Page 169 of Pride: The Rogue
“You deserved better, sweetheart,” he hissed. “You deserved a man who’d respect you and honor you and treat you as his bloody queen.” His voice emerged sharper and harsher than intended.
Livian went silent.
Latimer’s guilt—this time over a different, but just as heinous offense—threatened to overwhelm him.
God, he was fucking up this entire exchange.
He scraped a hand over his face.
“I’ve never been one for pretty words.” A harsh, ironic, laugh burst from his chest. “Hell, I even mocked them. Now, for the first time in my miserable existence, I find himself wishing for just a scrap of Argyll’s charm.”
She stared at him in abject confusion.
Latimer let his arm fall to his side and tried again.
“I meant to do so sooner, but,” he grimaced, “you were quite hard to find.”
Her lower lip quivered. “Why were you look—?”
“I wanted to speak to you, love,” he said, “but before I did, I had business to see to.”
“Business,” Livian repeated woodenly, knowing she sounded like one of those brightly colored parrots Verity and Malcom had taken her to see back when the couple first married.
“Aye.”
I had business to see to.
She briefly closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively.
Of course.
That’s what drove Lachlan. That’s what mattered to him. That’s what he loved.
Why then, had he come?
Livian opened her eyes just in time to catch Lachlan departing quickly through the door.
Wide-eyed, Livian stared after him.
He is…leaving?
A small, hysterical giggle bubbled past her lips.
Since they’d parted, since she’d left, she’d alternately mourned the loss of him from her life and tortured herself with hopeless dreams and fantasies of him coming to her.
In those greatest of dreams, both waking and sleeping, he’d have arrived as unexpectedly as he’d done this day. In them, he dropped down on his knees, professed his love, and vowed Livian mattered more to him than the powerful connections the Duchess of Argyll provided or the grand gaming club he intended to build.
None of those happiest of dreams, however, had ever ended with him…turning on his heel and leaving as quickly as he’d—
“By God, did he just walk in and walk out?” her brother-in-law’s booming voice carried downstairs.
“…let me kill himnow, boy…” Bram pleaded.
“Shh,” Verity whispered.
If her heart wasn’t breaking and her mind not muddled, she’d have laughed at the farcical exchange unfolding above, just out of sight.
Livian hugged herself in what had become an all-too-familiar, lonely embrace.
