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He had tucked himself away, wincing slightly, and had pulled her to her feet.
Have you ever done any of this before?he had asked.
She’dshakenher headagain.
Tell me,he had ordered her.Tell me what you’ve done.
Nothing,she had confessed.I’ve only been kissed once before, and not like that. And you’re the only man I ever...
Her voice had betrayed her, but she would have betrayed herself a thousand times again for the look on his face then.
So possessive.So deeply male it hurt.
Tell me your name,he had ordered her.And then tell me what it will take to make you mine.
She shuddered at that, here on her frigid bench on this lonely Christmas Eve, her body as alive and greedy as she had been thatnight.
And Timoney wanted to scream out all the anguish,all the artless fury thathe’dleft her with. His betrayal so absolute that it had taken her whole months to fully comprehend exactly what he’d done. Chucked her out. Forgotten her name.Washed his hands of her completely.
Yet tonight, when sheshould havebeen reveling in exactly how cold and dead inside she’d become, it was as if he was here.A ghostly presence in the mist, and it seemed deeply unfairthat any ghostcouldfilla cold garden the way he had always overwhelmed a room.
She blew out abreath andtold herself not to be such a fool.For once.
Crete was immovable.A terrible wall of stone and silence, and some part of her had known that from the start.
And still she had run straight for all that brick and smashed herself apart.
“Have you fallen asleep,Timoney?” came the terrible, wonderful, familiar voice.
Timoney wrenched open her eyes, and as she did, the moon came out from behind the clouds.
And it was impossible, but Crete was there. He stood before her looking beautiful and dangerous, as ever. He was sheer male gloryin his typical uniform, one of those dark, bespoke suitsthat made love to his body in all the ways she longed to do.
It was not possible, and yet every hair on her body seemed to stand on end, so she knew that it was real. That this was no dream.
That somehow, Crete Asgar was stood in the remains of the garden while her uncle and her husband-to-be carried on toasting the wedding up in the manor house.
“Crete...” she whispered.
And all the feelingsshe’dbeen holding at bay slammed back into her, and worse, were lit up with hope.
Becausehe hadfinished with her because she’d committed the cardinal sin of telling him she loved him. Why would he be here, on the night before her wedding no less, unlesshe was finally ready to admit what she had always suspected, that he loved her, too? What else could bring him out on Christmas Eve?
“You can’t possiblymarry that old man in the morning,” he told her, and he did not sound like a man tortured by love. He did not sound tortured at all. Or in love. If anything, Crete sounded impatient. “I have standards, Timoney.Obviously any lover after me will be a downgrade. But this verges on an insult.”
