Page 77 of Bookshop Cinderella

“Wanting what?”

“You know,” she whispered, staring at his chin, blushing as she spoke. “What you said.”

Oh, God. He was coming undone right hereon the dance floor. He wanted, so badly, to kiss her. To stop dancing and haul her into his arms right now and wrap his arms around her and taste her mouth as he had at Westbourne House. To touch her and caress her as he had at Idyll Hour, and so much more. He wanted all of it, tonight, tomorrow night, and every night beyond. He wanted to see that smile of hers a dozen times a day, every day, until his eyes closed forever and they put him in the ground.

But he wasn’t the same man he’d been a decade ago, ready to believe that passion, however strong, made for love that lasted forever. He also knew that what he really wanted with Evie could not be forced into being. True love, the kind that lasted a lifetime, could not be rushed. It had to be earned. And so, when the music stopped, he didn’t pull her into his arms. He escorted her back to her place in the proper manner, bowed, and walked away. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

Two hours later, as dawn was breaking, he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, making plans for the future, even as he still ached with longing. He thought of how it would have to be: two years of walks accompanied by chaperones, dinner parties where they sat miles apart, only two dances together at balls, and all the other wretched customs of a proper courtship, and it was almost more than he could bear. He turned onto his belly with a groan and wondered if perhaps he could persuade Delia to look the other way once in a while and let him pull Evie into a darkened corner for some passionate kissing.

But what if, after a proper courtship, she still wouldn’t marry him? What if, after two years of showing her what life with him would be like, he couldn’t convince her to become his duchess? What then?

Even as he asked himself that question, his heart rejected the possibility. Failure was simply not an option. He’d persuade her, somehow.

Suddenly, he heard a soft knock at the door of his suite. At this hour? Frowning, he lifted his head, wondering if he’d imagined it, but then, it came again, and Max got out of bed.

Wrapping his naked body in a dressing gown, he left the bedroom and walked to the door, knowing it had to be Stowell, though why his valet would presume to awaken him at sixo’clock in the morning, he couldn’t imagine.

But when he opened the door, he found that it wasn’t Stowell waiting on the other side. It was, in fact, the last person in the world he’d have expected.

“Evie?” He blinked twice, but she was still there. “What the devil?”

She’d changed out of her ballroom finery into a loose-fitting tea gown, and her hair was down, caught in a braid down her back, as if she’d been getting ready for bed and had then changed her mind.

“Evie, what are you doing here at this hour?”

She grimaced at the raised note of his voice and pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh, not so loud,” she admonished in a whisper.

The touch of her fingers was almost more than he could bear, and he took a long step back.

She seemed to take that as an invitation, and she followed him, closing the distance. “I needed to talk to you.”

With that one touch from her, desire had already started spreading through his body, and the last thing he wanted was a conversation. When she moved as if to take another step into his room, he didn’t fall back, forcing her to remain on the threshold. “You can’t be here,” he said. “What if someone catches you standing here outside my room? Where’s Delia?”

“Sound asleep, of course, and so is everyone else in the hotel, most likely.”

“Except you,” he pointed out tersely. “And me.”

As if to prove them both wrong, murmured voices floated down the corridor, and with a muttered oath, he grabbed her arm, hauled her completely inside before whoever was talking could come around the corner and see them, and closed the door.

“Evie, listen. Whatever it is you want to talk to me about, it has to wait until morning.”

For some reason, that made her smile. “Max, it is morning. It’s after six.”

He couldn’t share her amusement. “All the more reason for you to go back to your own room.” He moved to lean around her and reopen the door, but she stopped him, flattening a hand against his chest, and as her fingertips touched the bare skin in the vee of his dressing gown, he remembered that he was wearing nothing else. “Evie, for God’s sake,” he muttered and grabbed her wrists, but she replied before he could push her away.

“Max, please. This is important. In fact,” she added, giving a decidedly shaky laugh, “this may be the most important thing I ever do in my life.”

With a sigh of long-suffering, Max let her go, switched on the nearest electric light, and prayed for fortitude. “I’m listening.”

“Ever since the house party, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

Any other time, Max might have found those words quite gratifying, but just now, they weren’t helpful. “Evie,” he began.

“Over and over, I thought about what you said. About what you wanted...” She paused, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink, and she ducked her head. “And I told you earlier tonight that I want it, too. The...the kissing and...well...you know.”

How could he not know? The very same desires that had inspired his torrid words at Idyll Hour were raging in him now, and if he didn’t get her out of here soon, what he had been imagining would become reality, and not in the honorable way he’d intended. He had a plan, damn it, and this wasn’t it. Courtship was the goal. Not fornication.

But even as he reminded himself of all that, she moved closer, and he felt his control slipping. Desperate, he worked to shore it up again. “No, you don’t want that. You can’t. Hell, I doubt you even know what I really meant by what I said.”

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