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Much too seriously.

“Well, youarea rogue,” she muttered with a halfhearted smile. “And a Wolf, at that.”

“I am well aware of who I am, sweetheart. There is no need to remind me.”

Phoebe nodded emphatically. “Which means you should have no trouble at all taking back your intention to propose,” she finished.

He laughed, and Phoebe cursed the way her traitorous legs seemed to turn into jelly at the sound.

At least, she could still rely on her spine to keep her upright.

Right?

“Oof!”

She had been so busy trying to convince him to retract his intention to propose that she had not noticed how close he was. Or how his arm had snaked around her waist.

Not until he had pulled her flush against his chest, that wicked, wicked smile of his doing sacrilegious things to her sanity.

She should push him away. She honestly should. But her arms and hands had turned traitor as well.

“Sweetheart, we are getting married in a week.”

Phoebe swallowed and raised her gaze to his. Her heart pounded so loudly in her chest that it was embarrassing. “W-we are?”

He grinned. “I am proposing to you now—and you are going to accept.”

“I-I am?”

“Of course.”

Phoebe did not want to get married—not to a rake who did not love her.

If she was to marry, it should have been to someone she loved and who loved her in return.

Like Alice and Colin.

Or Evie and Daniel.

But it would seem that the only thing she had in common with those famed love matches was that she was marrying a Wolf.

The Duke of Sin, no less.

CHAPTER 7

“But for Lady P, it seems that His Grace is willing to overlook a great many inconveniences. Is it possible that this Lady’s most ardent confession has finally managed to tame a Wolf?”

Rubbish. Complete and utter rubbish.

Phoebe sighed as she set aside the latest issue of a popular scandal sheet. It had been seven days since her ‘most ardent confession’ and she had not heard from Ethan since his ‘proposal’ in the parlor.

He had promised her two things then—a special license that would allow them to get married posthaste and a resolution to the scandal that she had caused.

He had already made good on his first promise, but as for his second one…

Phoebe wondered if it was prudent at all to counter one scandal with another. After all, what gossip could be more titillating than a renowned rogue falling in love with a debutante who had just publicly declared her affection for him?

It was the stuff of stories, albeit one so ludicrous that even she could not bring herself to pen it.