Page 26 of The Marquess Match (Love’s a Game #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
T he next time they met at the club, there was no discussion. It was as if they’d been drawn together by an unspoken pull that was impossible to resist. And just like before, it had ended in tangled sheets and breathless surrender. Words had been scarce, their bodies speaking first—only afterward, when the heat had settled, did conversation begin.
Ash held Clare close, their bodies still tangled in the aftermath of their passion. Her skin was warm against his, her breath slow and steady. He traced his fingers along the curve of her back, feeling the delicate rise and fall of her breaths. He should have been content, but a question burned inside him, one he could no longer silence.
“Why did you give yourself to him?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Clare stiffened slightly, and he felt her exhale against his chest. “Marsden?” She let out a breathless laugh, though there was no humor in it. “I’ve asked myself that same question a thousand times.”
Ash turned his head, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You must have known the risk. What would happen if you were wrong about him?”
“Oh, I knew.” She tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes shadowed by something distant, something painful. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? What’s done is done.”
“It matters to me.” He tightened his arms around her. “I’d like to know.”
She sighed, shifting onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “The short answer? Because of my mother.”
Ash frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Clare let out a tired chuckle. “And I didn’t either. Not back then. Not when I was eighteen and desperate. If only I could go back and tell that na?ve, frightened girl a thing or two.”
He watched as she chewed on her bottom lip, eyes lost in memory. “What would you tell her?” he whispered, running a slow, soothing hand along her hip.
She swallowed, her voice quieter now. “I’d tell her not to be so desperate to get away from Mother that she fell for the first person who showed her the slightest hint of affection.”
Ash felt something tighten in his chest. The words hit too close, striking a part of him he had long buried. He would have done anything to escape his father, only his father hadn’t cared what he did. He had only ever cared about his grandson, his grandson who would never be born.
“I suppose that sounds insane to you,” Clare finished.
Ash shook his head, the ghosts of the past creeping in. “No,” he said solemnly. “That doesn’t sound insane to me at all.”
Clare turned to him, brows lifting in question. “No?”
He gave a sad smile. “In fact, I understand all too well.”
Her gaze searched his, curiosity obviously warring with something deeper. “How could you?”
He exhaled heavily, brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek. “Because I did the opposite. A thing I was only able to do because I’m a man. Instead of trying to escape into marriage, I escaped by refusing to commit to one.”
Recognition flickered in Clare’s eyes, the understanding settling between them like a quiet, unspoken truth. She nodded slowly. “We’re not so different, are we?”
Ash traced the line of her jaw, the softness of her lips. “No. We aren’t,” he whispered.
She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes, and for the first time in years, he felt something shift inside him. A crack in the walls he had so carefully built.
He had spent so long running, hiding behind meaningless affairs and empty nights, believing love was nothing more than a trap. But here, in the dim glow of dawn, with Clare in his arms, he wondered if he had been wrong. If, perhaps, love wasn’t the prison he had feared—but the key to setting him free.