Page 123 of Almost A Scoundrel

“Not with words, no.”With everything else, his eyes seemed to say.

“I don’t know what I believe,” she confessed softly.

“Do you truly believe that I don’t love you? That I have no care for you in my heart at all?”

“I know you care for me.”

“But not that I love you.”

At her silence, he clenched his fists, and Phaedra felt that motion right to her bones.

“It’s not that I don’tbelieveyou. I just don’t...” How to say it? “I just don’t...”

“You don’t trust me,” he finished for her. “Let me ask you this, love. Do you care for me?”

Phaedra nodded.Of course I do.

“Do you love me?”

I do.But again, as when she’d woken with a feeling of being watched, her voice failed her. She couldn’t form the words on her tongue. She couldn’t even part her lips. She wanted to, but the words wouldn’t seem to form outside her mind.

Deerhurst dragged a hand through his hair. “I thought as much.”

No!

“The worst part of this is that I know you love me, which makes me want to shake some bloody sense into you.”

Phaedra inhaled sharply.

“I have done nothing but try to atone for my sins. From the night that list came into being straight to tonight.”

I know.

“I have opened my heart, my very soul to you. I trusted you with my daughter. With parts of me that I’ve shown no other person in this world. Still, you would only see what I didn’t do.”

Phaedra’s breath hitched.

He advanced on her. “And what exactly is it that I haven’t done? Not stopping my friends. Not informing you about the list and wagers. Those are my only crimes. And yes, I am aware of the severity of all this, all the things I didn’t do, but I have done nothing but try to make up for it since then.”

“I have a right to be angry.”

“But you’re not angry, love, are you? You’re punishing me. You are punishing us both.”

“No,” she said shaking her head. “I’m not.”

He just stared at her.

Was she punishing them both? He for his betrayal and her for almost allowing the same thing to happen to her that happened to her aunt.

But it’s not the same.

And Deerhurst wasn’t the same either. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to take that one step toward him. If she was with child, then she wouldn’t have to make the choice. It would be made for her. Wouldn’t that simplify things? Then she wouldn’t be responsible for deciding her fate.

How utterly cowardly of her.

“I can’t meet you halfway this time,” Deerhurst said. “If you want to be with me, love, you’re going to have to come to me.”

Tell him, Phaedra.