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

He felt real and solid and warm and lax. The agitation had gone, as if some poison had been drained out of him and the hollow that had been left in its absence had been filled up with the feel of Anna's body gripping his, her heat and her scent, the sound of his name in her smoky, sexy voice. 


His hand tightened in her hair. She was right, of course. She was right about all of it, he could see that now, and perhaps part of him had known all along. That in being so obsessed with having everything Vincent should have had, he’d kept his brother alive. Just as his father had in many ways. But his brother wasn’t alive. He was gone. And his only crimes were to have been born after Cedric and then to die before him. 


So much anger over one dead boy. A boy he might even have liked if he’d gotten to know him. And as for his parents, well, maybe she was right. Maybe the fault lay with them, rather than a failing in himself. 


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