“I don’t know if that is true.” Her voice broke, tears gathering in her eyes. “When you touch me, I lose all control. Do you see how abjectly terrifying that is to me?”
He tilted his head. “I hadn’t thought of that. How much your past would make you fear this. Me. Us.”
She nodded. “Perhaps I cannot overcome that fear. Not even with you.”
He drew her against his chest for a moment, his arms closing around her. She rested her cheek to his chest and heard the steady thud of his heart against her ear, felt the way his breath rose and fell. Slowly, she allowed her breath to match his. And somehow, some way, the peace she wanted came to her. She drew away, looking up at him in wonder.
He was smiling back. Gentle and loving. Giving and caring. “Sophie, I’m not your father. I’mnot. I know I’ve always appeared idle and feckless like he was. Bored and looking for something to occupy his time, for good or for bad. But it isn’t true.”
She knew that. Of course she did, on some level. “Why do you do it then?”
He motioned around them. At the artwork, including the portrait of her. “Because of this. My behavior is an act, a way to obtainentreinto the places where I might sell my work. The truth of me is far more than that.”
She stared at him, seeing him in a new light now that his creativity surrounded her. “And what are you?”
“Passionate. About my painting, about my life, aboutyou. I want to touch you so very much. I want to show you how good passion can be. How it can ground you, not just sweep you away. And that when it does sweep you away, it will always bring you home again. To me.”
Tears stung her eyes at those beautiful words, more seductive than even his touch. “They’ll be waiting,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door. “There will be a scandal if we’re gone too long.”
He was silent for a beat, and then he said, “Perhaps. But what will the scandal matter if we wed?”
She staggered back, breaking from his arms with a gasp of shock. “Marry? You wish to marry me?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation. “I wish to marry you, Sophie. If you will have a man like me.”
Sophie lifted her cold hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. This was not at all what she had intended for this day. She’d planned to come here as a test of her willpower, to avoid Rowan to show herself that she could. But not only was she standing in the middle of his studio, surrounded by the art that felt so intimate, pondering surrendering her body to him…but he was asking her to be his bride.
And even though she’d spent years as Lady No, what she wanted to say, to scream, to cry to the rooftops and beyond…wasyes. Yes to the thrill this man put to her belly. Yes to the passion that made her body tingle. Yes to the life filled with art and adventure and laughter and everything good and interesting.
Yes to being his bride.
None of it had anything to do with her promises to her aunt to become Lady Yes. All of it had to do with Rowan Sinclair and his impossibly blue eyes and his incredibly deep spirit.
“It’s soon,” she squeaked instead.
He laughed. “Is it? I’ve been told I’ve always been interested in you.”
She couldn’t help her smile. “Have you? For I’ve been told the very same thing. Is that possible?”
“That I’ve always watched you and tracked you and secretly wondered what it would be like to touch your cheek or hold your hand or call you my Sophie?” His gaze softened. “I’m starting to believe that is possible.”
“Would you…control me?” she asked.
His eyes went wide and a bit feral. “Control you? Would you like that?”
She blinked. “To be controlled? I—no. Wait, what does that mean that makes you look like you want to ravish me?”
“Ravishing you does sound delightful,” he laughed. “There are some ladies…and gentlemen, truth be told…who like to be controlled in the bedroom. Bound and ordered about. I assume that isn’t what you mean?”
She shivered, for bound and ordered about by Rowan didn’t actually sound so very bad. “No,” she said slowly. “What I meant was if I were to marry you, would you…controlme. Give me no say in our life, give me no financial future aside from your own, keep me under lock and key unless you wished me at your side.”
His expression softened. “Isthatwhat your father did to your mother?”
She nodded swiftly, even as heat filled her cheeks. “Yes.”
“Let me make this clear, Sophie. If we were to wed, we would be equal partners. Our lives would be led together, but I would have no quarrel with your having your own ways and friendships and interests. I have no need to be your keeper. Your lover and your friend? Oh yes, I would want to be those.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. What he was offering was so…right. Oh, there was a tiny voice of doubt that still lingered at the back of her throat, in the corner of her mind, but she pushed it away.
