Fisting my hands, I stared at him. “Youknowwomen aren’t allowed to attend. Youknowthe challenges my sex faces. Is it such a stretch to imagine that one of us might pretend to be male just to have the slimmest chance to learn? Many have done it, like Sophie Germain and Émilie du Châtelet. I am not the first!”
“And that makes it acceptable?” he shouted over the rain as he marched deeper into the arbor.
Stubbornly, I followed until the thickness of the trees blotted out some of the downpour. “Of course not, but perhaps you can be brought to some level of empathy to understand what kind of risks have to be taken so we can be treated like equal citizens.”
He raked a hand through his wet hair. “You lied to me.”
“And you didn’t?” I accused him, referring to his embellished affluence. “You didn’t see a way to crack open some of the doors that had been previously closed to you? To create opportunity out of a system designed to be against those without influence, wealth, or power. How dare you accuse me of something while you wallow in hypocrisy?”
“It’s hardly the same thing,” he bit out.
“Isn’t it?” I demanded just as bitingly. “You invented a new identity to infiltrate thetonto get investors for your project. Iinvented a new identity to pursue educational opportunities. Why is your offense forgivable while mine is not? Because I’m awoman?”
“No. It has nothing to do with your sex.” Nonplussed, he stared at me in silence, rain still soaking us from the branches above as we stood in the middle of the arbor withering beneath the rage of a summer squall that mirrored the storms inside us. “Was all of this some kind of game to you?” he asked in a broken voice.
“You know it wasn’t,” I replied, throat thickening with emotion. “None of it was a game. I never expected to meet anyone like you or to feel like I had somehow found my place in the world. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged somewhere. With people like me. With you.” I felt my tears coming, though they were hidden by the rain. “Do you know how heady that is for a girl who has felt out of place her whole life?”
“I understand that more than you think,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Icouldn’t,” I replied. “As my tutor at Trinity, you would have been obligated to report me, report that I was impersonating another student, and I didn’t want to lose my chance to be at Cambridge. I also didn’t want to lose the only boy who has ever remotely cared about me. Whom I care”—I swallowed hard—“cared about, too. You were the closest thing to a match I could ever dream of.”
He laughed hollowly, then his mouth flattened into a hard line. “You and I both know I could never be a match for you. Your father would never allow it.”
“I don’t care what my father wants!” I shouted. I stepped close then, water pouring into my eyes, and yet, all I could see was him. I fisted my hands into his wet clothes and yanked him toward me. “Don’t you get it? I only want you. And even if you hate me right now, I know you want me, too.”
His eyes flamed with passion and anger, everything raw and real twining between us. His heartbeat hammered above mine as I shoved myself to my tiptoes and slammed my mouth to his. The kiss felt more like an attack than something delicate—a clashing of lips and teeth. A battleground of power underscored by stubborness. We both didn’t want to lose.
And then suddenly, Tarik’s palms came up between us to cup my cheeks, his fingers achingly tender on my skin, and his mouth softened its assault. He caressed my lips and soothed with his tongue, and it was all I could do not to melt into a puddle at his feet.
We kissed for what seemed like hours, learning and mapping each other with soft swipes and gentle nudges through the last of the rain, until nothing more fell from the rapidly clearing skies. By the time we finally broke apart, I was shivering in my damp dress though I had never felt warmer. Our eyes and bodies remained locked together until the sound of a shout made us both startle.
“Rosalin! Where are you?”
That sounded like Blake. God, I had to be in so much trouble, but I couldn’t bring myself to care, not when Tarik was holding me like this.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to him.
His thumb stroked over my cheeks. “I’m…sorry, too.”
“What are you sorry for?” I asked, catching the note of regret in his tone.
He stepped back, hands falling and leaving me bereft of his embrace, as ice slivered through me. I couldn’t read his eyes, but his palm slid over his mouth. He rubbed at his lips as if trying to erase the feel of me. “We shouldn’t have done this.”
“Kissed?”
But before he could answer, Blake appeared in the arbor with Anna and Ansel in tow. The expression on Tarik’s face was nothing short of murderous. Blake’s gaze swung between the two of us, and for once, he read the situation for what it was. None of his usual playfulness was present.
“I care for her like a sister, St. Clair, nothing more,” he said quietly, and then looked to me. “Your parents sent me to find you. You need to come back with us now before the gossip gets any worse.”
Resigned, I nodded. “Fine. Give us a minute, please.”
Not meeting my eyes after they retreated a few feet away, Tarik ran a palm over his wet hair. “I need space and time,” he said slowly. “Time to figure this out.” He shook his head. “I can’t just forget that any of this happened, that you pretended to be a whole other person.”
“I was stillme!” I said, desperation taking hold as the tenuous thread between us started to fray. “That was my brain, my opinions, my sentiments,myheart.”
“You lied for months, Rosalin,” he said tiredly. “And you’re right, I did, too, and I have to take accountability for my choicesand actions. I’m sure Lord Ridley and Mr. Nasser will change their minds about the proposition and have something to say about my duplicity. You can’t build anything good off a lie.”
“But what if the lie is a necessity?” I asked.
