She added, “I understand. I am relentless but not without pride.”
She took a step back.
She finished, “How foolish. Of course.Of course.”
Tears of humiliation and hurt had begun to blur the blue-gray shadows of the colonnade.
“Helena, stop,” he said firmly. He set down the stack of books and the plant and stepped to her. He placed her outstretched hand on his chest, just over his heart.
“Hmm?” said Helena, wiping her eye.
Declan took a deep breath and began again. “Congratulations. You’ve said the one thing that would cause me to take it all back. Well, take most of it back.”
“About crossing the line?”
“About not apologizing. About being better off at odds.”
“Am I the line?” she whispered.
“You, my lady, are the compulsion.Mycompulsion. You are the reason I go through my day—what I wish, and what I do, and the person aboutwhom I cannot stop thinking. You are my first thought in the morning and the dream in which I make love at night. My desire for you is a fierce, pounding wave against a rock. You are not the line, you are the thing I’m risking my future to protect. But I will not ruinyourfuture along the way.”
“What?” Helena’s breath lodged somewhere in her windpipe.
“As reversals go,” he said, “this feels very comprehensive.”
“What?” she repeated, higher, airier. Had he just professed himself to her? She wanted to call back his words and examine the meaning of each one.
He wanted her. She was his day and his night.
“I am not pushing you away because I do not like you, Helena,” he said. “I am pushing you away because—”
“Don’t say it.” The words gushed out. Suddenly, she knew. He was about to offer an excuse as old as time. Shakespeare must have said it. Likely, Adam said it to Eve before she offered him the apple.
“Because,” he continued, “I like you too much.”
He said it anyway.
She fought the urge to take him by the lapels and shake him. Instead, she said, “And why is it wrong to like me so much? In the day and in the night, et cetera, et cetera?”
“Helena.”
“No. Now I urge you to say it. I want to hear the words.”
“What future have we?” he asked, his eyes grim and serious. “A mercenary and an heiress.”
“Iam a farmer,” she corrected.
“You are engaged to a duke.”
“A duke who I am about to pass off to some other unlucky girl.”
“And then your parents will betroth you to someone else.”
She was shaking her head, but he continued, “Heiresses do not build their lives with mercenaries, Helena.”
“This heiress will not marry a duke,” she said firmly. A shimmer of hope rained in Helena’s chest.
She pressed on. “I have vowed not to marry him from the beginning. If I can managenotmarrying who I want, then I can manage the opposite.” Helena realized this sounded dangerously like a wedding proposal. She felt her face flush red. There was challenging and then there was stalking.
