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

All at once the fury in her gaze turned into something else—anguish and a terrible pity. “But you do have a choice, don’t you see that?” Her voice was hoarse. “You can choose to stop letting your childhood dictate your own heart to you. You can choose to let that go. You might not choose me, I can understand that. But at least you can choose our baby.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “There’s always love left, Cedric. It doesn’t run out, no matter what you think.” 


Dimly, somewhere inside him, there was pain, a brief, flickering agony. “You’re wrong,” he said harshly. “Because if love didn’t run out there would have been some left for me. And there wasn’t, Anna. There was nothing at all left for me.” 


“Oh…Cedric…” she whispered brokenly, reaching up to him. But he let her go and stepped away before she could touch him. Before anything about her could touch him. 


Then he turned on his heel and walked out. 


48