Page 60 of Duke of Pride

“Victoria?” His voice was laced with concern, a real one. “Tell me you are fine. Did I…?”

Victoria shook her head. He did nothing wrong and did all of it wrongly. She was the fool to allow this to happen, to fall for him, to feel more than she should for him.

“Victoria?”

She swallowed.

“It’s that I just realized,” she lied, “that when I leave, I’ll have to leave Euclid behind.”

Victoria lifted her eyes to his. The air cracked between them. It always will, no matter what happened. This inevitable truth was something that she would have to live with for the rest of her life.

His eyes shuttered, heavy with something that resembled sadness more than anything else. He opened his mouth to say something but then shook his head.

“Let’s go back, Victoria. It’s late.”

Yes, it is.

CHAPTER17

Rematch

Stephen was hiding in his study. Again. For the same reason. Again.

No. This time, it was worse. This time, he had crossed a line. Crossed? He took that line and annihilated it one touch at a time, one demand at a time.

What did I do?

The question was a mockery. He remembered with excruciating clarity. He knew exactly what he did. He remembered everything. He couldn’t forget even if he tried. He didn’t want to forget.

He could still feel her in his arms, could feel himself trapped by her. Her sighs, her pleas, his name rolling off her tongue rang in his ears. The feel of her skin beneath his lips, of her wet core beneath his fingers, still lingered. The taste of her lips, her flavor, still sustained him.

How did he allow himself to go that far? Oh, he knew the answer to that, too. The moment she utteredhisname, the instant she suggested she would accept Blackwell’s proposal, he snapped. Logic was thrown out the window, rules were obliterated. He had never been like this in his life. Not this demanding, not this dominant, not this controlling. And the more she wouldn’t submit to him, the more he lost all sense of judgment.

“Lunch is served!”

“Be right there, Alfred.”

And now he had to face her again. In a house full of people who were blissfully sleeping while he had his hand between her thighs, urging her to climax for him. While his mother and baby sister were sleeping, for crying out loud.

And underneath it all, another kind of guilt washed over him. He could rationalize all he wanted, perhaps even weave a perverted version of him doing this to protect her from a dangerous rake like Blackwell.

But the bottom line was that he was improper, downright wrong. He, the pillar of propriety, had compromised a lady. And that didn’t sit well with him. This wasn’t who he was.

He put on his coat and went downstairs for lunch. The dining room was filled with people—his guests. But now, more than ever, he wanted everyone to be gone.

There was one person in particular who wasn’t there.Her. He frowned. He still remembered the look in her eyes as he guided her back home, back to her room.

The pang of guilt dug deeper into his side. Of course, she would hate all of this. He talked about finding her a husband, and yet he forbade her the one man she found agreeable. He kept pestering her about respectability the moment he set foot in Colborne House, yet he went ahead and behaved like a brute.

“Stephen!” His mother must have missed him this morning.

He leaned in for a quick peck, the same one he gave Annabelle, then sat rigidly at the head of the table, his fingers clenched around his cutlery. The dining room buzzed with idle chatter, forks clinking against china, laughter ringing too loud in his ears. He couldn’t touch his food.

Then, the door opened. Victoria stood there, slightly breathless, her cheeks flushed as if she’d raced downstairs. Their eyes locked. A jolt of heat speared through him, sharp as a blade. She looked flustered. Not angry. Not disgusted. Flushed and uncertain, her fingers twisting in the fabric of her skirts before she forced them still.

“Victoria!” Annabelle exclaimed. “Come sit with me.”

She patted the chair next to her, which meant Victoria would be seated close to him, in front of his family.

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