“Nothing is irreversible if you’re willing to pay, Luz Alana.”
“Spoken like a man born into power and wealth.”
To his credit, he blushed.
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” he said, lifting a shoulder in the universal gesture forI don’t make the rules, I just benefit from them.
Legally she would be able to keep whatever she brought into the marriage—like the town house her father had purchased in Edinburgh, her rum and her inheritance—which was really all that mattered to her. Well, there was more to it. Hecouldhelp her; he already was. She also wanted him, and as his wife, perhaps...
Not now, Leona. Business first.
“Fair enough,” she conceded, trying to get terms established before her attraction for Evan Sinclair took over making decisions for her. “And you’ll forfeit all claim on my trust or any other assets I bring to the marriage?”
“I’m a wealthy man, Luz Alana. I don’t need your inheritance. My father won’t let me have the distillery because it’s the only way he can keep pulling my strings, and so he can continue to extort money from me to fund his extravagances.”
“Will your father approve of you marrying me?” she inquired, not voicing the reason for the question. But she didn’t have to: they both knew why she asked.
He flashed her a grin that was as sharp as the blade of a knife. “The only people who need to approve of my choice in marriage are you and I.” It was not the answer to the question she’d asked, but his father was not exactly her problem.
“It’s an ideal solution,” he insisted as he moved closer. “We’re both dedicated to our businesses, neither of us want the ties of a spouse’s expectations or the messy complications of love. And yet...” He tilted his head down, until their faces were close enough she had only to angle her body an inch farther and they’d be kissing again. Whatever he saw in her face deepened his knowing smile. It wasn’t that predatory one from before or the sharp baring of teeth he sported when talking about his father: this one was a honeytrap. Dangerous in its sweetness. He cleared his throat, still intently looking at her. “And clearly there is enough physical attraction between us that there would be additional benefits to our arrangement.”
She slid to the side, needing to not be so close to the man’s mouth. “I have to think about this.”
“Most women who are offered marriage by an earl would jump at the chance.”
“Would you offer marriage to most women, my lord?” she asked sweetly.
The look he gave her carried with it enough electricity to light the tower. “I swore I never would, and yet here I am offering it to you.”
And despite knowing it was purely transactional, her foolish heart raced as he reached to tuck an errant curl behind her ear. “Come on, darling. The observation deck awaits us.”
“Just be careful, as you step out,” Evan instructed as he gently pulled her out of the lift.
“The air is so much colder up here,” Luz said as a shiver ran up her spine. He stopped in midstep at her comment.
“Of course, you’re chilled,” he replied, already starting to remove his jacket. She protested weakly as he leaned over to place it over her shoulders, and again she shivered. But this time it was for a very different reason.
She could still not believe she was here.
Once Evan had managed to convince him with a bribe, the lift operator had boarded them on the contraption and begun the ascent. It had taken about twenty minutes to get to the top, and they had been quite nerve-racking. Luz had ridden the Giessbach Funicular when she’d lived in Switzerland, but it was on rail tracks; this felt like she was being swept up straight into the sky. Evan had been marvelous. Patient and gentle when she would fret, entertaining her with a humorous story about his first ride in a New York lift a few years before. Then he’d asked about her experiences in finishing school. By the time she’d regaled him with a few anecdotes featuring the Leonas, the operator was announcing they were about to arrive.
“It’s like being in a birdcage,” she observed as they walked to the edge of the platform where a metal screen wrapped around the top of the tower. A few feet away Evan finally uncorked the bottle of champagne, the popping sound abnormally loud in the thin air. The Leonas would not believe it when she told them. The jaunt to the tower was inconceivably the most sensible part of the evening thus far.
“Champagne, mademoiselle?” he asked in that brogue-laced French of his as he sauntered toward her. The wind had blown his hair from its earlier confinement; with his sable curls and that beard he looked utterly disreputable.
A gentleman pirate.
She stretched out her hand to take the bottle he offered. Their fingers brushed, and Luz swore the electrification of the tower was running through her. She took a drink and as the bubbles exploded on her tongue, she felt giddy with the thrill of this night.
“If you look closely, you can make out some of the buildings below,” he said, coming to stand behind her. He placed the bottle on the ledge in front of them and used a free hand to point at something to the left and below. The other one he wrapped securely around her waist.
“That’s Trocadero.” His warm breath made her shiver, but the heat of his body covered her like a blanket. “And those are the boats on the Seine. You see them?”
Every time she felt his lips grazing her skin, she shook. Tiny tremors that made her think of the ripples a stone makes when tossed into calm waters. She wanted to turn around and ask him to kiss her, but she also wanted another minute like this, pretending that this was real. That a beautiful man had just asked to marry her and whisked her to the top of the Eiffel Tower to celebrate. It scared her how much she wanted that. How much she wanted him. Evanston Sinclair had seeped into her blood like fast-acting poison.
“If you could have anything when you arrived in Edinburgh, what would it be?”
“Why are you asking me that?” The question surprised her. It wasn’t that she didn’t have answers at the ready. It seemed all she’d done in the last few weeks was worry about those very things.
