Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,95

mouth, placing a kiss atop the knuckles. “Do you know what I think, Tynan?”

“No, and I don’t care.” He couldn’t afford to. He’d already cost himself too much where Faye Poplar was concerned. Since he’d been released from Newgate, he had been consumed by her and the thought of her.

“I think,” she went on as if he’d never even given that curt dismissal, “you care about me.” He recoiled. “There is no other reason you’d have come here with false references and passed yourself off as a servant if you didn’t. I believe you have risked everything because I’ve come to matter in some way to you.”

“It’s about a debt, Faye,” he said curtly. “It’s about finishing our arrangement and being done, and then being free.” Free… and he’d never again see her. Why did that thought cleave his damned fool heart as it did? He lowered his face close to hers, her delicate features a study in serenity. “And when I’m done, you won’t give me another thought.” And I won’t give you one. Those were the words he should say. The ones he wanted to toss her way. And yet, God help him, he couldn’t get them out.

Through that tirade, she’d stood there, proud and regal as a princess, even attired in her rumpled garments as she was. He gnashed his teeth, frustration with her and himself doubling.

“So let us just… finish these next meetings of yours and get this done,” he snapped.

He’d carefully selected those words with one purpose in mind. To deter her. To drive her away from whatever fool thought she’d come to in her head about him being a man of honor who was good… and good for her.

She drew in a quiet breath and then nodded. “Very well. I’ll let you think you believe those things, Tynan.”

A strained, pained laugh escaped him.

“All the while knowing that you’re just sc—”

He took her lightly but firmly by the shoulders.

She finished anyway. “Scared.”

He scoffed. “Scared? Do I strike you as a man who knows fear, Faye?” he jeered, finding solace in this safer subject and her ridiculous charges about him.

“I believe there are many different kinds of fear a person might know, Tynan,” she murmured. “You don’t fear for yourself.” When he made to interrupt, she added, “Not truly. I think you are afraid of whatever this is between us.”

There it was.

What was worse? She’d seen and heard the lie? She’d somehow pieced together that he, God help him, had come to care about her? Something seized up inside of him, tightening his chest and squeezing his lungs so that it was impossible to get anything beyond a raspy, uneven breath. This slip of a lady challenged him at every turn and proved fearless when she should know only terror and believed there was a moral right worth fighting for. This woman saw the world lacked justice and was determined to exact it on her own.

She’d seen and voiced aloud the very demons he’d been battling since he’d made the decision to risk his neck—literally—by moving into her family household and playing at servant.

Terror roiled in his gut, sweat slicked his palms, and he was left cut open before her. “I told you…” And yet, he couldn’t get out the lie to challenge the assumption she’d come to.

She stared expectantly back, drifting closer. “I even think, Tynan…” she said softly, laying her palms upon his bare chest. His muscles jumped under her touch. “You might even believe that you want nothing more than this week between us over and done with, but I think when we part, you are going to miss me.” A sheen glazed her eyes.

Tears, he realized.

Tears… he despised. Tokens of weakness used as tools by too many. But with this woman, the sight of those crystalline droplets wrecked him.

Faye blinked several times, keeping those drops from falling, and then breathing deeply, she stepped away. “And I am going to miss you, Tynan Wylie.” With that, she went up on tiptoe and brushed the most fleeting of soft kisses against his mouth, and then she left.

Tynan stared at the closed door and was at last honest with himself. She’d claimed he wanted nothing more than this week between them over, and yet, he could be true enough to admit that he hated the speed with which the closure between them was approaching.

He was going to miss her like hell.

Chapter 22

The following morn, Faye took advantage as Tynan’s new role as footman, commandeering him