“Celia.” He stepped toward her, but she held up a hand to ward him off. It took everything in him to accept her rejection and stay where he was, halfway across the room from her, unable to touch her or comfort her.
“What will happen to Aiden when your investigation is over?”
He blinked. “I-I don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve already told you the real Clairemont is dead.”
“Not the real Clairemont,” she said, pursing her lips. “Aiden.Youas Aiden. You obviously won’t go on being him, so what will happen to him? To the man I thought I knew?”
“The character,” he said, understanding her now. Almost wishing he didn’t when he thought of the answer. “Well, he’ll…he’ll die, Celia. Probably not as violently as the real Clairemont did, but there will be an accident or illness that will take him. As far as Society, as the public in general, will know, he’ll die. Since there are no heirs, the crown will take the title and his lands and that will be the end.”
She caught her breath, tears filling her eyes. She blinked them back fiercely. “So I’ll lose you.”
He nodded. “Yes. But I promise you, Celia, we will resolve this as quickly as we can so as not to cause you more pain. I’m hoping to be finished in days now with Gray’s help, weeks at most.” She flinched, and he moved on her now, ignoring the barriers she’d put between them. “I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry. I did things I shouldn’t have done, I went beyond the bounds of my role with you.”
She looked up at him, her bottom lip trembling, her pupils dilated. “Yes, you did. You wrote me letters when we were apart, you touched me not just in my body, but in my soul.Why?”
He caught his breath. He’d spent his life being a liar. Tonight he couldn’t bear to do it again, even if the truth made him vulnerable.
“Because it wasyou, Celia. You are wonderful and irresistible. I wrote you letters so that I would—”
He cut himself off and she lifted her hands in frustration. “You would what?”
“So—so that I would have your responses when I was gone. So that I would have a piece of you to remember that I had this time. It’s the same reason I did everything else. I just wanted a tiny piece of everything that you are. I know it makes me a bastard, but I stole what I shouldn’t have.”
“You never stole anything,” she whispered. “I gave it all. Freely and willingly.”
The gentleness was back in her tone and he so wanted to sink into it. To forget that she knew the truth, forget everything but that she was here and they were alone and he wanted her one last time.
But that couldn’t happen.
“You gave it under false pretenses,” he said. “With your eyes shut by my lies.”
She stared at him. Truly stared, and in that moment he knew that she saw him. Him, the real him. He was John Dane, not Clairemont, not Aiden, not a spy for the crown, not anything but John Dane. She saw him without knowing his name, and it felt like he didn’t fit into his skin anymore. He felt revealed, defenseless.
They were close already, but she took a small step toward him and ate up even more of the distance. She was almost touching him now.
“My eyes are open,” she whispered. “There are no more lies.”
He could feel her breath and smell her skin as she eased ever closer. It was like torture, but he forced his hands to remain at his sides. “Celia,” he whispered.
She reached for him, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw, her thumb smoothing over his lip. Her touch was like silk, gentle as butterfly wings.
“If I’m going to lose you, I want to have you,” she whispered.
Then she lifted up to her tiptoes and kissed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Celia sank into the warmth of Aiden’s touch as she traced her tongue along the crease of his lips. He tasted intoxicating, mint and male mixed together. He let out a low groan before he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back with all the passion and fervor she’d come to expect from him.
She hadn’t come here with the idea to make love to him. She’d been too angry, too tangled up in emotion and betrayal and hurt to consider such a shocking thing. But starting the moment she stepped into the carriage, what shereallywanted had become more and more clear.
Him. She wanted him. Because the love she felt had nothing to do with his name or his title. It had everything to do with the way he looked at her and touched her and made her feel deep within her body, all the way to her bones. Like she was cherished, like she was perfect…like she washis.
When he said that he would leave her life forever, that the man she’d known would die, her course of action had become crystal clear.
She had to do this.
She lifted her hands up to wrap them gently around him and tilted her head to deepen the kiss. She molded her body to his, letting her breasts flatten against his chest, her knees press to his legs, let his hardness push against her stomach.
