He gave her another penetrating stare. “A few more minutes, and I would not have needed to force anything.”
Flora gasped. Was that what he’d intended? To seduce her so that she would have to marry him? The blood drained from her face. She’d almost let him. “You bastard. How could you?”
“I want you,” he said bluntly.
“You don’t want me, you want what I can bring you,” she replied bitterly, unable to hide the despair in her voice. Her wealth, her connections, an end to the curse were all too tempting. He saw her not as a desirable woman, but as a marriage prize. Just like everyone else.
He held her gaze steadily, and didn’t deny it. “When will you realize that none of this is your choice?”
She flinched. How could he say something so cruel? She’d begun to trust him. She’d actually thought he might be someone she could…marry. Hot tears gathered behind her eyes and thickened her throat. “It is my choice. I’ve made it so.”
“You are who you are, Flora. You can’t change that.”
He didn’t understand. She grasped for a shred to hold on to, not wanting to believe she could have been so wrong. “Please don’t do this. Just let me go.” She might as well have been trying to melt granite. She wrapped her fingers around the hard muscle of his arm and squeezed. It didn’t give an inch. Impenetrable. Just like the rest of him.
His face was a stony mask. “I can’t.”
“Why?” Her voice broke.
He looked away, and she could see the tic in his neck. The only sign that he was not completely unaffected.
“Please.” She was begging now and trying to hold back the tears that threatened to storm at any moment. “Don’t hold me here. Let me go home.”
“And where is home, Flora?”
She made a strangled sound in her throat as his poisoned arrow struck its target. She didn’t have a home. She didn’t have anyone. Certainly not this cold, emotionless stranger. “Anywhere but here,” she whispered.
His eyes softened for an instant. “Is it really so bad being here with me?”
No.That was exactly the problem. She’d allowed herself to believe that he was different. Like a fool, she’d begun to trust him. The lessons of her mother’s life had been in vain. She’d thought she was impervious, but she was wrong. When she thought of what had nearly happened between them, how she’d nearly succumbed, her stomach turned. She had to get away from here, before she traded her soul for a moment of pleasure in his arms.
“Let me go to Hector.”
His eyes narrowed. “Your brother will not protect you.”
“And you will?”
“With my life.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, she almost believed him.Fool.
“Have care of Hector, Flora. Do not trust him.”
Again she tried not to laugh at the bitter irony. “He is my brother. And unlike you, he doesn’t want anything from me.”
Loathing for him, for herself, banished the hurt, leaving an aching emptiness in her chest. The cold residue of disillusionment.
“A minute ago, you wanted me as much as I wanted you.” He slid his thumb across her mouth. “Has anything really changed?”
And curse her traitorous body, she trembled. The rippling effect of his touch shuddered through her. Heart pounding, she jerked away, knowing that he knew exactly what he did to her. Her body wanted him. “You might succeed in seducing me.” For if she stayed much longer, it seemed inevitable. She gazed deep into his eyes so there would be no mistake. “But I will never agree to marry you.”
He hardened himself against the urge to reach out to her again and simply let her go. This time. Though he was tempted to prove to her just how wrong she was.
She was already his. She just didn’t know it yet. The moment he’d touched her, her fate had been sealed. If she thought she had any control over this undeniable force between them, she was only fooling herself. She didn’t know how powerful the yearnings of the body could be.
But he did.
Never had he wanted anything as badly as he wanted Flora. And he’d almost had her, but he’d been well caught in a trap of his own making. All thoughts of seduction, of coercing her into marrying him, had fallen to the wayside the moment he’d held her in his arms. When she’d pressed her soft body against him and opened her mouth to him so sweet and eager, something had imploded in his chest. His only thought had been to please her.
