Cam winced. It seemed a shoddy ploy now, one of many he’d used over the past few weeks, and yet he crossed the threshold into her room just the same. This time, the ends justified the means. This time, he’d come to tell her the truth.
“What do you want, Cam?”
Everything. I want everything from you, but I’ll take anythingyou’ll give me.
He couldn’t say it. Not yet. Instead he stood motionless in the middle of the room, his back to her as he tried to compose his face—tried to think of what hecouldsay. “I just want to talk to you.”
She drew a long, slow breath. “There’s nothing more to talk about. I’ve said everything I wish to say.”
He turned to face her, because when he told her the truth, he’d look her in the eyes. “But I haven’t—”
The words died on his lips.
Masses of dark hair tumbled about her shoulders and over her breasts in lush waves that hung to her waist. In every one of his heated fantasies he’d buried his face in her hair, and now he ached to run his hands through that dark silk. He’d pictured her thus, her hair unbound and wild, spread across his pillow, tickling his chest. Dragging across his stomach. But his imagination hadn’t done her justice.
His fingers flexed, but he kept his arms at his sides.
A wave of pink washed over her face as he continued to stare at her without speaking. “Cam?”
“I—your hair.” He waved a hand stupidly at her. “It’s loose. I’ve never seen it loose before.”
She raised a self-conscious hand to her hair, then brushed past him. She hurried to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of hairpins from the floor.
“Don’t.” Cam’s voice was hoarse.
She turned, the pins cradled in her palm. “I think you’d better go, Cam.”
He stepped toward her. “Please. Not yet.”
She closed her fingers around the hairpins until he knew they must be stabbing the tender flesh of her palms. “You said you’d go the moment I asked you to—”
“I will, but please, not before I’ve talked to you.” He held out his hands in front of him. “Please. I won’t touch you, Eleanor.”
Unlessyou ask me to.
An absurd hope. She’d never ask. Even now her eyes had narrowed with suspicion.
“Very well. Talk.”
Cam rubbed the back of his neck. Christ, there was so much he had to tell her, and so much of it ugly and painful, he didn’t know where to begin.
Begin at the end.
He dropped his hand and straightened. “I overheard you with Amelia, just now. She must not have closed the door all the way when she came into your room.”
Eleanor’s face paled. “You—you found the door ajar, and rather than knock, you stood in the hallway and listened to a private conversation?”
Pointless, to deny such a small sin, when he’d done far worse. “Yes.”
Her face went from white to red, then back to white, and her chest heaved with anger. “How much—what did you hear?”
I heard enough. “You told Amelia about Charlotte, about when you were children, and about how you—”
He stopped, the words caught in his throat. Eleanor loved Charlotte with the same fierce devotion he did Amelia, and he’d used that love against her. He’d taken something fine and pure and twisted it in his hands until it became vicious, unrecognizable.
But that would still be true, whether he forced the words past his lips or not. All he could do now was make amends. He drew a ragged breath. “How much you love her, and how you’d never turn your back on her.”
For a moment her face softened, but then she jerked her chin up. “See how clever you are, Cam? You chose just the right threat.”
