She waited for the blaze to lessen, and only then did she rise to her feet and face him.
Casual as a summer breeze, he smoked his cheroot and watched her the way he might regard some oddity he could not quite puzzle out.
A panicked sensation built in her breast.
He could not figure Meghan out?
What was she missing here?
“I don’t understand, August,” she asked haltingly.
“When I said I won’t marry you?” he answered and clarified at the same time. “It means I will not marry you.”
August raised the cheroot to his lips.
Meghan thrust her shoulders back.
“Whatever game this is, August, it is not funny.”
From the corner of his mouth, he exhaled smoke.
“No game.”
A terrible tremor began in her toes and spread swiftly through Meghan. Her teeth began to chatter.
How terribly ironic. She’d feared the unknown, dangerous highwayman, but it was ultimately August who had plunged a blade into her heart.
“I trusted you.”
He jammed his cheroot into the rim of a pewter plate.
“Based on what, Meghan?” he said flatly.
“On… On…”
“Trust alone?” he finished for her.
The pressure in her chest was so great she hunched forward in a bid to ease the tightening.
I am dying…
If she took a full breath, her chest would explode.
“Based on our friendship,” she whispered, hating the shake in her voice.
“Our friendship?”
His dimples appeared, as though the notion amused him.
“Men and women cannot be friends.”
Meghan narrowed her eyes.
Now he would smile.
Now.
“Yes. They. Can.” She gave each of those words their due.
