Page 21 of The Dravenhearst Brides
But only if she was brave enough to seize it. To make it so.
She reached for his wrist. Her touch was soft at first, ghosting over his bare skin. He twinged at the contact, but she refused to be deterred. She ran her fingers up the length of his sleeve, feeling the generous curve of biceps as her touch grew bolder. Gripping. Dragging. She nearly lost her breath at her own daring.
She inhaled shakily as her fingers settled atop his shoulder, barely brushing the nape of his neck.
“Perhaps,” she breathed, her heart pounding, “you’d like to come in with me?”
Terror. Horror. Shock. Vulnerability.
All of it came rushing in at once, a dizzying medley that made her weak in the knees.
He bit his lip, then sighed and leaned in, whispering along the shell of her ear, his nose grazing her hair. “This is what you want?”
“Yes.” Her back stiffened, but she lifted her chin, feigning confidence. Hoping the nervous tremor in her legs wouldn’t betray her.
His fingers gripped hers, gently tugging her hand away from his neck.
“This is what you really want?” he repeated, brushing his lips over the inside of her wrist as he spoke. Pressing softly. A kiss made of breath as much as flesh.
A shiver coursed through her, shooting up her arm, down her spine. Her skin burned where his lips touched.
His gaze pierced her, searing through the darkness of the hallway. His lips parted before he spoke. “Because it’s not what I want.”
He stepped away, leaving her cold. Embarrassed. Confused.
Alone.
Margot was thunderstruck by his cruelty. Her vulnerability shattered, defensiveness rising in its place.
“You’re wicked.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m just trying to do my job, to be a good wife.”
“Exactly.” He was scowling again.
“It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? To shower you with newfound riches and give you a son who can take over your empire one day?” Her voice rang with fervor and frustration, the sting of tears, mortifyingly, rising. “I assume you didn’t marry me simply to look on and laugh as I eat dessert every night.”
“And you’d rather I sweep you up right now, pin you beneath me in my bed, and coldly impregnate you?” Color rose in his cheeks. “Is that really what you want?”
“No…I—”
“I don’t understand you.”
And I don’t understand you,she wanted to scream. Instead, she swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke quietly. “I just thought that was what you wanted, what a husband expects.”
“Well, it’s not. None of this”—he gestured betweenthem—“is what I want.”
At those damning words, Margot’s heart turned to ice. “I apologize for the misunderstanding. And for my forward behavior. It won’t happen again.”
He sighed, his eyes searching her own. For what, Margot couldn’t be sure, but he would find no further vulnerability there. Not tonight. Perhaps not ever. All hope she carried for intimacy in her marriage, for companionship, and maybe—dare she say it?—even love, died then and there in that dark hallway.
Tick, tick, tick.
“Good night, Margot,” he finally said. “Sleep well.”
She nodded, unable to manage anything more. She stepped into her bedroom and shut the door with a very definitiveclick.
And then she was left alone. Left alone to remove her wedding gown herself. Left alone to hang it in a closet she realized was perfumed with faded jasmine and full of another woman’s clothes. Left alone to slip into her bed.
A rumble of thunder echoed outside. A summer storm rolling in.
