Page 7

FOUR

Lilah

“You’re wrong,” I said firmly. “Absolutely wrong.”

“I am not wrong, and it kills you to admit it, which is why you won’t,” said Mr. Parry airily, as though he frequently forced his friends into a corner. “Go on, admit it!”

Fury flared through my chest and along my arms to my fingertips. I wasn’t going to allow him to win this one. I wasn’t going to allow him to win anything.

This was my club, the Gambling Dukes. It wasn’t anything to do with him, and he wouldn’t get the final say.

Not if I had anything to do with it.

I placed my hands onto the desk and leaned forward. “You’re an idiot, Mr. Parry, and I don’t know why I even bothered to listen to you.”

“Me, the idiot?” Opposite me, William placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward, never taking his eyes from me. “If I'm the idiot, you’re double the idiot for asking for my help, you?— ”

“Excuse me?” said a small voice between us. “It’s just…if you don’t like it, I can change it.”

I blinked.

I’d almost forgotten that the desk William and I were arguing over wasn’t actually ours.

We were in his drawing room—his stupid drawing room.

When William and I had first met, all those years ago, his residence in London had been but a small apartment he had taken in Kensington.

He’d spun such images to me with words, talked about the impressive townhouse he was one day going to purchase.

He talked eagerly about creativity, art, how Society had lost its way.

How he would bring it back to what it was supposed to be about.

Heart.

And now here we are, William purposefully getting everything wrong just to annoy me.

“Those aren’t our club colors,” I snapped, jabbing my finger at the design lying on the desk between us. “Damnit, William, you’re doing it on purpose.”

William raised a teasing eyebrow. “Do you actually know the precise tints of your club colors?”

I swallowed. How was I supposed to know? I didn’t do this sort of thing. I got things done. I organized people. I kept the ship moving.

What did I care what color the ship was?

But I knew it mattered, and William should too. He was doing it on purpose to annoy me.

God, I hated him.

“I’ll…I’ll just speak to your tailor and modiste,” said the footman awkwardly.

I glanced down at them. “Thanks.”

“Carey always has the answer,” said William with a grin. “Unlike you, Lilah. You just bring problems.”

It was a cheap shot and I could see he knew it.

Really? Was he going to bring up one of our most continuous arguments when we’d been lovers?

He had said I only ever brought problems to the table. I’d countered that I wouldn’t have any problems to bring if he wasn’t such an idiot.

I forget how the rest of the argument went. It was the same old thing though. William wasn’t trying hard enough, and I was sick of arguing all the time. We’d fought, we’d made up, we’d made incredible love.

How little had changed. Except the making love. Obviously.

“And this—this doesn’t look right,” I said to Carey, pointing at something on the design. “The Gambling Dukes would never?—”

“We’re trying something new,” said William, interrupting me with absolutely no concern for politeness.

I gritted my teeth, the room growing hot as I glared. “What happened to a gentleman’s politeness when speaking to a lady?”

“A gentleman is always polite, until the lady wrong,” he said smoothly. “Try something like this, Carey. If you moved that over here, and added some gold…”

I seethed as I watched William direct the footman completely against my wishes. How could he have so badly misunderstood the Gambling Dukes? Was he doing it on purpose, just to upset me?

He had to be!

“You’re doing it wrong,” I said quietly.

“You’re not the gentleman advisor here,” William shot back .

I laughed bitterly. “No, I'm only the person you’re supposed to be helping.”

“That doesn’t mean much at this stage.”

“How dare you?—”

“Should…should I just go?” the footman said timidly.

I started. In the heat of the argument with William, I had forgotten again that there was someone else in the room with us.

Bother, this was awkward. The poor person was looking between us as though they would rather be anywhere else but here. And you know what? I understood that.

I felt quite the same.

“You know what? Maybe it’s best if you do head out, Carey,” said William quietly, in that irritatingly calm voice I knew so well.

How did he do it? Always come across as though he was completely in charge of the situation. As though everything was going to his plan, even if I was trying my best to?—

Well. Not sabotage him. Obviously. That would be stupid.

“—discuss it more tomorrow,” William was saying with a wry grin to the footman who was packing up the designs hurriedly. “When someone’s in a better temper.”

Irritation flared around my heart but I managed to stop myself saying anything before I made a complete idiot of myself.

If I hadn’t done already.

I was supposed to be the Gambling Dukes’s representative. I was meant to be a calm, cool, collected business person. I was meant to be saving the club as we headed into this next wager.

Not arguing with my ex-lover before others .

The door swung behind Carey, and I swallowed, conscious I was now alone with?—

“You can speak openly,” William said with a grin, leaning onto the desk and fixing me with his piercing gaze. “I know you were holding back. Come on, tell me what you really think.”

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. Was everything a jest to this gentleman? Had he not changed at all since we were…had been…

But that was the past. When he’d hurt me, betrayed me with another woman as if I was an idiot, that had just been in the past.

It was how William worked. It was who I was.

And I would be a fool to think he had changed.

“I'm calling it a night,” I said darkly. “Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow when you are in a better temper and can act reasonably.”

“Reasonably?” William had stepped up swiftly, blocking my path to the door. “What on earth do you mean?”

I’d been forced to halt very suddenly—that, or risk literally running into him.

And I couldn’t do that. The last thing that I needed was to touch William. Feel his warmth. Be reminded of his scent. Fall into his arms and?—

“It’s almost as though you don’t want this to work,” William said quietly. “As though you’re self-sabotaging. Why else would you have such ridiculous requirements for Carey?”

My anger flared. “Self-sabotaging—you think I want my club to fail?”

William shrugged, and the slight movement caused a cascade of frustration to sink into my chest. “You don’t seem to want to work together.”

Work together .

It had been one of our dreams. Once. When I’d still been grafting at the Gambling Dukes, when it hadn’t looked like the club was going to go anywhere, and William had just been a gentleman with passion but no place in Society.

One day, we’d said. We’ll work together. Hard work all day, and work hard all night.

Admittedly of a different kind.

The reminder of what we had once been to each other—everything, all we had wanted—pained me stronger than I could know.

I staggered back and threw him the darkest look I could manage.

He flinched as though I’d physically injured him.

Now that was strange. I’d never seen William have such a reaction to me before.

“What is your problem?” William said finally, staring as he pushed his hair from his eyes.

It was all I could do to breathe. How dare he look at me like that! Like…like he knew precisely what I was thinking, how I was feeling. As though he cared, even a little.

Perhaps he had, once. But that had been such a long time ago, and it had all ended so painfully.

“You know what my problem is,” I managed to say through gritted teeth, sweeping back my head and trying to focus on a point just above his head. “It doesn’t take a genius to work it out.”

“No? I suppose not,” said William. There was a strange tone in his words. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said it was…bitterness. “So this comes back to us, then, does it? From all those years ago?”

All those years ago ?

He made it sound like we were ancient history, as though it had been a lifetime ago.

Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was just me that was being strange about this.

“Ahhh.”

I blinked, glaring at William as a snide smile slipped across his lips. “What?”

I hadn’t meant to sound so aggressive, and I watched William grin as he evidently realized he now had the upper hand.

Damn.

“You still care about me. I should have guessed it,” William said slowly, tilting his head to one side. “You never got over me. You still love me, Lilah, Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick.”

My stomach flared with heat, with pain, with anger—with denial.

Not that my tongue seemed able to cooperate.

“Me—in love with you?” I scoffed as best I could. “You must be delusional.”

William

“You never got over me. You still love me, Lilah, Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick,” I said, my heart skipping a beat.

For some reason, Lilah did not even hesitate in her response. “Me—in love with you? You must be delusional.”

Delusional .

The word shouldn’t hurt, but it did. Trying my best to keep my face impassive, I forced away the pain rippling in my chest at the way Lilah had spoken so nonchalantly.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have played that card so soon. This was just the first fight, surely of many, that she and I would have during this ridiculous project. I was an idiot to even think we could spend more than five minutes in a room together without arguing.

The trouble was, now it was just Lilah and I in the room…

Were the walls moving in, or was that just me? It was definitely hotter in here. Maybe I should bank down the fire.

But that would require looking away from Lilah, and I couldn’t.

The frustration in her was palpable. I knew that look; knew the way she held her shoulders, the tense bit of her lip, the way her arms were desperate to be folded before her.

Lilah’s classic look of anger.