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.” 



A LADY FOR A DUKE

There was something steady about him in general that she liked, an anchor that kept her from floating away in the worst of the storms. Not that there had been many storms. Passion burned in her—she could feel it—and yet gradually she’d started to realise that it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Not when there was Cedric around to take it, channel it, and make it bloom like a firework in the night. 


All the things she’d been afraid of in herself, he liked and actively encouraged. 


“I like you wild,” he’d told her that day, when she’d confessed to him the terrible truth about herself and her temper. And she’d seen nothing but fierce acceptance in his eyes. He’d shown her then, with his hands and his mouth, exactly how accepting he was by stoking that wildness in her and letting it rage out of control. Showing her that there was nothing to be scared of, not with him. 


You can’t go thinking things like that. He might be your lover but he only married you because of a will. 


38