“Enough,” Duncan said.
Charity tried to break away from him, thinking that this was just another way to get her to be quiet.
“You will have to hear…” she said, “I… you cannot just watch me leave…”
Her words were cut short. Suddenly, Duncan was kissing her.
Kissing her!
There was an urgency in the way in which his lips moved against her. Almost as though all the emotions that he had been holding back from her had now been let loose.
Charity made a small sound against his mouth. She hated that her body responded so easily, hated that she wanted him even while she had been furious a second ago.
And now she didn’t want this moment to end.
When he pulled back, his forehead stayed close to hers, and his breathing was not as controlled as before.
“I helped you since I wanted to,” Duncan said, and his voice sounded rough now. “I said goodbye since I was trying to do the only decent thing left.”
“Why is letting me go the decent thing to do? Do you despise my presence that much?”
‘It is decent since you have a choice now. I was not going to hold you to a bargain you made when you were desperate. I was going to do it without pushing you and without trapping you. Why can’t you see that?”
Charity was shaking her head again.
It was his logic against her emotions once again.
“And you didn’t think it might kill me? You didn’t think it might hurt?”
“It hurt me to say it,” he replied. “But I just wanted what was best for you.”
“You are what’s best for me,” she said. “And you can’t make me believe otherwise. You are the only one I want, even if you let me go. That will never change.”
Duncan only stared at her for a moment.
“Do you mean that?”
“I promise you. Don’t let me go.”
“I love you,” he said finally, and the bluntness of it made Charity’s breath catch. “I have loved you for longer than I wanted, and I tried to keep it out of your way, and I failed. I want you, and I want your sisters safe, and I want you here, but….”
“There is no but,” Charity’s heart pounded. “Stop acting like you don’t care,” she whispered.
“I do care,” Duncan said. “That is why I was walking away, since if you stayed only out of duty, I would hate myself for it, and you would hate me later.”
“I’m not staying out of duty,” she said. “I’m staying because I want you, and because I’m tired of pretending I don’t, and because I’m tired of living a life where I only survive and never choose.”
Duncan’s gaze sharpened. “If you choose me,” he said, and his voice lowered further, “then you choose fully, and you don’t keep one foot out the door, since I won’t live like that, and I won’t let you live like that either.”
Charity lifted her chin. “Is that a warning?” she asked, and the words came out like a challenge.
Duncan’s mouth shifted, and a low sound escaped him, half breath, half laugh, and it surprised Charity that he could make that sound at all in a moment like this.
“Yes,” Duncan said, and his eyes stayed dark and steady. “It is.”
Charity’s cheeks heated, and she did not look away. “Fine,” she said. “Then I’m choosing you.”
Duncan’s hands came to her waist, firm and possessive now that he had stopped pretending he could be distant, and he kissed her again, deeper this time, and Charity kissed him back without hesitation.
