Page 3 of Worst Duke Ever

Cheating on his wife, even if she consented, soured his stomach.

“You think I’d treat my wife like that?”

“You wouldn’t?”Her eyes widened as she canted her head to the side.Her hand came up to the base of her neck, looking for something.Perhaps a necklace.

He shook his head slowly and ground out the words with perfect enunciation.“I would never do that.”Upon his life, he would never treat his family the way his mother had treated him.

“Oh.”Her head dropped to stare at her feet, and he watched her skirts gently swish side to side.Finally, her chin tilted up.“I mean, I would be your wife.”Rounded eyes, with the diameter of a teacup, caught his gaze.

Her saying that word wife, seized him between his legs.He could feel a dull ache at the idea that she might lay with him.

But he couldn’t do that.Couldn’t have her.He didn’t deserve her goodness.Her courage.

Her father rightfully owed him money, his entire estate to be precise, and he could claim that.The family would figure something out.That wasn’t his problem.It should never have been in the past, and it certainly wasn’t now.

His conscience warred within him, and he knew that he needed to deter this woman once and for all.Sure, he could throw her out of his house, but he had a feeling she was the type of persistent woman to continue coming back until she got the answer she wanted.Best to have her flee of her own accord.For good.

Chapter 3

“Icouldn’tmarryyou.”Sebastian’s words sliced through her heart with a jagged knife.He was her only chance right now.She needed this to work.If she didn’t find a way out of this debt, they would be humiliated.A scandal for the ages.

No, they wouldn’t be homeless because they could always stay with her cousin Mirabelle, but it would be a humiliation of the nth degree.That such an upstanding family, an earl no less, would be cast out of their home.

No.Far better to couple with the devil himself and save her family.She could pay that sacrifice knowing that her father and Lenora would be safe.In fact, her younger sister would never even have to find out about any of it if Sebastian would just agree to it all.

“Why not?”

“I would never marry a woman I didn’t…know.”

Obviously he was expressing something that was beyond her experience to understand.The way his eyes roved her body, she knew thatknowledgeimplied a deeper meaning.She just wasn’t sure how deep he meant.There was only one way to find out.

“How well do you need to know her?”She cleared her throat.

At the flare in his eyes, she knew that her question caught him off guard.And then to replace surprise, a daring look shadowed his face.

With great intention, she watched him lift that hand resting on the arm of his chair.His legs spread out and his steely eyes on her, he lowered his hand to his cock.Like a glove.

“I need to know her well.”

The words, the action, all of it should have her scurrying toward the door.Instead, her legs were like pudding.The apex between her thighs was hot, as if his hand were cradling her and not himself.

His body was drawing her in.His words were like a cord reeling her in.But it would be of her own volition that she not back down from him and this challenge.

Step by step, she walked toward him until she stood between his legs.The air was thick and heavy.Her breaths were labored.But this was the moment of concession she needed from him.

She ignored the part of her brain that was on fire imagining his hands all over her.That played no part in her need for him.

Her father and sister were on the brink of despair, and Lenora didn’t even know it.Seraphina was the only one seeing reality for what it was, and therefore she was the one obliged to save them all.

Sebastian was her only immediate way out of a future of humiliation and ruination.

“I think you should get to know me then.”

There was the slightest hesitation, as if Sebastian was fighting himself, but then his free hand moved a few inches toward his knee and grazed her fingers.

Lightning shot up Seraphina’s spine.The man was the devil incarnate.Of course her body would shoot up in flames at his touch.

Without words, Sebastian coaxed her closer.When he lifted the hand off of his cock to entwine both of his hands with hers, she took in the bulge tenting his breeches, and her breath hitched.

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