Page 25 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
Corin didn’t press her. He pushed off of the desk and went to sit in the chair next to hers, watching the play of emotion across her pretty features with a heavy feeling in his chest.
God, but he wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to take her into his arms and tell her he could right everything he had ever done.
But two years had passed. And clearly, he had wounded her more deeply than she ever had any right forgiving him for.
“I didn’t know,” Imelda said softly, looking up finally with a sad, torn look.
The desire to kiss her intensified.
If he had been Romeo, he would have.
It was that thought that stopped him from even thinking any further on it. Instead, he broached the distance between them with just his hand, covering one of hers with his and offering her a small, gentle smile.
“That is why I am telling you, Imelda. It doesn’t need to change anything if you do not wish for it to.”
Although he hoped like hell that it would. He couldn’t be absolved of it all, but maybe they could build something new out of the rubble of what he had destroyed.
Imelda laughed slightly, tossing her chestnut hair over one shoulder and eying him frankly. “It changes everything,” she sighed, brushing her hand over her forehead to displace a lock of hair that had become stuck there. “I can hardly call you such a villain knowing the true story…and it does make my accepting your offer of help much easier.” There was a wryness to her words that Corin appreciated.
He chuckled, shrugging.
“Anything I can do to help,” he joked.
“I’m writing an actual novel,” Imelda said slowly, as if testing the waters. “A gothic novel set in the highlands of Scotland…I do need help with it, I think.”
Corin’s lips twitched, his hand leaving hers reluctantly as he leaned back into his seat with one eyebrow raised. “That does bear talking about.” And hearing about. It had been some time since he’d read a good gothic novel. “Perhaps that is the foot we start off on then.”
And the foot they stayed on. God only knew if he strayed off of that path, he’d be all too tempted to kiss her again.
Chapter 9
There was no need to be nervous. This was a business meeting. A scholarly affair not unlike the meetings she had already taken with The Woman’s Word.
No matter how many different ways that Imelda tried to phrase it the words didn’t fit. And she tried. She had been trying. Over and over again, repeating it like a mantra that would help her too-fast beating heart and her frayed nerves. But it didn’t. No matter how many times she repeated it to herself.
Spencer rode silently beside her, casting worried side-long glances every now and again. He hadn’t tried speaking since he’d first asked her if she was sure that this was the best course of action.
Then again, she had nearly bitten his head off for doing so, so it wasn’t as if she could blame him.
Because the answer was no. A firm, resounding no. She wasn’t sure this was the best course of action. She wasn’t sure she wasn’t making a terribly foolhardy mistake putting her trust in Corin Langford again after he’d already proven himself untrustworthy so wholly the last time.
But his story had moved her.
And she did need the help.
Would it be so wrong to accept it?
“We’re here,” Spencer announced unnecessarily as he pulled the gig over in front of the hotel. He eyed first it and then Imelda, again, skeptically. “Are you—” he stopped, biting down hard on his lower lip as he winced and clearly thought better of the question he had been about to ask. “You are certain this is where you are to meet?” he asked instead, his tone brusque despite how carefully it was that he was wording his question.
Imelda looked at Spencer and then at the hotel, reaching up to adjust the wig that she’d borrowed from her aunt before nodding quickly.
She didn’t have the words to tell him that, yes, she was. Or that she’d be fine. The latter rung just a little too false for her liking.
“And you don’t want me to wait?” Spencer pressed. “I can wait out here even.”
Something shifted in Imelda, a degree of fondness filling her as she looked over at how earnestly her twin was offering such a thing.
