One Wicked Wish by Anna Campbell

Author:Anna Campbell [Campbell, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anna Campbell
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

When Stella came back into the room, Halston was sitting by the fire with two glasses of champagne set out on the low table in front of him. He’d cleaned himself off, although he hadn’t put his shirt on.

Barely casting him a glance, she tied the belt of her peignoir with what he felt was unwarranted purpose. She didn’t have to tell him that she used the garment as armor.

Damn these unwelcome, disturbing insights. He should be planning the next step in his seduction. “Come and join me,” he murmured.

She didn’t venture closer, and her eyes were wary in a way that they hadn’t been since she’d agreed to become his lover. “I should go.”

Dismayed, he surged to his feet. “You can’t mean that.”

One hand made a bewildered gesture, while the other clasped the neck of her robe high against her throat. There was little trace left of the wanton goddess who had let him take her up against the wall in that monumental explosion of bliss.

He’d broken trust with her, and his inchoate fears of where this liaison might take him dissolved in a flood of excruciating regret. “Stella, forgive me.”

Her eyes remained cool. “There’s nothing to forgive. I was silly to mention things like intimacy and hearts. That wasn’t part of our arrangement. I don’t blame you for feeling hounded. I hadn’t prepared myself for how I’d react when I shared my body with a man again. I’m sorry you’ve taken all this trouble, only for me to spoil everything.”

Dear God, she was blaming herself for the fact that he was a deuced coward. “You haven’t spoiled everything.”

“Yes, I have.” She didn’t go, but nor did she join him. “I saw your face.”

He ground his teeth, cursing himself with every profanity he knew. “Sit down.”

She still didn’t move.

“Please.”

She studied him for a long moment before she stalked across to sink into the chair opposite his. Despite his turmoil, he couldn’t help noting that however often she might call herself a humble companion, humility was a quality foreign to her nature.

“You must have had love affairs that didn’t work out,” she said, still sounding like she talked about buying cabbages, instead of a torrid swiving. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Perhaps it would be the end of the world. At that instant, Halston realized that any opportunity to break away from her and return to the careless sod he’d once been had passed. It had passed back in London.

Now that he’d been inside her, he hadn’t a hope in hell of conducting this love affair as if Stella Faulkner was just another forgettable lover in a long line of forgettable lovers.

He spoke words that he never said to anyone. Words that sent a cold shiver down his spine. “Let me try and explain.”

He hadn’t set out to be changed. Yet already she changed him. God knew where he’d be when she finished with him. Useless to man or beast, he feared.

Stella’s gaze remained watchful. He thought with nostalgia of the glow in her eyes when he’d held her in his arms.

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