Chapter 174

• With the sun clearing the horizon, he thought how absurdly innocent she looked, her face free of any make-up, her lips parted and trembling. She was wearing pink this morning, and the clinging fabric of her vest exposed her nipples in minute detail. He doubted she was wearing a bra. In fact, he was sure she wasn’t. And against his will—much against his will, he told himself grimly—he felt an unfamiliar hardening between his legs.
• She turned now, evidently intent on putting some space between them, but he couldn’t let her go like this. ‘Wait,’ he said, his fingers circling her upper arm as she would have hurried away. ‘We need to talk, Elizabethla. Or are you going to continue with this pretence that you and I had never met before last evening?’
• ‘I didn’t start the pretence. You did,’ Elizabeth countered, looking pointedly at his hand gripping her arm, and then up again into his dark face.