She threw her arms out to the side. “Once you kill me off, I’ll never be able to return here.”
“You can pretend to be a ghost. Haunting me for being a horrible husband.”
She growled. “You deserve haunting.” Then she sighed. “We had an excuse for my absence. You created it yourself—a townhouse.”
“I could have one if I wished it.”
“I have no doubt, Mr. Trent”—she ground his name between her teeth—“but that is not the point.”
He straightened off the door. “Rowan, as you’ve called me all afternoon.”
She slapped the name away with a flick of her hand. “It’s called pretending,Mr. Trent.” She ducked around him and made for the door once more. “You invented teas and dinners and other nonsense that I will not have time for. I’ve another life, you know. I cannot attend to you at a moment’s notice. I refuse to be your trained lap dog. A dancing bear at your personal circus.”
He grabbed the door handle before she did and caged her in, his body massive, hard, and hot. “I have given you free rein over this establishment for the last fortnight, and now you refuse to do what you promised to do?” He leaned over her, his breath skating fire across her neck and ear. “You will break your promise? You will force me to rescind my permission?”
She rested her head against the cool wood of the door, blocking out as well as she could the waves of desire his breath blew across her skin. “The game is over, Mr. Trent. Surely we have done enough to convince them to sell to you.”
No more breath on her neck, a lifeless pause while she wondered what he would do next, what she wanted him to do next.
When he exhaled, it was with a single word. “Please.”
She pressed her back against the door. The hard planes of his face seemed tortured. Perhaps it was the candlelight. Perhaps it was… something else.
“Please,” he said again. “Hestia is everything to me. Extending its welcoming hearths is the only thing that matters. Please. I cannot risk ruining this.”
He wanted the inn like she wanted the letter—with every breath that gave her life. And she wanted, for a mad moment, to comfort him as she wished to be comforted, to run her knuckles down his lean cheeks, brush the hair off his forehead, tell him all would be well.
He needed her, just as her family did. They needed each other.
“Very well. I’ll come as often as I can.” As long as it did not arouse suspicion.
He gave a gravelly inhale, another exhale, and he stepped away from her. “You have my thanks.”
And without another word, she left. Because she’d not wanted to leave at all.
Every time she stood near him, the warm hum of his body seemed to promise… perfection. Enticing and arousing. More dangerous even than that—how he’d calmed her fear, shown her they could work through their difficulties together. She could forget her fear, her ever-clamoring need to know everything when he held her hands. Today should have been the end of the charade, the temptation.
Now she must face more of the same for a fortnight. At least.
And she still must find her mother’s letter.
If leaving Rowan alone in the dark twisted her gut now, how much more difficult would it be after she’d spent weeks in his arms, pretending they were her home?
Chapter Thirteen
Between the unhidden sun above and the exhaustion of a week spent in constant movement, Isabella feared she might drop. Right in the middle of Hyde Park for her sisters, brother, and all thetonto see.
She wouldn’t, though. She clung to Samuel’s arm more tightly and clutched at her certainty. If she could survive over a week of pretending to be Rowan’s wife, searching the Haws’s apartments, and pretending with Samuel that she wasn’t doing either of those things, she could remain upright for a mile or two more. No matter how hot the blasted sun.
Felicity, Gertrude, and June walked ahead of them on the park’s path, chatting and running, laughing and making faces. A crowd approached, their attention drawn to Samuel as if a fully blazing chandelier hung above his head.
Imogen, walking on their brother’s other arm, patted his hand. “Do not worry. No one shall get through to you.”
“You can both release me and go whatever direction you please,” he said. “As you always do. I’m not dying. I’m marrying for practical reasons. Aren’t you doing the same, Imogen? And do not lie to me and tell me you are in love with Thurston.”
“Thurston and I have become quite good friends over the past few years, and we have decided that our lives will suit very well running alongside each other.”
“Your sisters married for love.”
