She gaped, uncertain if she should be angry or hurt.
“Mandy, what thehell,” Hiro growled, running a hand through his dark hair, tugging at the strands in that way he had whenever he was frustrated. “You want to go to this magical village and what? Throw a penny in the well?”
“Or a gold piece. By the end of the Christmas season,” she offered in a small voice.
“Yes! And then what?” He rounded on her, dark eyes tortured. “Then what?Then you expect us to marry? Thanks to this magical well?”
Amanda pressed her lips together, hating the burst of joy his words had made her feel. The hopelessness in his tone told her he didn’t think it possible.
“I’m abutler, Mandy,” he blurted, reaching for her in supplication, as if begging her to understand. “I can’t marry a sister of a duke!”
She pushed herself to her feet, ignoring her nudity, needing to stand on firm ground in this conversation. “You can if you love her.”
“My heart doesn’t matter.” He shook his head and slumped back, defeated. “Alistair’s letter? It contained more money and news that he’s increasing my salary.”
She tried to force a smile, tried to be happy for him, but he cut off whatever words she might have managed with a cruel slash of his hand.
“He’s increasing my salary because I keep you happy,my lady.” One side of his lips pulled into a sneer. “He’s paying me tokeep you happy, Mandy. You know what that means?”
Dimly, she could only shake her head as she wrapped her arms around her waist. It was all going wrong. Days of thinking about the festival, of wanting to tell him?—
Hiro’s eyes fluttered shut in despair. “I know how to make you happy, Mandy.” There was a bitterness in his words. “Oh, yes. And Alistair is paying me to do it. Does that make me a whore?”
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh no no no!
Amanda’s eyes widened in horror.
Is that what Hiro thought? Is that what he thoughtshethought? “Hiro, I?—”
“I can’t marry you, Mandy,” he said quietly. Sadly. “I won’t.”
Tears were pricking at her eyes and Amanda whirled away, groping blindly for the red silk pooled on the floor. She neededsomething, some kind of armor against this horrible feeling of despair and guilt.
All these years that Hiro had been with her, had it been because of his feelings for her? Or because she was merely a job? If he wouldn’t marry her…did that not answer her question?
Taking a deep breath Amanda turned back around to face him, cinching the sash tightly around her waist, welcoming the way it made it difficult to breathe. Or perhaps that was her lungs, refusing to work properly.
“I do not think you a whore, Hiroshi Fukuyo. I never have, and I am entirely devastated to learn that is how you think of yourself.”
He was leaning against the pillows and his eyes didn’t open, but the corners of his lips curled sadly. She knew he’d always appreciated when she called him by his full name, since so many only were willing to call him the shorter version of what they called his ‘difficult’ name.
But ofcourseshe knew his full name. Of course she used it. She knewhim.She loved him.
Amanda took a deep breath.
“I love you, Hiroshi. I have, for ages. I think you are the best man in the whole world—and trust me, I’vebeenall over the world, looking. But if you do not think there is a future for us, then I suppose I can accept that. But please,pleasedo not give up on the life we have built for ourselvesnow.”
Our life of adventure.
His dark eyes opened, and his gaze raked over where she stood, defiant and barefoot in the middle of his small hotel room. Where she should never be.An adventure.
But all he said was, “The South of France?”
She swallowed, uncertain what this meant for them. “I am going to Effinghell tomorrow.”
