Page 68 of Pride and Privilege

He huffed a laugh.

“If you’re going to teach me how to become one of you…” she began, then reconsidered, turning more serious. “Actually…Teach me the confidence thing. That’s the real difference, I think. Between people like you and people like me.”

Deep inside, something winced and insistedWe’re us, Poppy. We areus.

“You think I’m confident?” he asked. “The man who hides panicking in bathrooms?”

“Yes. You’re confident. Aubrey, too. Your father. Andrew Carter-Hall. Elliott. Your friend Cassie. You all share a certain…something.”

He grinned. “A certainje ne sais quoi?”

She wrinkled her nose. He noted how it shifted the pattern of freckles there. “No. A sort of…assuredness. An air of consequence. I don’t know. Other people seem to duck and scurry through the world, barely clinging on. And you walk around as though the furniture will rearrange itself around you.”

It was his turn to pull a face. “That sounds…awful. Like I’m some cocky twat.”

She shook her head quickly—as much as she could when half was cupped by his pillow. “No. I don’t mean that. Well…” She grinned. “Maybe alittlecocky.”

He unknotted his hand from the covers. Reached out. Poked her shoulder. She laughed, and his hand came to rest above the duvet, between them. Her eyes flicked down to it. Seemed to catch there a moment before meeting his.

“But that kind of confidence,” she said. “Do you think it’s something someone like me could ever learn? Or do you need to be born with it?”

“You have every reason to be confident. You’re smart. Brilliant. Beautiful.”

She blushed. So did he. “I just mean…” he said awkwardly, “that you have every reason to feel confident. There’s nothing special about people born to my sort of life. We’re no better than anyone else.”

“Inside me, I know that. But also… I’m intimidated.”

“By me?”

“By all of it.”

“Don’t be. Poppy, please. I hate that thought.”

He almost did reach for her then. Needed somehow to reassure her—reassure himself—that they were together in this. Whateverthiswas. Life? The world? The thought of any kind of distance between them was acutely painful.

“But what do I bring to this…friendship?” she asked. “You give everything. I have nothing.”

“You, Poppy. You. You’re what has value. Nothing else in the world means anything compared to that—the value of people.”

Her smile slanted. “Spoken like a man who’s never gone hungry.”

He raised himself onto one elbow, unable to stay still, burning with the frustrated need to make her see sense, make her see how much she meant—

“Kiss me,” she said.

Everything went very still. She toyed with the seam of the duvet cover that was pulled almost to her chin. Then her hand slid down, found his.

“That’s the only thing I have to give,” she said quietly, her words weighed down with heated anticipation.

Roscoe looked at her, heart pounding. “No, no… God, Poppy, this isn’t—”

“I don’t mean like that. I mean… The way I want you. That’s all I have. I want you. I want you to kiss me. I want to have you. That’s all I can give—how much I like you. To be honest about that.”

His pulse raced, thoughts hot and rushing. Every part of him flooded with heat. With mad, urgent desire.

“We can’t…” he said.

“I know.” But her hand moved to his face, traced his jaw.

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