Was that so much for a girl to ask?

“You are pensive tonight,” Hugh remarked, placing a flute of champagne in my gloved hand. “Is anything the matter?”

Other than the fact that I must either lose my company or be sold into a loveless marriage?

It wasn’t my habit to lie, but Hugh had been one of my closest companions recently, and it was his polite attentions and willingness to listen to me rail against the board that had gotten me through these last few months. So I didn’t want to ruin his night with my bitterness.

“Only the usual,” I said, a bit dismissively, and took a short drink to hide my face.

A gloved finger came up and stroked my upper arm—bare in the sleeveless silk dress I wore. “We could go upstairs. I could help you relax.”

I turned to look at him—handsome, blond, and healthy in the sort of way that rich men look healthy, which is to say suntanned and muscular from travel and hunting. He’d come to London a few weeks before the board had laid down their edict and had been with me the entire time since. He was good-looking and loyal, and I came every time we had sex—what better traits could a man possess?

So why didn’t I want him tonight?

“Maybe later,” I evaded. “I’d like to dance some more.”

He hid his disappointment well. “Of course.”

I didn’t actually want to dance. I wanted to hold a man down and use his cock to drive away all the fears and worries of the day. I just didn’t know if I wanted Hugh to be that man, for whatever reason.

But once the band began playing a lively waltz, I felt like I needed to shore up my excuse. I set my glass down and put my hand on Hugh’s arm. “Shall we?”

He bowed and we drifted onto the floor, where he placed his hands awkwardly on my waist and shoulders. Though he was sure on a horse, he was not a very practiced dancer, and I could tell the activity bored him.

“Molly,” he said as we began turning in unison with the other dancers. “Have you given any thought to our conversation yesterday?”

Ah.

Yes.

I remember now.

This is the reason I don’t want to take him to bed tonight.

“I have,” I said carefully, keeping my eyes on the other dancers. The Baron was across the room, surveying the crowd, and I wished more than anything that I was next to him and not here talking with Hugh about the one thing I hated talking about.

“And?” Hugh prompted.

“And,” I sighed, “I’m still thinking about it.”

“What is there to think about?” His voice was friendly, but the words chafed me nonetheless.

“There’s a lot to think about,” I snapped. “This is my company, Hugh, and the rest of my life. Just because the board is forcing me to marry doesn’t mean that I will wed just anyone.”

We spun and stopped in time with the music, now side by side, and Hugh’s mouth was at my ear. “But I am hardly just anyone, am I?”

That, I had to concede. After all, if I had to marry, wouldn’t it be better to marry a friend? Someone I knew and didn’t mind sharing my body with? Hugh had money and connections, and adding those to the company would be a fantastic business maneuver. It was certainly better than marrying one of the mustachioed sops that kept calling on me at all hours of the day.

So why was I holding back?

“Is it Julian?” Hugh asked.

I glanced to him, confused for a moment. “Julian…Julian Markham?”

“What other Julian is there?” he asked impatiently.

“What does he have to do with anything?”

Hugh’s face pulled close to mine, so close that I could see the light from the chandeliers catching on his golden eyelashes. “Is he the reason you don’t want to marry me? Are you still in love with him?”

A year ago—what felt like a lifetime ago—I might have said yes. I might have thought about those long Amsterdam nights, those shady Vienna days—weeks and months going from Paris to Rome to Brussels and everywhere in between, Julian and me and our friends. I might have thought of Julian’s brooding features or the short growls he made as he came.

But the word love, the poetic, almost Biblical weight of it, revealed those faraway feelings for what they were—a schoolgirl’s obsession, though I had admittedly carried it long past my schoolgirl years.

I knew the truth, even if I tried to forget it: what I had felt in three days with Silas was infinitely more than I had felt in ten years with Julian.

“No, Hugh,” I said, meaning to sound dismissive, but instead sounding tired. “It’s not Julian.”

“Then who?” he demanded.

When had Hugh gotten so goddamned pushy? He’d only just made his sort-of proposal yesterday, and he had been the one to encourage me to take my time deciding, since there were still a few months left to the board’s deadline. Why did he feel the need to rush this all of a sudden?

I opened my mouth to deliver a sharp retort—a rebuke, really, because nobody talked to Molly O’Flaherty like that, least of all a potential husband—and then the dancers whirled, me along with them. The dance floor cleared into a pattern of even, straight rows, the kind of rows that meant you could look all the way across the ballroom and see the spectators standing at the edges.

See anybody standing at the edges.

Like, say, somebody tall, with dark hair and a dimpled smile. Somebody with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, both the shoulders and the waist hugged indecently well by a black tuxedo.

Blue eyes flicked to mine.

“Our babies would have blue eyes.”

A lone finger ran up the plane of my stomach, past my breasts, past my throat. Rested near my cheekbone.

“You think I want babies?”

That irresistible grin. “With me, you do.”

My satin heel caught against Hugh’s foot and I stumbled. “Fuck,” I swore under my breath, and then for good measure, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What?” Hugh asked, helping me steady myself.

“Silas is here.”

Hugh’s shoulders grew stiff and his eyes narrowed. “Where?”

“At the far end of the ballroom.” I could no longer see Silas, but my heart thumped as if he were right next to me, as if he were touching me…tasting me. Every nerve ending, every pulse point lit on fire at the mere idea of his proximity, and oh God, I could hear his laugh now, that fucking contagious laugh. I knew how he would look laughing too, his eyebrows lifted slightly as if he were taken surprise at his own happiness, his teeth white and flashing, his dimples so deep and lickable.

“I have to go,” I said abruptly and pulled away from Hugh. Thankfully, he didn’t fight me, and we exited the dance floor. I was shaking with adrenaline and rage and—Mother Mary help me, lust.

Overpowering, flaming, burning, scorching lust.

Stop. Think.

But I couldn’t. I was too furious and too aroused, and the two sensations were so intertwined that I couldn’t begin to peel them apart. Because how dare he fucking come here, to England, how dare he show his face in this house again, the very house where he’d broken my heart? And how dare he look so delicious and tempting in his tailored tuxedo, laughing as if he hadn’t a care in the world? I wanted to scratch his back until it bled, I wanted to slap his face until my hand stung, I wanted him to pin my arms behind my back and bend me over and—

No.

Molly O’Flaherty didn’t let men bend her over. She didn’t let men fuck her—she fucked them, she rode them until she came and then she was done. And certainly she didn’t let Silas do either of those things. Not any more.

My feet moved where my mind could not—away from Silas. I pushed angrily through the crowd, finally emerging onto the wide steps leading down to the Baron’s garden, gulping the still-warm night air as if it were gin—which was something I desperately needed right now.