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“Impressed?” I breathed. “Oh, yes. But not with the ship. Not with the plans. With you.”

There. It was out. The truth.

I couldn’t keep doing this anymore without admitting to how I really felt about her. How I felt about us.

Could there be an ‘us’ anymore? Was it possible Lilah and I could find again what we had lost?

Her breathing was quickening, I could feel it, and my hands ached to move to her hips and draw her closer.

Here we stood, on the deck of a luxury ship, in the middle of the Thames, far from the prying eyes of others.

“With me?” Lilah repeated, pink flushing her cheeks. “William, what do you mean?”

I could lie. I could pretend I was teasing, I could say something noncommittal about how her charm was improving. I could attempt to tell her something boring, something that simply wasn’t true.

But how could I?

Lilah’s blue eyes were pouring into mine, demanding the truth, even in the silence. And I knew that this was my last shot.

My last chance.

The last time I could unveil my heart and know I would get an honest response.

Lilah and I, we’d been through so much. Becoming lovers and then somehow breaking our connection, and now finding each other again after all this time.

If she didn’t consist of almost all my thoughts, perhaps I could take a different course.

I took a deep breath. “What do you think I mean, Lilah?”

Her flush deepened. “I-I don’t know. You never seemed that impressed with me when we…when we…”

Why was it so difficult to talk about this?

Perhaps it was because we were English, and she was gently born and had married nobility. We’d never talked about it. Lilah had never explained why she had so suddenly disappeared from my life, and I had never been man enough to go after her and demand an answer.

“When we were lovers,” I said quietly.

Lilah nodded. As she leaned forward, a raven curl slipped from her ear and covered her face.

I didn’t even think. Moving instinctively, I lifted a hand and brushed the curl back behind her ear.

Something electric shot down my arm, and before I knew it, I was grazing her cheek with my fingers.

Our gazes locked and I knew that this moment, today, was it. Either I completely screwed it up, or Lilah would be mine for the rest of our lives.

My hand fell to my side. “It feels like a really long time ago.”

“What?”

“Us. When we were lovers,” I said awkwardly, trying to find my nonchalant smile. “I was happy then.”

“You aren’t happy now?” Lilah asked quietly.

The October sunshine grew—that, or I was getting far hotter than I had expected.

“I'm happy when I'm with you,” I said, shrugging .

I wanted to reach out again and touch her, but somehow there seemed to be a barrier between us. An invisible line that marked what could and couldn’t be touched.

And right now, none of her could be touched.

It was maddening. Usually so swift with my words, I found anything I could think of was starting to get tangled in my throat.

Mangled by my own desire.

“I thought this was a mistake, you know,” said Lilah with a dry laugh. “Spending time together, I mean. After everything that happened.”

Her gaze drifted to my lips, then back to my eyes.

Everything that happened, I wanted to say. What did happen? What made you run? Did you realize you were falling for me? Did you feel as out of control as I had, utterly unable to stop myself from loving you?

I swallowed. Hell’s bells.

“Do you regret it?” I breathed. “Spending all this time with me, I mean?”

Lilah shook her head, not taking her eyes from me—yet not leaving the mast to walk into my arms. “No. No, William, it’s been good.”

My heart leapt.

Praise from Lilah. That was rare indeed, and?—

“I think it’s going to be good for the club,” she continued with a wry smile. “And that’s all that matters, right?”

I hesitated, teetering on the edge of admitting something I definitely shouldn’t.

Because I couldn’t tell Lilah how I felt.

I hardly knew myself. Emotions I had forced down years ago, forced myself not to feel, were sparking up again and I couldn’t control them.

A dark desire to have her. A need to be the most important thing in Lilah’s life.

An ache in my chest that told me I wouldn’t be whole again, wouldn’t be myself, until she told me she loved me.

Loved me as I loved her.

Damn.

“Because that’s all this is, isn’t it?” Lilah continued, her voice low and her fingers now twisting together before her.

That emerald green gown should be illegal, it clung to every inch of her body.

“That’s all this is,” Lilah repeated, her eyes demanding something from me I didn’t know how to give. “This is merely a favor. A wager. You…you would tell me if it was something else, wouldn’t you? Something more?”

I took a shuddering breath and wished to God I could hold this together better.

But I couldn’t. And I was about to make the biggest fool of myself in the world, but I couldn’t help it. It would be worth it, even if there was an infinitesimal chance Lilah could feel the same way about me.

Here we were, on this ridiculous ship in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t going to be any distractions. Finally I had the chance to tell Lilah how I felt.

If I didn’t ruin it myself.

I took another deep breath and tried to force my heart to slow down.

This was it.

“Lilah,” I said weakly. “Look, I?—”

“I don’t want to hear it, William.”

I blinked. “You—you don’t?”

Lilah was still flushed, and only now did I notice her eyes were sparkling. Were those…tears?

“I know you don’t care about—you’re doing this for the prestige, the connection to dukes and duchesses, and that’s fine,” she said in a rush, unable to meet my gaze.

She stared at her twisting fingers. “And I knew that—there were no expectations on you, at least none from me. I know you’re being kind, and it’s fine, I don’t—I'm not?—”

There was only one way, it seemed, to prove to Lilah and myself what this was really about.

And it wasn’t like someone was about to interrupt us.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips on hers.

Lilah. Oh God, she was everything I wanted. I breathed her in, poured out the unspoken words I couldn’t articulate onto her lips, and almost cried out with joy as she melted into my arms.

Somehow she was pressed up against me, her breasts threatening to fall out of her gown, and I moaned as my fingers clutched her buttocks, pulling them into my groin.

Lilah’s lips parted and I took advantage immediately.

My tongue teased along her mouth, darting into her warm wetness with the devotion of a man who knew he was entirely undone.

Because I was.

This was all I wanted. Her. Lilah.

The feelings I had tried to ignore were rising up and there was no point in attempting to deny them. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t. Because she was here, in my arms, kissing me back just as furiously as I was kissing her.

The kiss ended and I blinked down hazily at the woman I loved. “Lilah, I?—”

“You don’t have to say anything, William,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to—putting a label on this, I don’t want you to feel?—”

“I care about you,” I said, speaking over her with a wry smile. “I can’t not say anything, Lilah. I can’t pretend anymore. I have feelings for you—feelings from before, but new ones, too. Feelings I can no longer ignore. Desires that…that need to be satisfied.”