Page 6 of Accidental Alliance

Intelligence that cannot be dismissed.

A quiet defiance that does not bend to men like me.

But the word still tastes right on my tongue when I look at her.

She turns slowly, and that honey-gold gaze locks on me.

Up close, there is no buffer of a crowded room and public decorum to scrutinize us.

Here, there is only her face highlighted by moonlight, her eyes bright and her mouth curving upward with the kind of smile that should come with a warning label.

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” she asks.

I exhale once through my nose, the sound almost a laugh and not nearly as amused as it sounds. “I was not the one who disappeared from her father’s side while he was making his rounds.”

“No. But you were the one staring at us like you wanted to set us on fire. Planning on taking us out once nobody was looking?” The bluntness of her tone lands like a match dropped into dry grass.

For a second, I just look at her.

Most women would not dare say something like that to me.

The smart ones would keep the accusation buried beneath flirtation.

The cautious ones would never acknowledge it at all. Isabella has never belonged to either category, unfortunately.

She says the dangerous thing simply because it is true and because she knows I can never decide whether I want to silence her for it like I do with anyone else or drag her closer until she says worse.

“Or maybe,” she says, tilting her head just slightly, her eyes narrowing, “you were staring our way for an entirely different reason…”

“Careful,” I murmur, taking another step forward. “You should know better than to romanticize me.”

A flicker of amusement touches her expression. “Would the observation be inaccurate?”

Christ.

I should leave.

That thought arrives clear and sensible and utterly useless the second it forms because my body has already chosen otherwise.

My eyes drag over her face down to the elegant line of her throat. It’s there that I see the faint fluttering of her pulse.

It’s too quick for someone pretending to be so calm.

So, she is affected.

The discovery gives me no peace at all, however, only adding another layer of temptation to drown beneath.

I wonder what else about her is betraying the poise she wears so beautifully.

Is her breathing this steady by force, or are her hands aching to touch something the way mine do?

Whether she has any idea how close I am to forgetting every rule that has kept this from becoming a catastrophe is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

“Did you come here to see if I would follow?” I ask, my voice barely above a murmur.

Her lashes lower just enough to suggest thought, though we both know she already has an answer being held back on the tip of her tongue. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”