beauty. You don’t trust, you don’t confide, you don’t laugh, you don’t let yourself hope…”
His hand tightened over hers. She was too shocked by his litany of bitterness to respond. “But I’m not the boy you loved, either,” he continued. “I don’t give a damn what you’ve done these past ten years, or how many lovers you’ve taken, or why none of your friends can tell me anything of substance about you. All I know is that I want the woman you are, not the girl you were.”
He was wrong. She did hope — a hope he awakened again, sharp and painful, as he looked at her with a gaze that held dreams of the future rather than nightmares of the past.
She pulled her hand away. This time he let her go. “I can’t, Nick. Don’t make me hope again. Ravish me, ruin me, do whatever it is you came here to do. But don’t raise my hopes.”
He put both hands on her cheeks, holding her so she couldn’t look away. “Stay with me, Ellie. Here, in this moment, where nothing else matters. The past doesn’t have to consume us forever.”
She wrenched her face out of his hands. “You can’t forgive me. I can’t forgive myself. We’re lying to ourselves when we say we can do this without the past coming between us — it’s all there is. Don’t you see that? All we are, all we’ve been for the past ten years, is obsession and hatred and regret. I don’t know a single fact about your life beyond that — not what you traded, or where you lived, or who you spent your time with, or even whether you enjoyed it. And you don’t know any facts about me. So don’t you dare think to make me love you again. You’re in love with an illusion — just as you always were.”
She’d fought to stay calm even though she couldn't keep her voice from rising. But she could only sound rational by sounding cold — and by sounding cold, she had taken them back to her father's drawing room, where she had lied to Nick and told him she couldn't love him. His jaw tightened and his teeth ground together. His effort to control himself was etched in the lines around his eyes as they narrowed. All the love she’d seen there turned to ice.
“I’m not the boy you spurned, but I’m no illusion. Tell me now you don’t want me to take you to bed — or stop talking altogether.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
If he had asked her eight years ago, she would have said yes — would have done anything to atone, to please him, to show him that she loved him.
If he had asked her five years ago, she would have said yes, because she was lonely and had already disrobed.
If he had asked her a week ago, she would have said yes, because she had missed him for so long and would take whatever pleasure he offered.
She had said yes the previous night.
“No,” she said. “If this is really a choice, I choose no.”
“What?”
His voice was harsh, but his eyes were more confused than angry. She suppressed the urge to stroke his cheek and instead crossed her arms over her bare chest. “I said I can’t, Nick. Or rather, I could, and it would be wonderful, and I would never want to stop. That’s why I cannot.”
He clasped his fingers behind his head. His eyes flickered over her face, trying to read her emotions instead of shamelessly scanning her naked body. She didn’t know whether she would have painted him in that pose as a prisoner awaiting punishment or a devil inviting her to take the last step toward her own destruction.
“I could take you anyway,” he said, almost to himself. “I should have when you broke our engagement. I should have dragged you to Gretna Green and married you, not let you go.”
“Why didn’t you?”
The question slipped out before she thought about it. He dropped his hands and the shutters fell over his eyes. He picked up his shirt and thrust it at her. “Put this on before I forget that I gave you a choice.”
She pulled the shirt over her head. It reached the middle of her thighs and the neck gaped open over her bosom, but it was better than nothing.
“You should go to your chamber,” he said.
Ellie took a deep breath. Then she took another. And another. There were so many words she wanted