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Aurelia

I hadn’t been playing her for a fool.

I was willing to walk away from Selene Krane.

If I’d known I’d be so attracted to her, I would have orchestrated this differently, approached her in an entirely different way.

There was no way she could know the truth about me and still want to be around me.

So when she caught my sleeve in her slender fingers, I was genuinely surprised.

“Wait,” she breathed.

I could see she was thinking, and I would put money on the idea that if she were interrupted, she would become beautifully flustered.

And in another moment, if I got another moment like this, I would revel in ruffling her feathers, in making it feel so good that she’d …

Well, I was getting ahead of myself.

The breath she took was shaky.

“I need help.”

For a moment, I thought she might pause, might force me to ask her what she needed my help for, but she forged bravely ahead, and the desire brewing in me shifted shape, out of pure lust and into something else, something deeper.

“My parents are rather old-fashioned. I suppose you know that?”

I nodded.

I knew it, and that they were ready for her to pair.

They’d been searching out a spouse for her, high and low.

Ancient old men, from what I’d heard, as they valued a fortune.

“They believe the bloom has gone off the rose, as it were,” she added.

I frowned.

The idea that the vivacious woman in front of me had lost her bloom was preposterous.

The Kranes did not see their daughter clearly, that much was obvious.

“And they do not seem to understand that while I am technically amenable to men, I do not prefer them.” I rolled my eyes.

She shook her head.

We were in alignment with our disdain for the rather odd point of view.

“I believe that if I do not marry by the end of this season, it’s possible they will disinherit me …” she paused, frowning a little.

“Do you know about the Monas?”

I smiled.

“The Monas is why I chose you.”

Her lips parted, her eyes widening.

I wanted to kiss her so much it was distracting.

“You care for the bookstore?”

A smile came naturally now.

There was no artifice possible when it came to discussing the Monas.

“It is my greatest dream to make the Monas a fixture of Nuva Troi society, and Antiquity Row as a whole an institution.”

Selene bit her bottom lip as she cast her eyes to the sand.

A single tear welled in the corner of one of those glassy green eyes.

She blinked it away.

“They will sell the Monas if I do not pair this season.”

My heart beat in slow motion.

Was she saying what I thought she was?

Suggesting what I thought she might be?

Nothing was ever that easy, ever that simple.

“But they want you to marry rich,” I said.

“That much is obvious from the profile of suitors your mother has compiled.”

Selene smiled.

“True. But my father will decide. And I think he can be convinced. So … Aurelia Hart, will you marry me?”

I was dizzy from the turn this had all taken.

Months of planning, and all it took was one underestimation, one mistake, and instead of all my dreams being shot to the depths of seventeen hells, I was being offered everything I wanted an hour into the con.

“What’s the catch?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.