10

“Where are you going?” Cedric asked as he watched her, although he made no attempt to go after her.

She couldn’t lose her temper again. She wouldn’t, Anna thought as she turned around to look at him again. “I need to leave. Go home,” she replied.

The Duke was standing in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted to one side. It was a relaxed, casual pose, and yet the way he looked at her was anything but casual. The deep midnight of his eyes burned and he radiated a subtle, sensual energy that made the air around him crackle.

He looked like a man who’d never heard the word ‘no’ in all his life. Unluckily for him, ‘no’ was the only word she had.

“There's no reason why I should stay,” Anna clasped her shaking hands together in an effort to still them. “I’m not marrying you.”

His gaze flickered, his mouth curving slightly, and she had the disturbing thought that far from putting him off, her insistence was only inciting him further.

“But you haven’t heard my proposal yet,” he said mildly. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“I don’t need to hear it. I already know that my answer will be no.”

“Of course. But you can hardly tell your father that you heard me out when you haven’t, in fact, heard me out, Anna.”

Oh, that was right, her father. The money. Treatments… Anna swallowed, fighting a sudden wave of stupid panic. This was madness. Logic was the answer to this mess, not the wild swing of her emotions. She had to get herself under control and stop listening to her gut.

“Fair enough.” She tried to sound as level as possible. “Let’s hear your proposal, then.”

He didn’t say anything though, his gaze holding hers, and she could feel the air between them thicken again, a charge building like static. Why was it that every time she looked at him, all she could think about was how he would taste? How hot his mouth would be on hers? How wild and hungry for him she could get if she let herself…?

He smiled lazily, as if he could read her every thought. “Some refreshments first, I think.”

Anna opened her mouth to tell him that she didn’t want any refreshments, but he’d already turned to the door, moving over to it with that easy, athletic grace that she found hard not to notice. Pulling it open, he stepped outside for a couple of moments, and she heard him murmur something to someone outside. Then he returned, shutting the door behind him.

“I was just going to say that I don’t want anything,” she said.

“You’re assuming the refreshments are for you.” He strolled closer, loose and easy as a panther on the prowl. “Perhaps they’re for me. Perhaps I need some liquid courage in order to ask you to be my wife.”

A man less in need of liquid courage she couldn’t imagine. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides as he came even closer, stalking her, and her heartbeat was rocketing around in her chest like a bird desperate to find its way out of its cage. She was afraid. Of him and what he could unleash in her. What he’d already unleashed in her. If he got any closer… Stop. You’re letting your emotions do your thinking for you. Again.

Anna gritted her teeth and ignored her frantic heartbeat, shoved away her fear. She was cool, collected and in control. She was not the girl who’d hurt her father. She was the woman who would fix him.

“Your Grace…” she began, pleased with how uninflected her voice was.

“Oh, no, not “Your Grace”.” Mercifully he stopped a couple of paces away from her. “My father liked an honorific, but I’m not one for formality.” His smile reminded her of a very wicked, very hungry wolf. “As you’ve probably noticed by now.”

His shirt was open at the neck, exposing the strong, tanned column of his throat, and found herself wondering what his skin would taste like if she kissed him there. And what he would do if she did…

“I don’t care what you’d prefer to be called,” she said. “I’d prefer not to call you anything at all. Just say what you have to say and then I can go home.”

He stared at her a moment longer, like a predator deciding whether or not to pounce, and her pulse started to climb, excitement and a strange, fearful anticipation winding tightly around her.

But just then a knock came on the door, mercifully catching the Duke’s attention, and as he turned and moved to open it Anna felt as if she’d earned a reprieve of some kind.

A member of staff came in carrying a tray in one hand and a bottle in the other. He deposited the tray on the coffee table by the couch, put the bottle beside it, then left. The tray contained a selection of cheeses and crackers, two long-stemmed glasses, and a steaming cup of tea.

The Duke moved over to the tray and picked up the tea. “There is champagne, of course, but I thought you might prefer something a little more calming.”

He carried it over to the small table that stood next to the armchair closest to the fireplace and set it down.

“Please. Sit.”

Anna didn’t want to sit. And she didn’t want tea. What she wanted was to walk out of the door and flee back to the safety of her home, or anywhere really as long it was away from his disturbing presence. But that would be to admit he affected her, and, since he’d already overwhelmed her the two times they'd met already, she decided there would not be a third time.

She was stronger than that.

So she moved over to the armchair and sat down, pointedly ignoring the tea. He gave her an amused look, as if he’d expected exactly that, then sat down in the armchair opposite, long legs stretched out in front of him.

“So,” he said. “My proposal. Haerton, as you know, is my family estate and, as I’m the only child, it should automatically come to me following my father’s death. However, a couple of codicils in his will have come to light and it has become apparent that I can only inherit after two stipulations have been fulfilled. The first being that I must be married.”