And it was amid her final crest, her last stunned sigh, that the curtains swept abruptly open, revealing Hugh.

My eyes flew open at the noise of the curtain, and there was Hugh, looking furious and alarmed all at once. The last shreds of my orgasm peeled away from my core and wilted, like flower petals in the summer heat. My mind began to clear, registering shame and horror and oh my God, that was the best thing I’ve ever felt. Ever.

Silas’s hand was still at my throat, the perfect amount of pressure to send adrenaline zinging through my system without actually threatening my ability to breathe. And his other hand was still gripping my sex. And part of me never wanted it to leave. Part of me wanted to spend the rest of my life being so possessively held by this man, because somehow his arrogant manner of touching me sent me soaring far higher than even the most passionate caresses from any other lover I’d ever had.

The other part of me was simply furious. With myself, for having wanted Silas so much that I let him make me come. And with Silas, for being himself and yet not-himself, this new Silas that I had only glimpsed for the first time last year, and only then for a few days. This dominating, intimidating, rough Silas, who was more predator than gentleman.

This predator who counted me among his prey.

And Molly O’Flaherty is no one’s prey, I thought fiercely.

I straightened to tell him this, to tell him that it didn’t matter how dirty he played the game, he’d still never win me, when he was yanked backwards and Hugh’s fist connected with his jaw.

I realized how it must have looked to Hugh, me backed into a corner, my skirts at my waist and Silas’s hand around my neck. I suppose my gasps of pleasure could have looked like pain and the contortions of my face like a struggle—but still. No matter how well-intentioned his chivalry, it was unnecessary.

“Hugh!” I came forward, my skirts still in disarray, my breathing rapid and shallow from the intense climax I’d just had. I grabbed Hugh’s arm before he could swing again. “Stop!”

Hugh threw me a furious look. “Molly, he…he was touching you.”

I cleared my throat and smoothed my skirts, making sure that when I spoke, my voice was cool and collected. “He was touching me with my permission, Hugh. Step away.”

Silas, meanwhile, was standing back up and rubbing his jaw with a rueful expression, like he should have expected all along that something like this would happen. “I have to say, Hugh, when I contemplated the possibility of leaving here with a bruise on my face, I rather thought it would be from Molly. At least you don’t hit as hard.”

Hugh practically snarled, lunging at Silas again. Silas easily dodged Hugh’s second swipe, an arrogant grin spreading across his face. Now that the two of them were standing, now that Hugh was trying to hit Silas and failing, I could see that Hugh had gotten lucky with his first punch. Silas was tall and quick, and without any malice or apparent anger, he parried a punch from Hugh as he stepped in behind him. And then—almost casually—he twisted his body so that Hugh went sprawling onto the floor, landing hard on his ass.

And even though I still hated Silas, and even though I liked Hugh, I giggled, clapping a hand over my mouth when Hugh glared up at me. “I’m sorry,” I said, the giggles punctuating the words. “I just—you look—I’m sorry.”

Silas was trying not to laugh himself, at least until he turned to me, his bright blue eyes suddenly serious. “Molly. I need the word.”

“The word?”

“Your safe word.” Everything about his stare was too blue, too impossibly blue, and somehow hard and soft at the same time, like this look contained all of the love and all of the angry, resentful lust he felt for me. I remembered his fingers on my throat, and my cunt clenched with renewed want.

“You realize I am the first woman ever to need a safe word for courtship, right?”

His lips twitched, that irrepressible grin hiding under the surface, begging to come through. “If I’m honest, darling, this is the first time a woman has ever needed a safe word with me at all. But,” and that beautiful mouth turned into something sterner than a smile, “this is also the first time I’ve ever wanted a woman to marry me.”

Marry.

I’d repeated that word in conversation—and in my own mind—enough times that it didn’t even sound real any more, like it was a word dredged up from some foreign and ancient text. A word synonymous with torture and pain.

I hated the thought of marrying, and the thought of marrying the one man who’d managed to break my heart…

“Clare,” my mouth said before my brain could catch up. Before my brain could definitively tell my body—and my traitorous heart—that I didn’t want Silas to have this safe word, because having it was tacit consent to his pursuit.

“Of course,” he said, because unlike most people, he knew that I’d grown up in County Clare just outside of Ennis, until my father moved us to Liverpool when I was twelve. And I hated that he knew that. I hated how sweet and musical the word sounded on his lips when he repeated it: “Clare.”

And then he gave me a deep bow and left, vanishing into the whirl of the wine-soaked ballroom almost immediately.

I glanced down at Hugh, who was finally standing up, and then to my wrinkled skirts. My body still sang from Silas’s touch and the memory of those intensely blue eyes.

No, I told myself. He doesn’t get to come back here and parade those eyes and that easy grin around. That ship sailed—literally—last year.

It sailed when I’d told him I loved him and when he’d said it back to me, and then not hours later I’d found him with his prick inside Mercy Atworth.

The memory sent a predictable storm of rage pounding through my blood, and I wished Silas were still here so I could rescind my safe word and finish the job that Hugh started when it came to layering that handsome face with bruises.

God, I needed gin.

Why I’d agreed to receive Frederick Cunningham the next morning, I wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe I hoped the board had relented and he wanted to deliver the news in person. Or maybe I was sick of admitting anemic, floppy-haired dandies into my parlor and watching them plead their case for marrying me. Or maybe I was simply restless after seeing Silas last night, restless and furious and filled with an empty kind of longing. I’d gone home with Hugh, but I’d dismissed him the moment we crossed my threshold. He wasn’t Silas, and no matter how much I wanted to pretend that my cunt didn’t care, the lingering satisfaction in my body told me otherwise.

Whatever the reason I agreed, I immediately regretted it as I entered my parlor and Mr. Cunningham rose to take my hand. The de facto leader of my company’s board was taller and older than me, and I felt like a stupid girl in front of him.

A stupid girl of fourteen, to be precise.

The late morning light dusted his pale blond hair and matching mustache with gold, and the effect might have been handsome—for he was indeed a handsome man—if not for the smirk curling on his lips. I allowed him to kiss my hand, purely to show him that he had no power over me, but the moment his mustache tickled my skin, bile rose in my throat. The memory of stinging flesh and the taste of my own tears caused me to yank my hand away faster than was polite; Mr. Cunningham’s smirk deepened as he rose back up to his full height.

Fucking hell, Molly. Show no weakness, remember? Be a wolf or a hawk or a snake—anything but the girl you used to be.