Page 18 of A Lady Most Hexing
Oh, gods. It suddenly occurred to her that she was being entirely unfair about this situation. Irregardless of his… well, his success with women… it had to be playing on his mind. And he’d always treated her fairly. Perhaps he worried that he’d overstepped the bounds of their employment contract.
It was so utterly humiliating.
But she owed him the truth.
“Yes, I enjoyed it,” she whispered, her cheeks burning. “You were… more than proficient. Of course, you were, you’ve kissed hundreds of women in your time. And I’m sorry for this muddle. I should never have kissed you. I put you in an awkward position and I’m sorry and?—”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away from her. “For fuck’s sake.”
“What?”
He turned back to her, anger painted across his face. “Don’t you dare lecture me on my language right now. For fuck’s sake, Edwina. I have not kissed hundreds of women. I’ve been as bloody celibate as a monk for the past three years!”
“I have met some of your past mistresses,” she pointed out sharply. “And I do answer your correspondence.”
“Past,” he shot back. “Yes, past. I won’t pretend I haven’t had an adventurous youth. That all changed the second you walked through my door.”
“That opera singer was draped all over you barely a month ago!”
“We were trying to get answers to Mary Solomon’s death,” he bit back, “and Vanessa was her friend. I couldn’t exactly tell her to get her hands off me when I was questioning her. And she was crying. I could hardly dump her on someone else’s lap when she was so distraught about finding Mary’s body. But nothing happened. Nothing will ever happen with someone else.”
Each word was like a hammer strike to her soul. “What are you trying to say?”
“I am saying that you walked into my life three years ago and turned it upside bloody down. I have spent the past three years trying not to put my hands on you, trying not to make you feel uncomfortable, trying… trying to get you out of my head.” His voice rose. “And then you kissed me and for a second I had hope…. And the next thing I know you’re trying to resign?—”
The words were coming at her like little lobbed grenades. She didn’t know what to do with them, except— “I did resign!”
“You ran,” he accused. “You’re a bloody coward.”
“I am not a coward!”
“Did you want me to kiss you?” he yelled. “Did you enjoy it? Do you want me? Damn it, Edwina. They’re not difficult questions.”
She gaped at him.
Do you want me?
It was such a simple question, and yet, not simple at all.
I’ve spent three years trying not to want you.
Three years locking away her feelings so deep inside her that she could never be hurt.
And she’d failed.
Sterling was the lodestone in her life, and no matter what she did she kept being drawn back to him.
But he was Sterling Anthony Reed, the second son of the Duke of Clarenvale. And no matter how much she… cared for him… she didn’t dare fall into an affair with him.
Because to let herself love him was to set into place the steady spiral into heartbreak.
This didn’t end in happiness. This ended with Edwina having her heart and reputation shattered, her friendship with him utterly destroyed. He’d weather any kind of storm—he was a man, with all the entitlements that went with that.
And she was Edwina.
Her aunt was dead now. Her mother long gone. Her father merely a footnote in the history of her making. She had no kin, no fortune, nothing more than the reputation she had doggedly forged, and the magic she’d worked so hard to master.
“You don’t understand.” Her fists balled. “I can’t want you. I can’t kiss you. I can’t… I can’t be what you want me to be.”
