Page 44 of Cocky August Rake

So, she decided, she wouldn’t.

“Of course, my lord,” she said with her most disarming smile. “Follow me.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, as though he suspected a trap.

Perhaps he ought to have.

Rose led him through the side corridor and up the private stairs to a different receiving room than the one she’d shown him earlier. This one featured deep blue silk and gold trim, the signature chaise before the fire and, of course, a decanter waiting on a polished table.

After a moment’s hesitation, Lord Reginald followed her inside. Rose shut the door behind them.

He turned at once.

“I will continue to manage The Domus for the amount of time promised.”

Rose tilted her head. “Yes?”

“But I must insist on one condition.”

Something in his voice made her stomach tighten.

“What condition?”

His gaze held hers.

“You will not receive clients.”

THIS MAY BE A PROBLEM

He had noticed her the instant she entered the lounge. Dark sultry hair teasing one shoulder. Ivory silk meant to make a man forget his own name.

The sight of her had struck him with a force he wasn’t sure how to manage, exactly how he’d felt at that ball last spring.

He admired and was attracted to women. Several, in fact. He was not insensible to beauty, nor had he spent the last decade untouched by ordinary human desire.

But those feelings had been manageable. Contained.

They were nothing like this quick, hot pull in his blood when he looked at Rose Darling. Nothing like the sharp need to step between her and the devil who’d decided his money ought to make her available. And the unease he’d felt when he first understood who she was had hardened into fury.

He couldn’t bear the thought of other men touching her.

And that… posed a problem.

Several, in fact.

He was her employer. Temporarily, perhaps, but still her employer.

And Rose Darling was a courtesan, a thought that ought to have cooled him.

There was nothing cool about his thoughts now.

His gaze dropped to the line of her throat. The gold ribbon circling it. The soft rise and fall of her breasts.

Reginald dragged his attention back to her face.

Miss Darling narrowed her dark eyes at him, her head tilted slightly, her smile not reaching them. “I believe we were clear on this point, m’lord. That is how I earn my living.”

Reginald ran a hand through his hair. “You will be compensated accordingly.”