Page 30 of A Lady’s Guide to Subterfuge and Science

“What are the odds?”

“Fifty-fifty,” he replied, once again focused on the path before them.

“A fifty percent change of a miserable marriage?” Kalila asked in disbelief. “I don’t believe that. Thirty percent, maybe.”

He shook his head, and she could just make out a smile pulling at his mouth. “A risk is a risk.”

Kalila scoffed. “Spoken like a coward. You’re scared, Booth.”

This time, it was his turn to stop in his tracks. “Scared? Me?”

She bit back a laugh at the offense that had taken over his features. “You’re the one refusing to take a risk.”

“As are you,” he shot back. “There’s a risk you’ll be stifled, isn’t there?”

She opened and closed her mouth, feeling very much like a fish out of water. Finally, she said, “It isn’t the same.”

“I think it is,” he said, turning on his heel and moving down the path.

She scampered to catch up to him. “I noticed you didn’t say no. You said you should say no.”

He stopped again, this time with such abruptness that she almost ran into him.

“Because, like every fool with a heart, there’s a part of me that thinks that my life can’t turn out that way,” he said, desperation strangling his voice. “Surely my life won’t be miserable. Logic, however, dictates otherwise.”

Kalila blinked, shocked at how easily he’d let his emotions spill out. And to an utter stranger, no less. “Booth—”

“Oliver,” he corrected her, his tone gentling. “How’s this—we’re both scared, and for different reasons. Will you admit to that, at least?”

Kalila hesitated, splintering beneath his unguarded gaze. “Fine.”

He began to walk again. “Fine.”

“Oliver.” When she said his name, he turned, a hopeless expression complimented by a lopsided grin on his face. “Is there a reason you’re here and not at home?”

*

Oliver.

His name tripped off her tongue with a beautiful cadence, husky as she kept her voice low in some semblance of masculinity. The sound of it made him feel like he’d downed a glass of champagne, and far too quickly at that. The defensiveness that had overtaken him during their conversation melted away as a stupid smile began to pull at his mouth.

But then she followed it with a gutting question. Naturally.

He’d already said far too much as it was. There was no reason to lie now.

“My father’s at home, terror that he is,” he said. “My mother has been in Kent for God knows how long. For the country air, or so she claims.”

She studied him with her haunting eyes, her teeth sinking into her full lower lip. God, if he weren’t trying to respect her little charade, he would be tempted to—

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, brow wrinkling. “That’s—it shouldn’t be that way.”

“Indeed,” he said, tone devoid of emotion. Of course it wasn’t meant to be this way. He’d just been unlucky, drawn the worst lot, done something that had made beautiful Rosewood feel more like a prison than a home.

“Have you ever considered—” She cut herself off, and he turned to her in question. The moonlight filtered through the trees, giving her an ethereal glimmer that made it impossible for him to look away. “I don’t want to overstep,” she admitted. “We are mere acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances!” he said in mock offense. “I thought being on this excursion made us friends, L—Rafiq.”

He’d almost said Lady Impostor there, genius that he was.