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But now she was realizing how showing up at Seahorn with Rafe by her side after days spent travelling with him and him alone, no chaperone, would be looked upon. She hadn’t truly paused to consider this until they were looming close to Seahorn and she was about to have to face her father in another day. For she knew exactly how this was going to end.
She’d be compromised.
She’d let Rafe touch her—askedhim to touch her—even dragged his hand to the proper place.
She gave a silent shudder at her actions.
True, he’d never unclothed himself. They hadn’t had sex. But she’d been compromised no matter what lines she’d drawn between the two of them.
Lines she should have drawn oceans away from where she’d placed them.
There was only one thing to do in this situation.
Pretend it never happened.
If it never happened, she didn’t have to acknowledge the very real possibility of being forced into marriage. Didn’t have to acknowledge how repelled Rafe was by her.
Her gaze shifted off the horse’s brown mane to the woods surrounding them. It seemed like they’d been travelling through this forest for hours. She let loose an exaggerated sigh. “You’re making me ride with you on purpose. Slowing us down.”
“What?”
She ignored the growl in his voice. “You heard me. We could have stopped at that last village to inquire about another horse.”
“You wanted to add onto the journey the extra time that would take?” His arms stiffened on either side of her. “Either you want to get to Seahorn as quickly as possible or you don’t. Which is it, Victoria?”
She exhaled a steaming breath, not bothering to answer him. He’d been nothing but rude to her all day and she’d changed her mind—shewasregretting her actions the previous night.
What inthe bloody hades had shebeen thinking?
Foolish, foolish, foolish.
The man had given her the slightest modicum of kindness—of touch—and she’d fallen right into the snare. The marriage trap she’d been dodging for the last three years.
Uncle Reiner and her father had it right all along. Her dowry was too large and she couldn’t be trusted. Men couldn’t be trusted. She would fall too easily.Naïve.
She twisted around, her eyes accusing. “You think to do this to ruin me, not giving me my own horse—to trap me with what happened last night.”
A hard chuckle vibrated his chest behind her. “You’re thinking too hard.”
“No. You’re using what I told you at the ball against me.” It was all so clear when she thought about it in the daylight. “You know the size of my dowry and you’re trying to trap me—force me into marriage.”
“That would require me wanting you.”
“You ass.” Fury surging through her, she knocked his left arm up from her side and squeezed under it, jumping to the ground in a crooked heap. Her right heel landed on a big rock half buried in the ground, and the shock of it vibrated up her heel into her leg bone. Her left foot sank into freezing muck that swallowed her boot.
Rafe yanked up on the reins of the horse, pulling it to a stop.
His hand extended down to her, even as a snarl twisted his mouth. “Get back on the horse, Victoria.”
Anorder.
“No.”
His hand snapped away, his dark eyes narrowing on her.
She stepped away, and her right leg buckled under her weight, not recovered from jumping onto the rock. She landed on her backside in a mess of askew skirts.
“You can either get off your arse and get on my horse, or you can walk to the nearest village and hope someone takes pity on you.”
