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But also a brilliant way to keep people back. To be guarded. To make sure no one ever got close enough.

“Perhaps I am delusional,” I said as lightly as I could manage. “But I'm not the one frightening my servants to such an extent that they literally ran away.”

Fine, that was an exaggeration—but it hit home.

Lilah flinched. “I'm good with people.”

“Not today you’re not,” I said, pressing home my advantage.

I’d evidently hit a nerve.

“How dare you?—”

“It’s how I always speak, I'm always honest,” I continued, trying to keep my voice steady. “If you want to really get to the heart of the matter, there’s no point beating about the bush.”

Lilah snorted. “No, I suppose not.”

She moved about the room, evidently frustrated. I could almost feel the nervous energy pouring off her. She was like a caged lioness, just waiting for someone to get too close. For someone to be stupid enough to try to touch her.

That was when the claws would come out.

“You’re impossible to work with,” she told the fireplace, not bothering to turn around.

I snorted. “And you’re the example of what easy to work with is, are you?”

Lilah glared over her shoulder, then turned to face me. “Why does everything have to be a fight with you?”

I don’t know, I wanted to say. Perhaps because that was how things fell apart with us. Was that what happened? Why didn’t you ever tell me why you removed all your belongings from my apartment and disappeared in the middle of the night?

“This was a stupid idea,” Lilah said quietly. “I should never have tried this. Should never have accepted your suggestion.”

“Yet you did.”

Her glare deepened. “I…I need this to work, Mr. Parry.”

Hearing my name on her lips was intoxicating. Damn, how long had it been?

“Just ask me for my help,” I said, a grin sweeping across my face as I leaned against the wall. “Three little words, Lilah. ‘Please help me’. That’s all I want to hear.”

I’d gone too far. I could tell from the look on her face, the way the atmosphere in my drawing room had chilled to the temperature of the North Pole.

Ask Lilah to admit weakness? That would have been impossible for anyone, but to do so to me?

Absolutely not.

Yet though I thought she’d immediately reject my suggestion—laugh in my face, call me an idiot, or all of the above—that didn’t happen.

A delicate pink was sweeping up her neck, her cheeks darkening.

Was she…embarrassed?

Lilah swallowed. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

“I know you better than you know yourself,” I pointed out.

It was true. You couldn’t spend months bedding Lilah without her eventually letting some of her guard down.

But it was only now I thought about it that I realized just how little our lives had intertwined.

Lilah had never introduced me to her friends. We’d never dined with them, or attended a ball with them. I’d never been to the home of the Gambling Dukes Club, the home of Kineallen until a few days ago, and that was to entice her into working with me again.

She’d kept me at arm’s length then. And now.

“What you don’t seem to understand, Mr. Parry,” Lilah said finally, “is that I have actual responsibilities now. When we were—before, it was just my life that I was in charge of.”

I snorted. “What? You’re some kind of politician, the fate of the world in your?—”

“There are over three hundred people working for the Gambling Dukes in one form or another,” Lilah said quietly.

“Maids, footmen, coachmen—butlers, housekeepers, but also modistes, farriers, those working on our estates, our tenant farmers. What happens to them if I can’t get this wager over the line? Have you thought of that?”

I cleared my throat, but all words had failed me. In that moment, just for an instant, I’d looked at Lilah and seen …

Lilah as she was now. Not how she was then.

Not the woman who I adored, who could make me quiver sometimes just by looking at me.

But the woman in charge of a club that was earning a serious income and therefore had serious responsibilities, a club that was about to lose everything if she didn’t solve this problem.

A woman carrying the weight of all those people’s livelihoods, knowing her mistake wouldn’t just be something that rested on her shoulders.

Oh, no. It was far more than that.

My gaze flickered over her. It was a challenge to keep that thought tight in my mind as I luxuriated in the way she looked.

Whenever Lilah got angry, and with me it was seeming to become a regular habit, there was something about her.

A warmth.

No, a fire. A glow. Something that burned in her, a determination to solve the problem before her. I’d never doubted her before and I didn’t now.

But that wasn’t what was bothering me. It was that she, plainly, was doubting herself.

And then Lilah folded her arms, just as I knew she would, and sighed. “You must have other acquaintances who understand what I need. Can assist me in Society.”

The Anderley brothers.

I pushed the thought aside. They would absolutely love to get to know the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick a little better. Lilah would appreciate me making the introduction, but I very much doubted I could stand to see them with her.

Then she said something I could never have predicted. “You know how much I hate asking for help.”

I blinked. “You…yes, you never were the sort of person to accept help. ”

“Let alone ask for it,” Lilah said with a dark laugh. “And of all people in the world, William, you are the very last person I would ask.”

My gut tensed painfully and I almost took a step back.

Damn. I hadn’t expected that to hurt so much, yet it did.

Lilah, the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick.

Somehow, something had happened and she’d ended our connection.

Disappeared in the middle of the night. Asking her about it had just felt shameful, and now it was far too late to ask why the woman I had thought I’d be spending the rest of my life with had suddenly walked out of my life.

And here she was, looking as beautiful and elegant as ever, in trouble—and telling me, to my face, that she hadn’t wanted to ask me for help.

Rage spiked in my heart but was swiftly melted by pain.

Was I truly that bad?

“Well, here you are,” I said quietly, gesturing at my drawing room. “And I suppose you haven’t asked for help, not exactly.”

Lilah snorted, turning away as though looking at me was just too agonizing. “No, but you’re right, I am here. And I’d be an idiot not to realize that the reason I didn’t want to ask you is because…because I knew you would. Even after everything that happened.”

I blinked.

She…she what?

She knew I would help her? Then why had she made a point at the Norfolk of not even wanting to talk to me?

Oh, I couldn’t work this woman out. Every time I thought I had a good handle on what she wanted, what she needed, Lilah managed to prove I had absolutely no idea.

“We have to get this right,” said Lilah quietly, though there was steel in her tones. “We only have one chance to get this right, and if the Count of Guadalencia?—”

“I would have thought you could just charm them,” I said without thinking. “Win their hearts, as you always did. Queen of hearts.”

Lilah’s gaze met mine and a rush of heat seared my chest. “What, you think I'm charming?”

Yes, I wanted to say. Yes. You charmed the breeches right off of me when we first met, and the six months we spent together were some of the best in my life. And though I’ve bedded other women, tried to forget about you, every time I look at them I'm just comparing them to you.

And they always fall short.

And now here was Lilah, asking for my help.

Lilah, the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick was a proud woman. I, of all people, knew that. And she wouldn’t be saying this if she hadn’t truly run out of options.

My jaw tightened. But she also wouldn’t be saying this if she didn’t, in a small way, deep down, trust me. And I had to hold onto that.

“I don’t like asking for help either,” I said quietly.

Lilah raised an eyebrow. “We’re the same on that front.”

“But you need help?—”

“I know that,” she snapped, her temper immediately flaring. “Not for me, for the?—”

“Hundreds of people who rely on you, yes, I know,” I said flatly.

That was what I had to hold onto.

True, I was impressed Lilah could put aside her ego and ask me for help, even if her club was the reason for it. It was still a huge sacrifice, somehow, her asking me for help.

But she wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for other people. This wasn’t a reconciliation, this wasn’t a chance to put the past to bed, this didn’t change what had already happened. How she’d left without a word.

It was just…a favor. A wager. Nothing more.

“I respect the fact you’re trying everything you can to save your club,” I said stiffly. “Even if it does mean working with someone like me.”

Her gaze caught mine and just for a moment, I thought she was going to say?—

But I was wrong. Of course I was.

“I'm tired,” said Lilah shortly, throwing her shoulders back and stepping to the door. “We’ll continue in the morning.”

I nodded reflexively as she reached the door and pulled it open. “Of course. Tomorrow.”

Surely I could find some resolve by then.

But first, I needed to have a bath. A very cold bath.