Page 81 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
But when he heard the knock on his door, his heart hit the front of his chest, and his cock hardened.
She had come.
‘Come in.’
The door opened and Mary slipped inside, her face a bright shade of white.
‘Your Grace...’
‘Call me West.’
‘West,’ she said. ‘I hope I have not misconstrued your invitation.’
‘You know you have not,’ he said.
And still he waited. There behind his desk, his correspondence untouched in front of him, he waited.
She moved into the room, and he was struck by her beauty.
He gave himself full permission to gaze upon her in a way he had not before.
He was playing a dangerous game.
No. He had gone beyond danger.
He had passed the threshold. He was, in fact, everything he had ever loathed.
He was a man disregarding the needs of somebody else, the potential concerns and cares that he should have for someone else, to seek his own pleasure.
He was a man who was far closer to his father than he had ever wished to be.
But he had failed. His method for living had failed him.
Jane was dead.
He had not protected her. He had not protected his children. He had not protected the babe that had fallen into his care.
So what good did it do? To deny himself? What good did it do?
What good could it ever do?
Perhaps those were the questions of a selfish man. Perhaps this was the justification of a man who simply wanted, above all else, to have what he desired. After two years of not knowing a woman’s touch.
He would love to say that was why.
It was not so generic. If it were, he would’ve been at a brothel.
It was her.
She inflamed him. And his every base desire.
But she was not his wife, and she was not a lady.
She had come to his study, in spite of the fact that she knew full well what he was offering, and what he was not.
He did not even have to make a distinction. That this would only be an affair, that marriage could never be.
They both knew that. There was no use insulting either of them by bringing it into the conversation. He was a duke.
