back…and how to minimize the damage. If her heart was thrashing against her ribs, her skin prickling with goosebumps, and her lungs straining for breath, she told herself it was because of shock.
It’s just like Sebastian to do as he wishes.Fake his death one moment, return twelve years later. Selfish bastard.
She harnessed her anger and used its power to keep herself in check.
Dispassionately, she allowed her gaze to roam over Sebastian. Taking his measure not as a wife but as a seasoned investigator. She concluded, with no little irritation, that the years had been more than kind to him; they’d doted upon the scoundrel. He would be thirty-five now, and whatever he’d been up to these last dozen years had honed his outsized masculinity, hardening his youthful vitality and forging it into something more dangerously attractive.
Beneath the brim of his hat, she glimpsed a scar on his right temple. The pale line said that he had wrestled death and emerged victorious. There were other new lines, too: fanning his eyes, bracketing his mouth. His face was leaner and his jaw as strong and stubborn as ever. He’d packed on some muscle, if the subtle bulging along the arms of his frock coat and long line of his trousers was any indication.
The only thing that hadn’t changed were his eyes. That dark gaze was regarding her with the same intensity it always had. The bronze flecks glittered, coalescing around the pupils, flaring in a bright star of…
Hunger?
Her breath jammed in her throat. Her skin tingled with rage.
How. Dare. He.
She balled her hands and strove to keep calm. “No greeting for me after all these years, my lord?”
“Hello, Lottie,” he said gruffly.
“Donotcall me that,” she snapped. “That name is no longer yours to use.”
“Beg pardon.” He acknowledged her point with a curt nod. “I did not mean to offend.”
“Then perhaps you should have stayed dead.”
“You are not wrong.” The grooves deepening around his mouth, he took a breath. “I wasn’t sure you would remember. This place, I mean.”
She hated that feeling of exposure, what it said about her that she’d remembered too much—everything—about their time together.
Yet how could she forget the first time he’d said that he loved her? It had been about two weeks after they’d wed. They’d just finished making love, and she’d lain blissfully in the crook of her bridegroom’s arm, thinking the moment was almost perfect. Almost…because the intimacy of their bodies had made her want to share what was in her heart. The love she was too afraid to put into words first.
She knew her husband admired and desired her. But he had yet to say that he loved her.
“Do you know what you remind me of, Lottie?”he’d suddenly asked.
