The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,7

to him while she collected herself. He’d never loved her. Not even a little. “He’s not yours,” she lied.

It wasn’t that she wanted to keep Oliver from his father—the very thought made her want to weep, for she’d lived the last ten years of her own life without a word from her own father. But Nicholas had no use for her, the mother of his child, any more than he’d had use for her affection when it had been just the two of them. He’d been content to send her out on her ear almost the moment he had Oliver in his possession. He’d not even cared that she’d spent her first week after in a haze of grief, barely able lift herself from the lumpy mattress of a room she’d let above a common tavern. If he knew she’d been forced to return to Celeste’s cottage in Devon and the staff keeping house there, he’d never given an indication. He simply didn’t care about her.

The door closed behind them. It seated like the hollow thump in her chest. She didn’t turn to face him. How could she? He’d broken her heart. Taken her son without a single thought for the agony it would cause her—like having her own arm, or her very heart, ripped from her.

“Tell me it’s rubbish.” His voice was low. Not menacing. Hurt, possibly. As if it stung him to think she might have taken another lover—but no. It was because he wanted Oliver. Wouldn’t accept that the boy was not his own. “I believed that cocky little whelp at first,” Nicholas said, “but I’ve had time to think about it. You wouldn’t have strayed. You were in love with me.”

Oh, she had been. She’d loved him so much she’d thought she would die from the pain of his betrayal. She waved her hand through the air, turning slowly toward him. “You had no loyalty from me.”

His eyes went cold. “We had an agreement. That included your chastity.”

“You never had sole claim on my time.”

She hated the way she sounded. Bitter.

He advanced two steps. “I paid for you. You had a legal obligation to me.”

“Even if you were in her arms?” Elizabeth couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice now. “You thought I would pine alone while you rolled around in some other woman’s bed?”

“It was my right.” He scowled. “Why else would I pay your rates?”

Because you loved me. A foolish thought to have. What made it all the worse, however, was that he was right. She had lain in her bed, night after night, wishing he would come to her. Hating that he’d taken another courtesan in his arms. Hating herself, for loving a man who could not have given his whole heart to her had he even wanted to.

“I should never have believed you were with him.” Nicholas muttered. He said him as though just thinking about Lord Constantine put a bad taste in his mouth. For one brief, stupid second, Elizabeth hoped he was jealous. “You never gave any indication…” He shook his head. He stared at the floor as if the world were shifting beneath his feet. Then his chin lifted until he was looking her full in the face again. What she saw there sent a chill through her entire body.

“That silly fop made me look like a fool in front of everyone. But…the thing of it is, Elizabeth, I don’t think he has the brains to have come up with such a devious plot. Lord Constantine is a puppy. A little boy hanging on his brothers’ coattails. You would never have turned to his bed, even if you had wanted to get me back.” Nicholas advanced one more step. It was enough to bring the masculine, heart-twistingly familiar smell of him near. “You panted after me for too long, Elizabeth. I cannot believe you would have strayed, even for one night.”

She held her ground, but allowed her face to reveal all the years she’d spent pining after a man who’d never wanted her. “He was kind to me. I believed he might…”

Nicholas’s condescension dripped from his voice. “Never say you thought he loved you.”

But she’d struck something. He turned away, his broad shoulders sagging a fraction. Enough to make her think she’d drawn his attention to the one weakness that might have sent her into the arms of another.

“Of course I didn’t,” she scoffed, though the thought of a man telling her he loved her caused her chest to