He stepped closer. She could feel the dampness of his skin dangerously near the exposed nape of her neck. The proximity was a physical assault.
“If you wish to see more,” he continued, his tone slow, teasing the edge of her restraint, “you need only turn around.”
Her throat tightened until she could barely breathe. “I have no such wish.”
“Then why is your breathing so uneven, Diana?”
Her breath caught, proving his point. Shame flared in her chest—the hot, stinging shame of a woman who prided herself on being a creature of ice and logic, only to find herself melting at a whisper.
“You presume too much,” she muttered.
“I presume nothing,” he replied. “I observe. I see the way your shoulders tense. I see the flush on your neck.”
His fingers hovered near her waist, but the heat of them penetrated her silk bodice, making her entire body react as though he had gripped her bare skin.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, “you are curious. Perhaps you wish to know whether I remember the shape of you.”
The words hit like a physical strike. Fury and a desperate, starving curiosity flared within her.
“You are shameless,” she hissed. She stepped forward sharply, her heels clicking against the tile. “This is inappropriate. I suggest you dress yourself and come back to the house so you don’t catch your death.”
Then she walked toward the door, every muscle was screaming. As she stepped out into the cooler air of the garden, the humiliation hit her in a wave.
Because despite everything—despite the year of silence and the insult—she still wanted him.
“I do not see how the food should take offense if I choose the wrong fork.” Alexander’s voice was calm as he spoke, but the faint tightening in his jaw betrayed irritation as he set down the utensil and reached, at Diana’s pointed glance, for the outer one instead.
The dining room glowed with steady candlelight. Silver reflected flame in disciplined symmetry. The servants moved with near-silent precision along the walls. Everything about the room suggested order, tradition, habit.
And he felt none of it.
“The food is not your concern. The people eating at your table, however, will take notice,” Diana replied evenly, lowering her eyes from her plate.
She sat at her accustomed place, shoulders drawn back with the composed dignity of a woman determined not to yield an inch.
The pale silk of her gown caught the candlelight each time she shifted, skimming over the soft, generous curves of her figure without ostentation. Her coffee-brown hair had been arranged with careful elegance, though a few loose strands had escaped to brush the slender line of her neck. When she lifted her gaze, her hazel eyes met his with heated defiance.
He liked it.
“I find it excessive,” he said, leaning back slightly. “Three forks for one meal, four glasses for one thirst. We are alone.”
“We are never alone,” she replied calmly.
The idea unsettled him faintly. The notion that he had once been governed by invisible rules felt foreign. Since awakening with a fractured memory, he had experienced the world with raw immediacy. Things either mattered or they did not. Silver placement seemed irrelevant beside the pulse that jumped at the base of his wife’s throat when he looked at her too long.
“I cannot imagine,” he said slowly, “that, in the past, I was so rigid in all matters.”
Her hand stilled around her fork. “In most,” she replied.
He leaned forward slightly. “Surely not in private.”
Her expression sharpened. “There was no private,” she said, voice almost trembling, but she held his gaze steadily. “You left immediately after informing me that your obligation had been fulfilled.”
Something in his chest tightened. He did not remember the version of himself she described. But he did remember the feel of her mouth beneath his, the previous evening. Whatever man he had been, he could not reconcile him with the woman seated before him now.
“You negotiated with my uncle,” she continued. “We met once before the wedding. A formal call. Nothing more.”
He tilted his head to the side. “And you agreed to marry me regardless?”
