Page 22 of Her Magnificent Mistake
Well, it was working, apparently.
“Perhaps, with me here visiting, and my escort suitably distracted…” Marcia trailed off.
He closed his eyes, trying to rein in the impulse to shoutAye!
This was ridiculous; they had both closed the page on this…this sort of thing ten years ago. Closed the chapter. The book!
He’dhurther, by God! Hadn’t he? When he’d walked away from what they shared? Lord knowshe’dbeen devastated to realize it had all been a lie, and he was going to have to hide away in the fooking wilds of Scotland and was never going to see her again?
Shemusthave forgotten, to be here, now, rubbing her foot up his leg.
In an attempt to distract himself, he shoveled too large a spoonful of the soup into his mouth. “Delicious,” he rasped, as if he hadn’t just burned his tongue. As if he could actually taste the flavors. “Pea soup, my favorite.”
“This is pumpkin,” she corrected him, laughter in her tone as her foot moved toward his calf. “Although asparagus would be better. Or oyster. Or fig.”
Dear God, she was naming the foods they used to share and joke about being aphrodisiacs. This couldn’t be happening. Had he fallen off his horse in the driveway and smacked his head—was this just a lust-filled dream?
“Do you remember, Hawk?”
Her foot slid back down and he jumped, nearly topping his soup and jolting the napkin from his lap. He reached to readjust it and brushed his unwilling palm against his throbbing cockstand. He was unable to hold in his groan this time.
Blessedly, Marcia moved her foot from his. He barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief, however, before she leaned her shoulder closer instead.
“Your butler placed me in the bedchamber beside yours,” she murmured.
When he glanced at her, half desperate, half horrified, her blue eyes were sparkling with mischief. Unable to help himself, his gaze dropped to the pendant she wore on a chain around her neck. The stone matched her eyes exactly—the same shine, the same hue, the same strange glow as if they were each hiding something important.
The fact it was nestled between her breasts didn’t hurt.
He curled his hand into a fist in his lap to keep from reaching for her. Or his cock. Neither was particularly appropriate at the table.
“Is…is that so?” he managed.
She winked.
What hadhappenedin the last decade? This woman he hadn’t stopped loving had changed. She’d never married—he knew that much, and had often wondered at it—and hadn’t been involved with any man in the scandal rags. But she was acting as if their affair had never ended. As if the tears and the anger had never happened.
“I will leave my door unlocked tonight, Hawk,” she whispered. “I am sure you know the way. You always knew.”
A pit of dread opened in his stomach.
The reasons he’d broken it off with her all those years ago, the reasons he hadn’t asked for her hand, hadn’t ceased to exist. Her brother was still his best friend, the man he admired most in the world. He should never have touched her a decade ago, and he couldn’t touch her now.
But he wanted her.
Oh Christ in heaven, how he wanted her.
He dropped his chin in defeat.
Because if Marcia was planning on waiting for him in the room beside his, the door unlocked…he couldn’t be at Tostinham.
Tonight he’d sleep up in the cabin at the top of the burn, and pray he found strength to resist this new Marcia in the daylight.
CHAPTER 4
Damn.
Another morning, and Hawk was missing again.
