Page 83 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
“Do you believe that?”
“I do. And I believe it will never happen again,” Juliet said. “And it felt so good to say everything that’s been on my mind, Matilda. I can’t tell you how good it felt to finally just tell him how he’s been hurting me.”
“But you don’t seem like it feels good at all,” Matilda said. “You seem devastated. Do you regret saying those things to him?”
“Not at all. I’m glad I did. It was what happened after that that upset me.”
“What happened after that, then?”
Juliet had to stop and take another sip of water to make sure she would be capable of speaking the words.
Then, she lowered her voice. After all, you couldn’t tell who else might be in this part of the house listening at the door, and she never wanted anyone but Matilda to know what she was about to say.
“Then he kissed me,” she murmured.
Matilda gasped.
“Hush. No one can know.”
“But… Oh my goodness! He did, really?”
“Yes. We were alone on the patio at the ball. I know we shouldn’t have been, but we had so much to talk about, and we had to be on our own together. He touched my cheek, and I knew what was about to happen, and then…” she trailed off, not wanting to say more.
The details of that moment were too beautiful and perfect to share, even with her sister, and she intended to keep them for herself. She would never let anyone know the things she had felt when he had closed that last bit of distance between them and their lips had met.
“What does this mean?” Matilda breathed. “Has your courtship finally blossomed into something real?”
“Yes,” Juliet replied. “And no.”
“What do you mean?”
“I admitted my feelings for him,” Juliet said. “And he did the same. The things we feel for one another are real. We both know that now.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s not a good thing?”
“Because it isn’t.” Juliet sighed. “The curse makes it a terrible thing. He isn’t cursed, but he might as well be because it stops us from being together. Now that we know we really care for each other, now that we know it will never be a pretense, we can’t take the risk. Or rather, I would take the risk, but he can’t bring himself to do it. And I won’t make him feel as if he has to.”
“Oh, Juliet.” Matilda wrapped her arms around her sister. “This is just awful.”
“It really is,” Juliet said. Her tears had stopped, but she felt hollow inside. “It feels awful. Even when he was kissing me, I knew that it was going to go wrong, and I knew that this hurt lay in wait for me. But how could I refuse that kiss, feeling the way I do?”
“Then, you don’t regret it?”
“A part of me regrets the whole thing,” Juliet admitted. “A part of me wishes I had simply never let him back into my life at all because then, none of this would have happened. I would still be dodging Lord Stickland, but… nothing he ever did to me hurt me like this.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What can I do? It’s all over now.”
“But you’ll see Harry again, I suppose.”
“Of course. I don’t think that can be avoided. He’s still a friend of our family. I’m just going to have to figure out how to be around him without letting him see how hurt I am.”
“Don’t you think he would understand?”
“I know he would,” Juliet said. “But he feels so bad about it all. I could see that when we were parting. He’s worried he’s left me in such pain that I won’t recover from it.”
“Will you recover from it?”
