Diana’s chest tightened painfully. “Martin?—”
“I was there,” he pressed on, leaning forward now, his voice thick with something that bordered on anger. “I saw what it did to you. I saw how you held yourself together, how you pretended it did not matter, how you smiled through it all while he was nowhere to be found. And I—” He broke off, his jaw tightening. “I married Georgina because I thought it would end it. I thought I could forget you.”
The confession twisted something deep in her chest.
“Georgina is your wife,” she said quietly, trying to anchor herself in something solid, something proper. “She is kind, and she cares for you?—”
“And I care for her,” he said sharply. “In the way one cares for a good, agreeable companion. But she is not you.”
Diana recoiled slightly.
“Martin, you must stop this,” she said, her voice trembling now despite her efforts to steady it. “We are friends. We have always been friends, and I?—”
“You love me like a brother,” he finished, a bitter edge cutting through his tone. “Yes. I know. You have always been very careful to make that clear.”
“Because it is true,” she said, more firmly now, though her heart had begun to race, as she grew more uneasy. “I care for you. I value you. But not in the way you are suggesting. And you must not speak of abandoning your wife as though it were nothing.”
His expression shifted. The bitterness deepened.
“You think I would abandon her?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” Diana said, because the alternative was worse. “You are speaking as though?—”
“I would give you everything,” he cut in, his voice low, urgent now. “Everything he has never given you. You would never be alone again. You would never have to wonder whether you are wanted. I would make you the happiest woman alive, if you would only?—”
“Stop.” The word came sharp now, cutting cleanly through the air between them.
Diana drew back, her hand pressing against the seat beside her as though to steady herself.
“This is not you,” she said, her voice quieter but no less firm. “You are upset. You are saying things you do not mean.”
“I mean every word.”
He moved suddenly.
His hand caught her wrist, his grip firm enough to make her gasp, and before she could pull away, he leaned in, closing the distance between them with a force that sent a sharp spike of alarm through her.
“Martin—”
“I have waited long enough,” he said, his voice rough, his breath too close, too hot against her skin. “I have watched him touch you, watched you look at him as though he were something worth loving, when he has never deserved it?—”
“That is enough!” Diana snapped, wrenching her arm back with sudden force.
His grip loosened, enough for her to shove him.
The movement caught him off guard, and in that brief opening, she raised her hand and struck him across the face.
The sound cracked through the carriage.
Martin went still. Then slowly, very slowly, he turned his head back toward her, his eyes no longer warm or gentle, but darkened into something terrifying.
“You should not have done that,” he said quietly.
Diana’s breath came fast now, her pulse racing, her body coiled with instinctive alarm.
“You have lost your senses,” she said, her voice shaking despite her effort to steady it. “Stop this carriage at once.”
He did not even glance toward the door. Instead, a faint, unsettling smile touched his lips.
