Mrs. Dove-Lyon said nothing, merely motioned her hand to one of female guards.
Thiswashappening.
Alyssia couldn’t resist stepping up to the railing again and glancing down. Below, her once again future husband was indeed standing, or perhapslooming, his shoulders squared. The last of his opponents was slumped over the table. Giles, however, didn’t gloat. He didn’t move. He merely stood as though waiting for the result of his victory. His eyes lifted up as if sensing her gaze, and their gazes locked, held.
A tremor stole over her.
Simply a man?
More like a dangerous beast!
Even so, the sight of him so composed amid ruin unsettled her more than anything else, and a reluctant bud of pity sprouted. What must he have lived through that not even Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s concoction could bring him low?
“There’s a certain poetry to it, I suppose, to meet as two people both undone.”
“That,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, “or both reunited as the man and woman you’ve become.”
That, somehow, was worse. Who had she become? Who had he become? Who would they both become once they wed? She curled her hands tight until her nails bit into her palms. She couldn’t afford to run. But she wouldn’t give this man her heart, her time, or the time of day!
Not again.
Never again.
Chapter Three
Bishop felt likeshite.
He honestly didn’t know how he’d made it to the retiring rooms on the third floor, but the door shut behind him with a click, and the annoying chatter of the gaming floor disappeared entirely. Sheer force of will brought him to the center of the room, all his focus trained on the woman before him stationed by the window, already waiting, and not the riot happening in his body.
He’d won.
He might die, but he’d won.
“Alyssia.”
She turned slowly, spine straight, chin high, and his heart did that damned thing again, a sudden and unbidden twist in his chest. Shewasreal. A part of him had still been in doubt up until this moment.
“As pretty as ever,” he murmured before he could stop himself. His head was two counts, no, perhaps three counts, slower than normal.
She raised a brow. A pretty brow. “Prettyas ever?That’sall you have to say to me after twelve years? I suppose I ought to be elated you still remembered my name, Giles.”
Ah, Christ. He deserved that. “Forgive me, Liss, my head is not...” What’s the word?
“Attached straight?” she finished for him. “And don’t call me Liss. I’m not that girl anymore.”
No, she wasn’t, he supposed. “What about you? Is your head attached correctly, seeing as you are here?”
“My head has never been sturdier,” she countered, folding her arms. “But I wasn’t expectingyou.”
“I wasn’t expecting you either,” he murmured. “Believe me. What happened for you to be here?”
She glared at him. “I can ask the same of you.”
Bishop sighed. The discussion wouldn’t go anywhere at this rate, and his whole body was heating, rejecting the contents of the glasses he’d consumed. “There are reasons I had to stay away.” Bile rose but he swallowed it down. “I hadn’t planned on revealing myself just yet, but I saw you and, damn it, Alyssia, I couldn’t just allow you to marry a fool.”
“Aren’t I marrying one?”
He couldn’t hold back a low chuckle. “Rather the fool you know, correct?”
