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“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” she said, dabbing a fingertip onto a fallen sesaue

Her words snapped him back to the kitchen, but his libido reue, the press of her lips, the faltering curiosity in her gaze as she looked at him

He didn’t disguise the heat rising in him When she saw it, a flush of desire blossoether in confusion She skittered her gaze away and held herself still, not rejecting hi with receptiveness either

Sweat broke out on his brow

In the space of a fewfor hiain She was here, wasn’t she? But he hadn’t given her much choice in the matter At any time, as she’d ferociously pointed out the other day Would she even have becoh-pressure tactics?

His center of surety, slowly co back online after this horrific week, backslid a notch With aggressive deter her affections, but that route was distasteful now He pushed a frustrated hand through his hair, answering her because he didn’t knohat else to do

“Today was the worst, but it was my last word on the subject The result doesn’t look like it will be as bad as I feared” He supposed a part of him had expected police to knock on his door to take hiain, but it was all in the past Just a story that had needed to be repeated until a different story drew interest

Her expression softened “You thought you’d be vilified, but two decades of proving yourself as a man of principles couldn’t be coed quietly

He felt cornered by her words She kept trying to fraood and honorable when he had always known he was bad and needing to repent That hy he didn’t cheat or steal, but even at that, he had resorted to bribery with her, hadn’t he? He was sitting here plotting how to coerce her to stay in his bed

Shaaze to the food she’d prepared for hiher character than I possess”

“Aleksy, don’t You’re a good man You deserve to be happy If you cut yourself off fro Victor win”

So earnest So blind So deter admirable

Some of his hopelessness must have shown in his face, because she blurted, “I’, not with ful relationship because you think you gave up the right”

Not with me

“What about you?” He felt his blood sloith time “Because you deserve to be happy too”

“I know” She sed, blinking rapidly, head down “I’ve had a lot of time to think since I’ve been here”

Aleksy didn’t understand why her saying that staggered hiured out what kind of woman she was He’d chosen to believe her when she said otherwise, but he’d known She’d been a virgin A powerless one that he’d exploited He was utterly sincere in telling her she deserved everything that her heart desired

It would come at a terrible cost to him, but he’d pay it For once, he’d act with the sort of honor she thought he possessed

Clair held on to her co hope as Aleksy’s expression grew stonier, washing away the footings of her confidence She reacted by pulling herself inward, taking refuge behind an air of insouciance that wouldn’t betray how much this really meant to her

“I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t looking for a permanent relationship When I was a child, all I ever wanted was to be adopted into a family” She set down her fork and folded her hands in her lap, aware of hi so closely the air around them seemed to vibrate “As the years passed and I wasn’t chosen, I convincedI wanted I really believed it Self-preservation, I suppose” She shrugged, the movement jerky and not nearly as careless as she wanted to be