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“Call me by my given name, Emmett. And kiss me.” His voice was deep and smooth as the still lake.
“I can’t kiss you.” She felt the tug of attraction toward him, but not enough. Not sufficient to jeopardize all her plans. If she kissed him she’d be halfway to falling in love. Halfway to marrying him and compromising and never seeing the world.
He eased away from her, gentle. “A tragedy for us both. But you should call me Emmett, and grant me leave to call you by your given name, too.”
“Why?” she scoffed.
“Because we’re engaged, and I want to use the name your friends do.”
“You’re not my friend, you’re my enemy.”
“Still telling yourself that, are you? Surely it counts as a lie now, even if you are also lying to yourself? Your foe has done an excellent job of arranging it so you don’t have to do anything distasteful, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.
“Your mother hasn’t taken my hints? Of course she has. Do you still have a watercolor-painting tutor?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Piano?”
“No.”
“Singing?”
“No.”
“Drawing?”
“Very well, you have done me some good turns, Mr. Stanton.”
“And yet you still won’t call me Emmett and say you appreciate my help,” he crooned and shook his head ruefully. “Cruel, beautiful creature.”
“You said you didn’t want me to lie,” she snapped. “I would have to lie to say I appreciate you.”
He stiffened and she regretted her waspish retort. It wasn’t true, either. Turning, he continued walking. She trotted to catch up.
“I should not have said that.”
“If it is true, you can say it,” he said with false lightness. “I thought to help, but if you—”
“Mr. Stanton—”
He stopped at that, and regarded her, blue eyes flashing with some emotion she couldn’t interpret.
“We always talk about me. My so-called accomplishments. My plans for the future.”
“Indeed? I hadn’t noticed.” But amusement danced at the corners of his mouth.
“If you want me to call you Emmett, you must tell me enough about yourself that you are my friend.” She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she wanted to know about him. He’d arrived in her life as a mysterious and powerful stranger, and turned it upside down. She needed to hang on to something that made him just a man. If that couldn’t be dislike, and she couldn’t be neutral about him physically, she must know quixotic details.
“That’s the prerequisite, is it? How much do you need to know?”
Everything. “Ten things.”
“Ten facts about me and then you will call me Emmett?”
“You know thirty things about me, having asked me every day for a month. I’m being very accommodating by comparison, only asking for ten.”
