Page 37 of Her Rogue to Ruin
Portia’s whole body flamed at his words. She had already imagined the ways she’d like tohavehim, and yet she heard that last word louder than all the rest:consequences.
She had to know. Portia reached up to draw her finger along the edge of Phin’s jaw.
“What consequences do you mean?” she asked, her voice husky and her breathing still not quite steady.
“I’d rather not think about any of that,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers. “Not tonight.”
He bent to kiss her again and Portia stayed him with a hand on his chest. He was deliciously warm, and she yearned to sink into the sheltering heat of his embrace. But her mind had gotten stuck on the notion of consequences, and while she sensed that he wanted her as much as she desired him, she’s also felt a ripple of tension in his body now.
She was tired of half-finished conversations. If they were to build any sort of trust, they would have to speak honestly to each other. Something she’d never been able to do with her husband.
“Perhaps weshouldspeak of them,” she whispered, still hesitant to fully burst the bliss of being in his arms.
“Speak of who?” His brow furrowed under the mussed waves of his dark hair.
“The consequences.”
He huffed out a chuckle. “You are a businesswoman through and through. I should have understood you’d want to plan this carefully.”
She tried not take offense at his words. “Planning does tend to make a venture more successful.”
He stepped away from her, a look of uncertainty in his eyes. “Is that what this will be to you? A venture? A project to be planned like one of your paintings?”
“I try to not to be impulsive, Phin.”
He dipped his head as if he understood, and yet she could see from the miserable expression on his handsome face that he did not.
“Do you not feel it, Portia?” He strode closer once more, reached for her hand, and flattened her palm on his chest. “That wild thudding inside me? I cannot think my way out of how I feel about you. I have no control over it, and yet you—”
Portia pulled her hand from his. “You’d barely spoken ten words to me until a few days ago,” she said with more bitterness than she’d intended.
“I wanted to,” he said softly. “I was attracted to you from the moment we met.”
“And I to you.”
That made him smile, but it was tentative, fleeting. “But now you wish to be logical, and I fear I cannot be. I want you, and I don’t want to think of what comes next.”
When he reached for her again, Portia took his hand and clasped it in hers. She looked into his eyes and willed him to understand.
“Whatever consequences you fear, they may seem less insurmountable if we talk about them. Plan for possibilities.”
“Such a planner,” he teased.
And he, it seemed, was an avoider. Days ago, he’d irritated her because he was so unbearably gorgeous, so charming and lighthearted. Now she wondered if he could be so carefree because didn’t allow himself to consider the repercussions of his choices.
Portia had been like that once. She’d been impulsive too. In accepting Winston Hasting’s proposal, she’d rushed in after a conversation in which her parents mustered all the means of persuasion they could. And once she’d decided, she’d wanted a short engagement. Like Phin, she hadn’t wanted to think too much about the choice she’d made.
And she’d regretted it for half a decade of marriage.
“Is it scandal that worries you?” she prodded, wishing he’d share his fears and uncertainties with her.
“No noble family wants scandal,” he told her defensively. “Not to mention that mine has cultivated a reputation for propriety.”
Portia couldn’t disagree. His mother’s and sisters’ reputations were sterling. And though Phin was reputedly a bit of a rogue, she’d heard no actual scandalous gossip about him, except for his propensity to attend raucous parties and spend lavishly.
“I worry about scandal too,” she told him honestly. “My livelihood depends on me avoiding it.”
“We will be discreet,” he vowed with a quiet earnestness that almost fully convinced her. “Even when my family is nearby.”
