her ear, caressed her cheek. She did melt then, sighing against his mouth as her body molded to his. It felt right, this kiss, in a way that nothing and no one had quite felt since Nick had left.
The kiss lasted endless minutes — slow, smoldering, a carefully controlled fire. When one quickened, sliding toward a breast or hip, the other slowed, slipping away, changing the angle — keeping things the same, balanced on the edge between memory and reality.
Between who they might have been, and what they really were.
Nick pulled away first. But he didn’t step back — he held her against his chest and leaned his chin on her head. She burrowed her face into his jacket. He had held her like that once before, and the lingering ache of memory punched her in the gut.
She had sought him out the day after her first ball, giving her groom all of her pin money so that he would look the other way while she rode with Nick. They had stopped in a far corner of Hyde Park, and she confessed how she had stood, shy and uncertain, on the edge of her first ball — and how much she had wished he could be invited to such events so that she would have someone to dance with.
He had reassured her, told her that she would conquer them all, and pulled her off her horse to dance with her until she could laugh again. Then he had held her like that, just for a moment, in an embrace that had felt like a goodbye even though she hadn’t understood it at the time.
She’d gone back to her governess then. Several weeks elapsed between that embrace and the day she had broken their engagement. But in the years that followed, she would have done anything to go back to that moment in the park. She wished she had begged him to run away with her instead of standing aside and letting her slip away.
She was finally back in his arms — just where she’d thought she would never be again. It was different now. He felt different, all muscle and resolve instead of youthful worship.
Her thoughts raced, but her brain was unwilling to pin any of them down for fear of finding a truth she didn’t want to confront. Could she pretend that he was a malevolent stranger — that the Nick she had loved wasn’t the man who was determined to destroy her?
Or did she want Nick to be real, no matter how he had changed?
She felt him draw a breath. “I missed you, Ellie,” he said.
All her racing thoughts crashed into each other. Whatever she really felt was buried under the wreckage. But there was one truth she could share.
“I missed you, too.”
* * *
She felt right in his arms. He’d held others after her, and even enjoyed most of them. But she was perfect there, curved around him until he didn’t know where he ended and she began. He’d missed that in India, more than anything else from home — the feeling that somewhere, somehow, one person in the world knew him, fit him, wanted him.
Wanted him, despite everything he was.
Still, he couldn’t forget what she’d done.
“I thought you wouldn’t want me to return,” he said.
“You could have asked, you know. I trust you still remember your letters. Unless you’ve spent so many hours counting your fortune that you’ve forgotten how to write?”
She hadn’t moved an inch, but he felt the gulf expanding between them, a tide that carried them further apart with every heartbeat. “You could have written just as easily, Ellie my love. Unless you’ve forgotten your letters with all the men you’ve let sniff at your skirts?”
She’d tensed when he unintentionally used his old endearment for her, then flinched as his barb struck home. She glared at him. “Don’t be crude, Nick. It’s beneath you.”
“But that’s what I am, isn’t it? The crude tradesman who can never have you? Good enough for a quick fuck, but not for your breakfast table?”
“You’ve had me before, and you’ll have me again. I wouldn’t worry so much about being a tradesman — it seems to have served you well.”
He’d wanted to insult her, to draw a reaction from her. But he’d unearthed the weary, jaded woman whom he’d seen the previous night, in the instant before she had recognized him.
Ellie shouldn’t be jaded. She should be laughing.
He raked a hand through his hair. “What happened to you,