“What brings you here today?” she asked. “Are you lonely already? I figured there would be plenty of women at the Baron’s who—”

“You’re close with Hugh, aren’t you?” I interrupted her. “I mean, you spend lots of time together. You were on the train together two days ago.”

Mercy cocked her head a little, her chestnut hair sliding easily over her silk robe as if her hair were made of silk too. “Yes. We are close. Why?”

“Has Hugh offered to marry Molly?” I couldn’t keep the urgency out of my voice, and I didn’t really see the point in trying anyway. Soon, everybody would know what I was after here in London.

“Oh,” Mercy said, her eyes widening as if suddenly everything had become clear to her. She walked over to a sofa, and I tried not to notice the enticing way her ass and hips moved under her dressing gown. She sat and patted the seat next to her.

I obediently sat down, trying to keep as much space between us as possible, even as my cock lengthened down my pant-leg, as if trying to reach for her.

“Yes,” she said. “Hugh has proposed to Molly.”

I swore.

“And…” she looked a little hesitant “…he also approached the board of her company and got their approval. He’s the endorsed suitor for her hand now.”

I let out a long breath between my teeth. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Hugh—I should have fucking known from the possessive way he acted at the Baron’s. I should have known he was doing more than escorting Molly for the night. He wanted to marry her.

“She hasn’t said yes,” Mercy said soothingly. “He proposed two nights ago, and she still hasn’t given him an answer.”

“She hasn’t said yes?” I repeated, hardly daring to believe it to be true.

Mercy nodded.

“The board,” I said. “Do they really support him? Can they force Molly to marry him?”

Mercy looked thoughtful. “I suppose it depends how badly Molly wants to keep her company afloat. Marrying is her only way to save it, and if Hugh is the only man they want her to marry…”

My face must have fallen, because she laid her slender hand on my shoulder. “But maybe she’ll decide her independence isn’t worth it and abandon her company. Or maybe she’ll stay and let them sell all of their shares. There’s no way it would stay solvent after the board left, but maybe she can start something new?”

I shook my head. “You don’t know Molly. You don’t know how much she loves that company—it was everything to her father, and now it’s everything to her. She’ll die before she gives it up.” My heart clenched. Was this it, then? Was this the death knell to my courtship, ringing out its demise before it had ever even started?

“Maybe you can meet with the board,” Mercy suggested. “And get them to change their minds?”

I did have a meeting with Frederick Cunningham tomorrow, the man I understood to be the informal leader of the board. “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “It has to be worth a try. I guess if it had to be anyone, Hugh isn’t the worst. At least I won’t have to worry about him taking advantage of her and her company since he has so much money already—”

Mercy snorted and I looked at her. Her face straightened immediately, and she leaned forward, letting her dressing gown fall open. Heavy, ripe tits spilled out, the nipples dark and hard.

I shifted, my dick surging at the same time as my mind remembered Molly’s eyes last night, the gloriously furious way she’d yelled at me.

God. It was like I was two different people, and I wanted to be the good one, the one who only wanted one woman. Why couldn’t I just be the good one?

“You must really care about Molly,” Mercy said, her hand moving from my shoulder to my chest, from my chest to my abdomen. Her dressing gown opened further, exposing the smooth, soft planes of olive skin and the tiniest glimpse of dark, silky curls at the bottom. “I never thought I’d see the infamous Silas Cecil-Coke wanting to marry.”

“It’s a business arrangement,” I said automatically. My mind was chanting get away get away get away. “A partnership between friends.”

“You really know how to woo a girl,” Mercy teased and then her hand was lower and lower and fuck that felt good.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “You’re so hard. Silas, you poor thing.”

You know what? I was a poor thing. The woman I wanted didn’t want me, and she was probably about to marry a man I despised, and I would never be able to find anyone like her again, and I was so hard that I couldn’t think straight.

I gave Mercy a pouting look.

She moved like water, like satin folding against itself, smooth and silent, until she was kneeling on the floor in between my legs, looking up at me with dark eyes.

But when she reached for the buttons of my trousers, I stopped her, breathing hard. “Mercy, I want this, believe me I do, but it’s not right for me to do it when—”

Mercy raised an eyebrow. “When what? When Molly went home with Hugh last night? When Molly has been fucking him the entire time you were away in France?”

Jealousy only made my dick harder. “Shit,” I hissed as she ran a palm over my length.

“And didn’t you fuck women in France?” Mercy asked. “What’s so different now?”

Because I’ve seen Molly again.

Because I’ve told her I want to marry her.

Because no matter how many women I fucked in France, I could never forget that Molly was the one I really wanted.

But the words had trouble making their way to my mouth. Because she was stroking and squeezing me, and it felt so goddamn good, and maybe, if I was a little honest, I wanted revenge in some way. I wanted to erase the image of Molly and Hugh together with the image of me coming in Mercy’s mouth.

She unbuttoned my trousers, and I raised my hips to work them down far enough to free my cock, and then there it was, veined and rigid, framed against Mercy’s beautiful face and luscious lips, and then all of a sudden, they were on me, around me, and my cock was in a bed of wet, hot suction.

My balls drew up, my body ready to release the intense ache I’d been carrying since I impaled Molly’s cunt on my fingers last night, but my heart was pounding in my chest—not the pleasant thud of impending climax, but the sickening thud of wrong wrong wrong.

I didn’t want this silky brunette between my thighs. I wanted my redhead, freckles and temper and voracious sexual appetite and all. And I didn’t want impersonal release. I wanted to soar with Molly, I wanted her blue eyes locked on mine as I came. I wanted to fall asleep wrapped around her slender body, and I wanted to wake up before she did so that I could pamper her with tea and breakfast.

I did love Molly.

And I didn’t want anybody else.

Oh my God. I didn’t want anybody else.

It was so obvious, so blatantly apparent, and yet I had missed it. I had blamed my unhappiness on a variety of reasons, blamed the lackluster sex on the women and my boredom, and all along repeated my mantra: I don’t love Molly O’Flaherty. But who crosses the Channel and tries to marry someone they don’t love?

“Mercy, stop,” I said. And when she didn’t, I placed my hands on either side of her head and lifted, my dick stone-hard and wet as her mouth left it.

“Mercy,” I said again, ignoring the voice that told me to stick my cock right back in her mouth and fuck her throat until this erection was finally vanquished. “I really like you. But I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

But she wasn’t listening to me. She wasn’t even looking at me. She was looking past my shoulder at the entryway to the parlor, her expression surprised, and then I turned my head to see Molly standing there.

I stood abruptly, which was an idiot move, since my cock was still out. It was still hard, and worse, still wet from Mercy’s mouth, and now on full display for Molly, who looked murderous.