“Why didn’t you stop me?”
She inhaled slowly. “Because it was already done. Because the room had seen and heard and decided.”
His brow furrowed. “But you knew. You knew I…”
“Yes, I knew.”
He stepped closer. “Why?”
Leticia looked at him fully. “Because I wasn’t ready to let go of that moment.” Her voice cracked faintly at the edge of the confession.
The silence stretched.
He stood with his hands at his sides, not reaching for her, but not retreating either. She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, as if bracing for something that hadn’t yet struck.
“Everyone believes it now,” he said.
“Yes.”
“We’ll be expected to make announcements. Host dinners. Be seen.”
“That’s true.”
He looked down, his voice quiet. “We could end it.”
“We could.”
A shift in the air. He wasn’t looking at her now, but she could feel him beside her.
“But it would create a scandal.”
“Yes.”
He looked up and met her gaze again. “Perhaps… we don’t end it. Not yet.”
Leticia unfolded her arms, then folded them again, holding them tightly across her ribs. “What are you proposing?”
“A temporary arrangement. Two weeks. That should be enough time for the story to settle. For me to…” He paused. “To finish what I came here to do.”
Leticia’s voice was steady. “And afterward?”
“We dissolve the engagement quietly. Blame a difference of temperament.”
“And the public?”
“They will have tired of us by then.”
Leticia hesitated. “Do you make a habit of false engagements, Lord Ashcombe?”
“No,” he said. “But I appear to have made one tonight.”
A breath of laughter escaped her. Dry. Unbelieving.
She nodded. “Two weeks.”
He bowed his head. “Thank you.”
She looked back toward the ballroom. “This is not what I imagined.”
