“This isn’t your club,” I sputtered. “And besides, you are—”
“I’m no gentleman, yes, yes, I know. But what about Julian and Castor? Are you ready to hurl such insults at them?”
And sure enough, Julian and Castor were rounding the corner now, Castor striding forward confidently while Julian adjusted his gloves. Even though I saw Castor earlier today and Julian yesterday, the sight of my three closest friends in the world made my throat squeeze tight and my eyelids burn hot and wet with unexpected tears.
They must have sensed this, because a moment later, I was in a cage of strong arms and chests. And I didn’t care about how improper it must look for the four of us to be embracing in the middle of the street…in broad daylight much less. I only cared about how, in that moment, I knew that people loved me and cared about me. I knew that no matter how I felt, I was never truly alone.
“We’re here. And we’re going to help,” someone said in my ear. Silas. I remembered other things he’d whispered in my ear, things he’d whispered just last night, and I shivered.
That’s my good Molly.
“You’re here for me?” I asked, my face still pressed into someone’s coat. Julian’s maybe.
“Of course,” Julian said in his graveled voice. “Castor told us about what that wretched man was planning to do, and knowing that he was also the one making you miserable with your company’s future…well, we are all grateful for the chance to put an end to him.”
I pulled back and gazed at them, and I was so glad they were here, and I was also so grateful that they’d come here as they did, to support me without a trace of pity or pride. They weren’t acting as if I were a damsel in distress—because truthfully, today wasn’t about me. It was about Birgit.
A fact which was underscored by Julian muttering something about stopping Cunningham before he could hurt another girl, and the way he said it—and the way the other men reacted—made it painfully clear to me that they didn’t know about my own history with Cunningham. There was no awkwardness, no shuffling feet or dodged gazes. I’d hidden my secret well.
Too well.
Suddenly, I was bursting with the need to tell them, to unload the burden I’d carried since I was fourteen. I wanted them to know exactly how terrible he was, how hurtful, but when I opened my mouth and looked up to their warm, compassionate faces, I couldn’t. I couldn’t say the words.
“We are meeting Mr. van der Sant for dinner,” Julian said, oblivious to my aborted attempt at confession. “And that’s when we will bring him upstairs. The girl knows what she needs to say?”
I nodded. “Yes, we’ve spoken. She knows what to do.”
Silas was staring hard at me, and I realized that while Castor and Julian hadn’t noticed my small hesitation after the hug, Silas did. I flushed, both with shame and the pressure of his gaze, which was hot and heavy and stirring.
Stop it, I chastised myself. You left him alone this morning. You were the one who walked away. You can’t have him now.
But I wanted him. I always forgot how powerfully his presence affected me, his tall frame and his lean body and his dimpled grin. I forgot how much my body could remember, how it could feel every kiss and every caress…
I ground my teeth together and willed my desire under control.
“We should go,” the Baron said, consulting his pocket watch. “Molly, we will see you in a couple hours.”
“You gentlemen go in,” Silas said. “I’m going to make sure Molly gets up to her room without any issue.”
Julian and Castor made their goodbyes and then trotted up the steps to the front door of the club, disappearing into its gloomy depths. Silas turned back to me, his cerulean eyes appraising.
“We should go in the back,” he said quietly, and I agreed. He knew that we couldn’t be seen intimately together, not by influential club members and certainly not in Cunningham’s own club. Not while my contract with his cousin Hugh was still in place.
I let Silas guide me, trying to control my breathing as his hand firmly grasped my elbow—a gesture that reminded me of the way he’d touched me last night, of his hand wrapped around my jaw as he had ejaculated on my face. I followed him as meekly as a lamb. As I never followed anyone, ever. Not even my own father, who’d dragged me to Liverpool kicking and screaming the entire way.
This was what Silas did to me now. He melted me, molded me, and it made me happier and more content than I’d ever been.
But what did that say about me? Was I not truly the fierce and independent warrior I’d always imagined myself to be? Was I something more domesticated? Something weaker?
It doesn’t matter, I reminded myself. You will never be with him again.
Except the way he led me now, so assertively around the back of the building and through the kitchen entrance, as if he were leading me to a bed and not just a bedroom…well, my cunt responded exactly as my head couldn’t. With undisguised want. With complete and utter acceptance and surrender.
Maybe Silas could sense this, because he didn’t let go of me as we walked into the room that the Baron had arranged for us tonight. Instead he closed the door and backed me against the wall, slowly, like a predator cornering its prey.
And then his hands were on either side of me, caging me in, trapping me. My chin tilted up, not in defiance, but in a primally submissive move to expose my throat. He let out a long hissing breath. “You left me,” he accused.
“You knew I would,” I whispered.
