Page 47 of Her Devil of a Duke
“That is not the case.”
“Then why else not tell me?” She waved the mask in the air. “Why keep this a secret at all?”
“Maybe I didn’t think you’d appreciate the way that we really did meet.” He folded his arms across his chest, his manner strangely calm compared to her own. “I thought you’d dislike me because of it. So, I wanted to start afresh.”
“Afresh!?” she repeated in amazement. “No, no. I cannot believe that.” She turned away and covered her face, seeing everything they had gone through all over again.
She saw the night she had first arrived, the way he had yelled at her, wanting her out. Was it all an act? A manipulation to arouse her and want the thing that was forbidden to her? The snow was a convenience, but one he had certainly worked to his advantage by keeping her here so long.
“It was all a ploy.”
“What? No!” He walked around to her again, taking her wrists and trying to make their gazes meet. She looked anywhere in the room but at him. “Evie, listen to me–”
“How can I listen now?” She shook her head. “How many other lies have you told? Are you even afraid of the snow or was that also an act for pity?”
“That was no lie.” His voice grew firm. “I have never told anyone but you that secret.”
“See? If no one else knows of it, then how can I even know it is true? If you’re capable of lying to me about this,” she thrust the mask toward him, “then you’re capable of lying to me about anything. I cannot trust you.”
“Can’t trust me?”
As she tried to walk to the door, he cut in front of her, blocking her path.
“Surely by now, even you can see how much you and I can trust each other. This last week, it has been everything, Evie. Everything!” he hissed, his voice holding onto a sort of vehemence. “Are you really going to turn your back on all of that just because I worethisthe night that we met?” He held the mask up.
Oh, how she wanted to believe his words. She wanted to hold onto them, to believe he did care for her, but as her lips parted to answer him, she realized something.
He has still not said he cares for me.
At no point had he declared any sort of affection. All of their closeness, their intimacy, it was physical, sexual, full of lust. Her heart was attached to him when he had made no declaration at all to her.
She took the mask from him and hung it in the air, so it swung like the pendulum of a clock from the ribbons she clutched to.
“Explain why you didn’t tell me about this, Rafe. Tell me why if you wish me to believe that any of what has passed between us this last week matters to you.”
“I don’t understand why you care about this so much!” He was suddenly furious, his words coming thick and fast. “Why should it make you so mad?”
“You lied!”
“I just didn’t reveal the whole truth. As if you did either,” he reminded her, waving a hand at her. “You came to me that first night with a name on a piece of paper. You couldn’t even tell me what name was on that paper. I have never looked at it, and you conveniently stopped trying to make me see it. You think I like making love to a woman knowing she’s thinking of another?”
She stumbled back, letting the mask drop between them on the floor.
He never opened that slip of paper.
She felt gutted, knowing that he had no idea what she had written there. She didn’t know what was worse. The fact he hadn’t dared look at the description there, or the fact he had just suggested he didn’t enjoy making love to her at all.
“Well, fear not,” she said sharply. “I will not ask you to do such a thing again. It was clearly a mistake to be here with you in the first place.”
“A mistake? No. No!” Rafe tried to block the door again, but she moved toward it sharply, having every intention of leaving this house as soon as possible.
“The snow is melting. I shall be on my way home as soon as I am able.”
“We cannot let things end like this between us. I won’t let that happen.” Rafe stood in front of the door, still refusing to move.
“No? Why not, when you already made love to me convinced that I was here to learn how to seduce another?”
He looked as if he had been kicked in the gut. He no longer waved his arms madly but let them fall to his sides.
