“The assailant was a gentleman. I was a shopgirl,” she said tonelessly. “Who would listen to me?”
Seeing the revulsion in his eyes, she knew it was over. He saw her for who she was: a nobody. A woman who was beneath him in every way. The fact that she’d made a living as a shopgirl wasn’t the worst of it, not by far. He didn’t know about her work as Sirena. Or about her mama and the people who’d been hurt because of her…she hadn’t scratched the surface of her ugly past.
You don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve happiness, and you never did.
It wasn’t the first time she’d watched her dreams go up in flames, yet she couldn’t recall it hurting this much. Like a razor blade slicing across her heart, hope bleeding out cut by cut. She needed to get out of here before she fell apart.
“Again, I am very sorry for deceiving you.” She willed back the heat surging behind her eyes. “I wish I had done things differently. I’ll pack my things and be gone on the morrow.”
She’d almost made it to the servants’ door when his voice stopped her.
“Is your name really Jane?”
She didn’t trust herself to turn around.
“No,” she said. “It’s Xenia…Xenia Loveday.”
His quiet footsteps fell like thunder in her ears. She sensed him standing behind her. He was close enough for her to feel his heat, to smell his virile scent. She clasped her hands together, fearful that she might reach for him and make a fool of herself.
“Xenia.” His breath caressed her ear. “Was all of it a lie?”
Too scared to hope and too scarednotto, she squeezed her eyes shut and surrendered what she could no longer keep inside.
“Not the part about you. About us,” she said hoarsely. “When I met you, I thought you were handsome…in a grumpy, unfeeling sort of way. But then you turned out to be gallant and kind. When you rescued me from the bats, I was attracted to you, but I resisted the feeling because I knew nothing could come of it. Then you risked your life to save me from that cutthroat and shared about your past, and my feelings became undeniable. I want to have an affair with you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Even though I know that you’re better than me.”
She lowered her head. It didn’t happen often, but she was out of words. He turned her toward him, tipping her chin up, and she gazed into his storm-filled eyes.
“I am not better than anyone, least of all you,” he said. “I am brooding and grumpy, and I’m sorry I left you in the rain.”
Her breath lodged in her throat.
“But I won’t countenance being lied to, Xenia. For any reason.”
“I understand,” she said tremulously. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I swear I didn’t intend for my deception to go on for as long as it did.”
“If we are to continue on the path we’re on, you must be honest henceforth,” he said sternly.
“Continue?” She stared at him, her heart pounding. “You mean you…you still want me?”
“Give me your word that you won’t lie to me.”
It would be so easy to agree, and her past self might have done so.
But Ethan deserved better.
“I can promise that I won’t deceive you from now on,” she said. “But there are things about my past that I will not share. I am not a good or respectable woman, Ethan, and I won’t let my past affect you. I won’t. I will leave before I let that happen.” Her voice shook with the force of her emotions. “I have little to offer you. I am nothing special. I don’t have wealth or looks?—”
“Stop, Xenia.”
She couldn’t, though. She had to get through this, or she would regret it for the rest of her life.
“I am reckless and prone to bad decisions. I knew I shouldn’t fall for you, but I let myself do it anyway. Even though you deserve more. Now I’ve made a hash of things?—”
“Be quiet,” he growled.
Before she could speak again, he gathered her against him and covered her mouth with his.
Ethan didn’t care if he was making a mistake. He’d made plenty in the past, and at least this time he was going in with open eyes. His initial anger at Xenia’s deception had subsided when he realized that she wasn’t like his former fiancée.
