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Perhaps she had gone too far? Perhaps she should have waited until they were alone before she finally told him how she felt. Perhaps… well, it was too late for that now. Much too late.

“Selina!”

She reached the main staircase, taking the first step before turning back and fixing him with a glare. She needed the height advantage, anything she could do to even the odds.

“I did what I thought was right,” she said angrily. “You cannot blame me for speaking the truth.”

“The truth! The truth was exactly what I was trying to avoid!” He reached the staircase and stopped less than three feet away from her. Even with that distance, he still stood taller than her. “As I explained to you?—”

“You have explained nothing!” she cried. “Nothing that I believe. It has been lies on top of lies, Benedict! I am sick to death of them!”

“You deliberately disobeyed me.”

“I am not yours to be led on a leash like some whipped puppy! I told you I did not want to do this! I told you?—”

“And I told you that you had no choice!” he thundered, his voice drowning out her words.

For a brief second, Selina felt a tingle in her loins that she recognized only too well. But she was quick to dismiss that sensation.

“One more night. That was all I asked. And you could not give me even that!”

“It is not about that.”

“Do you have any idea what you have done? What they might say now? The gossip this is likely going to cause?”

“I do not care!”

“I do!”

“Why?!” she shouted. “Why do you care what others think? Why do you care for them more than you care for me!”

“I told you,” he spoke through a clenched jaw, his body shaking, refusing to look at her as if to do so would end him, “it is for my brother and his reputation?—”

“To hell with his reputation!” she cut him off. “And to hell with you!”

His body turned stiff at being interrupted. Again, he spoke slowly, to his feet, refusing to look at her. “My entire life, I have done nothing but look out for Edmund. That is all I have done! And all I wanted was to spare him the embarrassment that might result if the truth was revealed! That was, as you well know, the entire point of all of this!”

“And us?”

“What of us?”

She tried not to wince at the harshness of his voice. Instead, she rose on her tiptoes, looming over him. “So, that is how it is going to be, is it? This marriage… what we had… it did not mean anything to you. Nothing at all?”

“It was never meant to. We agreed?—”

“This is not two weeks ago, Benedict. There is no need to lie about what we are anymore. I am not ashamed of it. Unlike you, I am through with the lies! But are you? Can you continue to lie to yourself? For I know that is what you are doing! I know deep down exactly how you feel.”

“And how is it that I feel? You know me so well. Why don’t you say it?”

“You care for me,” she hissed.

There was no time for subtlety. Not anymore. Last night, she had tried that, and it had failed. All that was left for them was an all-out assault. Consequences be damned.

“And this marriage of ours, the one you seem so insistent on pretending is just for show, has become real! And that terrifies you!”

It was subtle, but she thought she saw Benedict balk. She thought she saw the shadow pass behind his eyes as if he agreed with her and was fighting back that impulse to say it. She thought, for the briefest of moments, that he might have finally given in because she knew deep down that he wished it.

But this was Benedict, and a more stubborn man did not exist. Not to mention an angrier one.