The Broken Duke by Jess Michaels

Author:Jess Michaels [Michaels, Jess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Passionate Pen LLC
Published: 2017-09-11T18:30:00+00:00

Adelaide lay on her side facing Graham. He was sprawled on his stomach, his face turned toward her, gentle in sleep. She was doing a math problem in her head. A calculation of how deep a mistake she had made tonight. Graham had spent inside of her. Not a problem, perhaps, for a woman like Lydia Ford. A woman like that could leverage a child into a windfall from a man like this. He’d pay to protect her child. She would go on as before.

No one would be hurt.

Only Lydia Ford didn’t exist. Lady Adelaide did. And if her math problem wasn’t correct, she would end up swollen with a child, ruined forever, perhaps out on the street if her aunt reacted as poorly as she had the last time Adelaide had fallen. And that time it had been private. Easy to hide.

Only the math in her head told her that a child was not very likely. So perhaps there was nothing to fear.

Except that she had gone too far with Graham tonight. Not because of making love. Because he had given her so much of his soul. Lydia. He’d given Lydia his soul.

Adelaide reached out and traced a small, pale scar on Graham’s ribcage near his back. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake as she stared at the mark that proved the pain he had confessed to her hours before.

She rose and quietly dressed herself as she continued to stare at the remarkable, wonderful man on the bed. The one she was lying to. She had to tell him the truth. That was clear.

Only she didn’t know how. He would be devastated when he realized the wallflower he thought nothing of was the one who had seduced his secrets from him. And what of the nights they’d spent together? He was a decent man, an honorable man. If he thought there was a chance she could be breeding, he might even force a marriage.

Her heart thrilled at that briefly, but she shoved it aside. She would never force him to marry her. So perhaps she could wait. Wait until after her courses came. Then she could tell him without hesitation there was no child.

And whatever consequences that came after, she would bear. He would hate her and she’d take that. She’d earned it, after all. And she’d still know that she’d had him, if only briefly.

If only because of a lie.

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