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Mary woke to find Andrew looking at her, his light brown gaze soft and intense; his eyes were honey in the light room. It was morning. She had not fallen asleep until after he had cautiously lain down next to her. She must have overslept this morning.

He was lying on one side, his head cradled on his palm, supported by his bent arm, and the fingers of his free hand played with a lock of her hair on the pillow.

He wore a shirt that hung open at the neck, showing a little of his chest hair.

‘I am sorry.’ He said the words as though they could stitch her heart back together.

She’d heard his friends speaking about the letters they sent her and plotting to seduce Emily. John was right. Drew had not been truthful.

‘I should not have left you alone last night,’ he continued. ‘It was wrong of me. I was angry at your brother and your father and I took it out on you. I am sorry. Do you forgive me?’

She said nothing.

He smiled, it looked genuinely apologetic. Yet she’d thought him genuine that day in the summerhouse, when she’d read the heartfelt words in the letter his friends had written.

She closed her eyes. His breath caressed her neck, then his lips brushed her skin. A stir of desire clasped at the juncture of her thighs.

A sound left her lips. It was grief, yet he must have heard it as pleasure as his fingers began to draw up her nightgown.

The memory of his touch whispered in ripples across her skin, and despite her broken heart and the knowledge that he was false she wanted him physically. I still love him.

His kisses brushed the skin of her neck. Her body traitorously ached for him.

His fingers touched her inner thigh.

Her arms lifted about his neck as he touched her gently.

When her lips parted on a sigh, which was pleasure, his fingers stroked deeper. His lips touched the corner of her mouth, asking her to turn her head and kiss him back. She felt like weeping as she did, so physically happy, and yet so heart sore.

She was his, no matter that he would never wholly be hers.

He moved over her and his flesh became her flesh as they joined, his palms pressing into the bed either side of her so he did not rest too heavily on her.

The cloth of her nightgown caressed her breasts as he moved, while the tails of his shirt brushed against her stomach and her thighs.

‘I love you,’ he whispered. ‘I swear that I do. With all my heart, I love you.’

Lies.

The way he moved and touched her felt like love.

It was a physical lie too.

She held his shoulders and prayed for this to end – or begin – to reach the escape of ecstasy.

Guilt pressed its short, sharpened knife into her heart, because she still enjoyed the sensations he could trigger in her body. He’d accused her of wanting nothing of him now. He was wrong. She wanted everything from him. She wanted everything he said to be real.

The look in his eyes appeared like tenderness and devotion.

She desperately wanted to believe it.

‘I adore you. I will forever worship you.’

Lies.

Her fingers held his hips. Lean muscles worked beneath his skin as he entered and withdrew. She broke in half, body and soul separating, as her senses soared and burst, trembling in release…