Page 53 of Pride: The Rogue
He faintly registered the click as she closed that door.
Friends…
As he hurried to return Livian’s bags, thatparticularword rolled around his mind.
How bloody trusting. It was a wonder the world hadn’t eaten her whole and feasted on her delicate remains.
As for Latimer? He didn’t have a friend. He’d thought he did in his former partners. He couldn’t have been more wrong. If those three hadn’t been true friends, then no one would be.
While he packed up his stuff, he felt Livian following his each and every move.
When he’d finished, he took one last glance about; his gaze came to rest on the bed where he’d roused Livian from her soundly snoring sleep. That charged meeting could’ve been a year, hell, alifetimeago, for how much that’d happened, and all they’d shared, and not the mere hours it’d been.
This night had been one of insanity—one where time had stood still, and he’d let his guard down, and the reality facing him at the end of his travels, were forgotten.
“You can stay…”
That was surely why Latimer even now heard that shy, softly spoken offer from Miss Livian Lovelace.
He swung his gaze over to her. His head knew her offer pure, but that didn’t stop his body from instantly responding to the idea of bedding her.
“Not in the same bed,” she blurted, her heart-shaped cheeks bathed in their customary pink blush. She pointed past him. “That is, there’s blankets and extra pillows, and you can sleep there.”
Latimer followed her point over to the hearth.
“Or I can sleep there,” she stammered, her color deepening. “After all, it was your room first.”
Every last purely primal, savagely male, urged him to stay…and do far more.
He grunted. Of all the times to discover he had more morals than he’d ever believed himself capable of.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, darlin’.”
“Why?”
She looked at him with unblinking innocence.
If he told her the truth, she’d have launched another feisty attack his way.
“Sweetheart, you’re going to be married.”As am I…
Both of those realities sent tension whipping through him.
The latter mattered a whole lot less. He and the duchess knew precisely the cold, emotionless arrangement they were entering into. But that some other fellow, a fancy lord, at that, would be the one to initiate the delectable, enthusiastic Livian Lovelace to sex left an acrid sting upon his tongue.
“You must think me forward,” she whispered, mistaking the reason for his tense silence. Livian’s face fell, and it was like she’d plucked the sun from the heavens and left the whole world dark. “Forgive m—”
“It’s fine,” he said, gruffly. “Do not beat yourself up, darlin’. It was…is…a generous offer. Nothing improper about it.” Just one that, if accepted, could lead to all manner of improper things.
“You know that isn’t true,” she whispered.
Christ, she truly still didn’t realize how much he admired her for carrying herself different than the ladies whose company he was heading to after this interlude.
Livian’s features froze. “You’remarried.”
“No!” Not yet… “I know you and I are more practical than bothered by propriety, Livian,” he said. “We both know what it is to be without a roof or food, and that’s what compelled you.”
“And yet,” her voice dripped with self-abasement, “you were the one to not only recognize the impropriety of my offer and decline, whereas I thought nothing of—”
