uncertain, distressing.
Tempting.
Her bath water had grown cool. Reluctantly, Callie rose and stepped from the tub. She could not hide within it forever. Reaching for a towel, she thought again of those kisses in the carriage. Callie did not know what had happened to her. His challenge had sent her over the edge, and she had forgotten herself. For those few, wild moments, she had been driven only by desire, by the undeniable attraction she felt for him.
Following dinner, the earl had informed her he had called for a bath in her chamber.
I will give you some time to prepare yourself for the evening, he had said.
The warning in his voice settled between her thighs now as a new pulse of yearning. She was turning into a wanton, and she could scarcely understand why or how. She still considered the Earl of Sinclair her enemy. Her body, however, did not.
Callie wrapped herself in the dressing gown her lady’s maid had waiting for her. Simon would have been ashamed of her, if he could see her now. If he could see what she had become.
As she thought of the man who would forever own her heart, tears pricked at her eyes. She swore to herself that she would not allow them to fall. But she was weak, and one slid from her lashes, rolling down her cheek. For the first time since becoming the Countess of Sinclair that morning, she allowed herself to mourn what she had lost.
Her wedding day would have been two years prior. She would have been married before everyone she loved. Alfred would have been there. She would have had a society wedding, filled with laughter and happiness. Perhaps she would have even been a mother by now, had the future she had planned for herself not been so viciously stolen away with Simon’s death. Instead, he had gone to Italy to ease his constitution, and he had returned in a coffin.
“Contemplating the rest of your life as my wife, princess?”
The grim drawl at her back took her by complete surprise. Callie spun around, a startled shriek escaping her.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded, shocked at the sight of him standing before her, clad in nothing more than a dark-blue dressing gown that was belted loosely at his waist.
A mesmerizing sliver of his chest was visible. Strong, muscled, and covered in a smattering of dark hair. She did her best to ignore the pulse of yearning he brought to life within her once more. The arresting sight of his masculine beauty meant nothing to her, she told herself. He was so unfairly handsome, but other men were handsome, too. Simon had been, with his tousled, golden curls and his deep-blue eyes.
The man who should have been her husband and the man she had married could not be more different. The contrast had never been so vivid. The Earl of Sinclair’s dark beauty made her heart pound and her breath hitch in her chest.
“I knocked.” His searing gaze traveled over her. “You did not answer. I was worried.”
She had heard no knock on the door adjoining their chambers. But it was possible that she had been too lost in her tumultuous emotions and musings to hear.
Still, his heated stare reminded her she was naked beneath her dressing gown. She folded her arms protectively over her breasts. Belatedly, the last of his words dawned upon her.
“You were worried,” she repeated, disbelief lacing her voice.
“Yes.” He sauntered nearer, not stopping until he stood before her.
She did not want his admission of concern to mean anything. It was not as if he cared about her. He had married her for her dowry and to gain revenge against her for Confessions of a Sinful Earl.
Callie raised a brow, clinging to all the calm she possessed. “Did you fear I had attempted to flee through the window again?”
“The notion did cross my mind, I confess.” He startled her even more then by reaching out and catching one of her forgotten teardrops upon his thumb. “Why are you weeping, Lady Sinclair?”
“Do not call me that,” she bit out. The name felt wrong. As if it belonged to someone else. She did not want it.
He brought the pad of his thumb to his mouth and sucked. “It is your name now. You must reconcile yourself to the choices you made, princess. You, alone, are the reason you are my wife.”
Somehow, the sight of his sinful mouth sucking up her sorrow made her core tingle.