He smiled to himself at the thought.God, but she was exquisite when she glared at him with unveiled disdain.
Lady Beatrix was not some demure Society flower to be handed off to the highest bidder.She was a firestorm in silks.Tall, willowy, with golden hair that seemed spun from sunlight and eyes the precise green of a storm-churned sea.And that body…
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
Temptation incarnate.
But it wasn’t just the surface that intrigued him where Lady Beatrix was concerned.It was what simmered underneath.The fury.The intelligence.The contempt.
She challenged him without speaking a word.
Nicholas, ever the strategist, had no intention of forcing her into anything.No, no.That would be foolish.It would make her bolt, bite, or worse—submit out of duty and then loathe him for it.
Lady Beatrix was not a woman to be commanded.She was a woman to beconvinced.
Andthatwas a far more pleasurable pursuit.
So he was patient.In conversation, he was careful.Mildly flirtatious.Never too eager.Always respectful.He paid her compliments sparingly and watched her reaction to each one as if studying a battlefield.He learned her rhythms.Her tells.The way she stiffened when someone tried to tame her.The way her fingers twitched when she held back a scathing retort, and how her eyes flashed when she let one fly.
She was magnificent…and not easily impressed.
Lately, he had adjusted his tactics accordingly.
He had sent her flowers—an experiment, really.Not the dull, obligatory roses favored by unimaginative men who believed romance could be purchased by the dozen.No.He had chosen peonies.Lush.Unapologetic.The sort of flowers that suggested discernment rather than desperation.The sort that might make a woman pause, tilt her head, and wonder what sort of man had chosen them—and what, precisely, he expected in return.
He had not signed the card with anything more than his name.Let her think.Let her question.Let the seed take root.
Nicholas was a man who knew how to wait for what he wanted.
He didn’t want Lady Beatrix as a trophy.
He wanted her as a conquest.
Notin the vulgar sense—he would never lay a hand on a woman who didn’t give him leave—but in the true, ruthless sense of seduction.Of unraveling her defenses.Of turning the disdain in her eyes into something far more compelling.
Desire.
He wanted her to want him.
And he would win.Because no one—no one—played the long game better than he did.
