Lost for an answer, she urged the willing bay forward into a rolling canter. She needed time to think. Was he teasing her? “It’s not funny,” she assured him when he rode up alongside.
“Am I laughing?”
“Me, a duchess?” she scoffed.
“My wife,” Diego corrected her evenly, “will actually be a grand duchess.”
“But there’s nothing grand about me.”
“You do have certain other qualities.”
“I refuse to be grand.”
“I’d be disappointed if you said anything else,” he murmured, and urging his big, black stallion forward, he set a brisk pace home.
Their bridles jingled as they rode along. They were almost back in the stable yard when Diego observed, “No one leads me on, Celina. I don’t go anywhere or do anything I don’t want to. I didn’t plan to fall in love with you. It would have been more convenient not to, leaving me free to choose someone easier to handle and far less complex.” And when she huffed with pretended outrage, he added, “I guess I just got lucky. So, however many times you try to make the past an excuse to avoid this happy change in your life, I’m going to block you.”
She looked at him with concern. “What if the past comes back to haunt me?”
“You try again. You’re stubborn. I’ve never seen you give in easily, so why would you start now?”
There was no question that she loved him, but could she risk her heart by admitting it? She could handle danger, but the pain of love was unendurable. It was like walking a tightrope with no safety net underneath. Past experience told her to run as far and as fast as she could, because great love risked great loss, and what if she couldn’t handle that? “Love is just words,” she blurted in a final attempt to convince them both. “You were right to say there’s no such thing as romance.”
“Did I say that?” Diego gave her a doubting look.
“We should have left it where it was. Just sex,” she explained.
“There’s no such thing asjust sexwhere we’re concerned, Celina.”
“No?” she challenged, doing her best to look unconvinced.
“No,” Diego stated firmly. “I look at things differently. You were traumatized as a child. Your emotions have been brutalized since you took your first breath. I lived a strange life as a child, detached from all emotion. We can help each other. If it takes me a lifetime to prove there’s love on the other side, that’s what I’m going to do. You’re going to feel love all around you, surrounding you and protecting you.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
Dismounting, he handed over his stallion to a groom and then came to lift her down. “Am I?” He stared levelly into her eyes. “I don’t think so. However long it takes, I’m going to prove to you that love can last.”
She whipped her head away. “Please, don’t—”
He brought her back again to face him. “I’m going to make you believe.”
His touch made her body sing. Even fully clothed, she could feel his heat. “Why do you have to make this so hard?”
Diego’s lips pressed down as he shrugged. “I hope that proving the way I feel about you takes a very long time indeed. Maybe forever.”
She tried to fight the feelings inside her, but it was no good. She still wanted him. She would always want him. And when Diego stared down at her like this, she had to risk everything, even her heart.
“And as for the differences between us?” he said, taking her hand as they strolled across the yard. “You’re small. I’m tall. I’m dark. You’re pale. And there is the man and woman thing,” he conceded dryly. “Apart from that?” He shrugged.
“It’s more than that,” she said tensely.
“Is it?” Swinging an arm around her shoulders, he brought her close.
“You’re rich. I’m poor,” she insisted. “You’re a duke. I’m a—”
“Very special and brave woman,” he interrupted. “And don’t you forget it. In fact, I won’t allow you to forget it.”
But he didn’t need Celina Petrovka pulling him down. And she had a job she loved, a job she hoped to keep in Eastern Europe, where she could continue to be of more use to the Blood and Thunder team than anywhere else. Their work wasn’t done yet, and she wanted to be part of that work.
