RONAN BLACKWELL

The door had barely shut behind her before my hand closed into a fist.

I stood where she had left me, the frame still in my other hand, glass cool against my palm and the chain hanging over my thumb. For a second I did nothing with it. Her scent was still in the room. Not perfume, or not only that. Something softer had come off her skin when the robe slipped, warm and clean and faintly sweet, like orange-flower water warmed against a wrist, with a trace of crushed sweet pea underneath it. The sort of smell that belonged in a drawing room, not in my bedroom at midnight with her lace showing and her pulse jumping under that polite little voice.

I set the frame down harder than I meant to. It struck the dresser and tipped, and I left it there. But the image of her refused to leave with it.

Pale skin above the lace. The soft weight of her tits barely held by something that had no business being called clothing. A narrow waist and then the curve of her hips under the belt she had been fighting with one hand. I had looked. Of course I had looked. My cock had jerked against my trousers like it had never seen a woman before, and the anger that followed only sharpened the urge to put her against the wall.

My hand around that pale slender throat, thumb under her jaw, feeling the race of her pulse while those green eyes pointed somewhere near my face and never quite found me. Pretty, useless eyes. A thin ring of gold around each pupil and no idea what was standing in front of her. I had wanted the poise gone. 

That bred-in calm she wore like another piece of jewellery only made me want to see fear crack through it. I wanted her to understand that the agreement had put her in my house, that the ring on her finger meant I could do whatever I liked to her and there was no one to come save her.

The thought sent a hot, vicious rush through me—the idea of cornering her, claiming every inch of space around her and silencing that soft voice with my hand around her throat until she could barely get any air in.

My cock ached at the image. I dragged a hand through my hair and turned away from the dresser. Wanting to fuck her didn’t mean I had forgotten why she was here. She was in my house now, exactly where I needed her, and that was all that mattered tonight. 

I killed the light and went downstairs. I poured a drink I barely touched and stood at the window until the edge of the want wore down enough to ignore. 

By the time grey morning light spread over Mayfair, I was already at the table when Mrs Hale came in with the coffee. She had run the house for three years and was the only member of staff I was able to fully warm up to. Everyone else got instructions. She got something closer to a conversation, mostly because she never mistook it for friendship.

“You’re early,” she said, setting the pot down.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“The wedding, I expect.”

I looked at my phone. Graham had sent the amended filings sometime after two. “Something like that.”

She poured without asking how I took it. “Mrs Blackwell’s tray went up half an hour ago. Maisie said she was already dressed.”

“She can eat down here.”

Mrs Hale’s mouth twitched, but she did not comment. She moved the toast closer to my hand and glanced towards the hall when the sound reached us both. A cane and a familiar soft voice thanking someone. 

Aurelia came in on Maisie’s arm only as far as the doorway, then let go and found the edge of the rug with her cane. One of the younger staff pulled out a chair for her, and Aurelia smiled towards the sound before thanking the girl by name.

She settled into the chair in an ivory blouse, her hair falling down her back. The softness of her mouth, the green of her eyes and the curves the blouse did very little to hide made her far too easy to look at. Worse, she sat there with her chin lifted as if she had every right to be at my table.

She turned her face towards me with a smile I didn’t trust. “Good morning.”

I left the greeting unanswered as Mrs Hale set a plate in front of her and murmured something about eggs. Aurelia thanked her too, and the sweetness of it scraped at me.

It had to be a performance. Women like her did not survive Victor Marlowe’s house by being soft unless the softness was useful.

Aurelia stayed quiet through most of breakfast before finally speaking.

“I wanted to apologise for last night.” Her fingers rested against the rim of her cup. “Going into your room wasn’t intentional. Bubbles has a habit of deciding doors are suggestions, and I should have waited until you were there before I followed him in. I’m sorry.”

I lowered my phone to the table. “I heard you.”

A hint of colour rose along her throat. “That isn’t the same as believing me.”

“You apologised. Leave it there.”

She went quiet for a moment before the patience left her voice. “If you’d rather I keep to my own floor unless invited, say so. I can manage a rule. What I can’t manage is being accused of something and then treated as though anything I say must be a lie.”

There it was. Not tears or another apology, but the spine beneath all that softness, telling me what she would and would not tolerate before she had spent a full day in my house.

I pushed my chair back, the leg catching against the rug as I rose. Aurelia turned towards the sound, those unfocused green eyes landing somewhere near my chest when I stopped beside her. Close enough to touch.

My fingers curled against my palm as the urge to catch her jaw and tilt that face fully towards me came hard and fast. I hated wanting to know what would happen to all that composure if I put my hands on her, so before I could find out, I turned and crossed the hall without another word.

The car was waiting outside, and by the time we pulled away from the house, I had Graham’s filings open on my phone and London moving past the window.

Neither did much to get the memory of lace, bare skin and Aurelia Marlowe out of my head.