She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.
The sapphire gown he'd noticed the moment she'd walked in, of course. He'd have had to be dead not to notice. It fit her properly for the first time, skimming the lines of her figure rather than hanging off it, and the color turned her eyes into something devastating.
But it was the coat that was undoing him. His coat. On her body. Some primitive, uncivilized part of his brain was storing away this image, well aware he would replay it every night for the rest of his life.
"We should go inside." His voice came out rougher than intended.
She didn't move. "Not yet."
"Miss Hale?—"
"Estella." She said it firmly, and there was nothing tentative about the correction. "You even called me Ella not four days ago. I think we're past 'Miss Hale,' don't you?"
She pulled his coat tighter around herself. He started to step away, but she put her hand on his arm to stop him. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you."
Every instinct told him to run. The impropriety of standing alone with an unmarried woman on a dark terrace was impossible to ignore.
Yes, everyone knew he was her patron. A stand-in for her brother. But that understanding would only go so far. And yet, her hand was on his arm. It was the lightest of touches, but still, he could not move.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "All of it. The escorting, the vetting, the—" She gestured at the terrace doors through which Fairchild had vanished. "That."
He cleared a throat that had suddenly gone dry. "I told you. Andrew?—"
"I know what you told me." Her voice was quiet but steady, her gaze a challenge. "He was your friend, and you feel a duty to his family. But Sebastian, even so, you've gone far beyond what duty requires."
His gut twisted as he willed his brain to function. But words were difficult to conjure when she was standing so close, her head tilted back so she could face him, her lips parted slightly…
All he’d have to do was lean down. Gently cup the back of her head in his hands and lower his head…
He drew in a sharp breath. She wasn’t waiting to be kissed, blast it all. She was waiting for an explanation.
"Andrew would have done the same for my family." His voice sounded too gruff even to his own ears. "If our positions were reversed."
"Would he?" Her eyes softened. He couldn’t say for sure, but he thought he caught a flicker of disappointment as she added softly, "Perhaps."
The silence seemed to echo on this empty balcony.
He took a deep breath. The longer they stood alone out here, the more danger he was in. No, the more danger she was in. "Estella?—"
"Someone has been helping my family." Her gaze met his again. "For two years, someone has been paying debts and settling accounts. Making sure we were looked after, even when we didn't know it."
His heart was pounding so hard he was certain she could hear it.
"Was it you?" she asked.
The question hung in the cool night air, and the hope in her eyes was the most terrifying thing he'd ever faced.
Because her hope meant she wanted it to be him. And if she wanted it to be him, then she felt— Something.
He gave his head a little shake before his fantasies could get the best of him. Yes, perhaps she felt something. But whatever it was, it most assuredly paled in comparison to the consuming obsession that lived in his chest every time she entered a room.
But still, it’s something nonetheless, a traitorous voice said.
And something was more than he’d dared to hope for.
Her eyes widened slightly as she waited for his response. And fortunately, a semblance of sanity returned before he could go and blurt out the truth.
If she knew, she’d feel indebted. Wasn’t that why he’d kept his involvement a secret all this time? He didn’t deserve her at all, but the thought of having her because she felt duty bound, because she thought she owed him…
