“You know, you're not so bad when you try to be nice." "It's not easy." He looked down as he brought the end of the towel around his hip. "Damn thing's pink."The corner of her mouth twitched. "You're man enough to carry it off. Or are you afraid you aren't pretty in pink?""Baby, I'm so pretty in pink, I'm worried you won't be able to help yourself.”

“The tide will turn, Miss Willow." A smile lurked around his mouth, but no, that was not possible, that the earl of Tiern-Cope should smile, and at her."It hasn't yet.""You may find the sea casts you onto the shores of paradise." His voice was low and soft, and Olivia felt her heart stir at the sound. "Or through the very gates of hell.""So it might." She gave herself a mental shake. Lord Tiern-Cope could not possibly be flirting with her. Impossible. "But that won't stop me from embracing this moment in all its beautiful perfection.""With but one flaw, Miss Willow.""Whatever could that be?""Don't even try to tell me I don't spoil the present perfection of your moment." The corner of his lip twitched and then gave up. He smiled, and she, perverse creature that she was, felt like she'd been tossed off a cliff with him standing at the bottom to catch her.”

“He's not here. The Black Earl.""I know.""So, for the moment, we are safe from that madness.""I am always safe with you. No matter what happens, no matter what, I am safe with you and not with anyone else."He inhaled. "How long have you been seeing the Black Earl?""A few days now." She bit her lower lip. "You?""Since I came to Pennhyll." He walked to the fireplace. She turned sideways on her chair, but all he did was stare at the fire, hands clasped and pressed against the small of his back. The fingers of one hand clenched and unclenched. He turned. "What of me? How long have I been in your head?""Before the Black Earl, I think. Only I didn't know they weren't just dreams.""More and more intimate." His mouth thinned. "I confess to once or twice in my life imagining making love to a woman I admire. God knows you're a pretty woman, but I don't just imagine being with you. When I make love to you, you're not thoughts and images in my head, you're in my arms, real and warm. I can taste you and breathe in the scent of you, feel your skin against mine. We've never made love, but I've been inside you. Jesus, Olivia, you know I have."She nodded."Hell, for all we know it's possible I've made a child in you." His eyes pinned her. "Did anything like that happen between you and Andrew?""No.""You sound certain.""I am.""You never saw the Black Earl until I was at Pennhyll?""Never.""Andrew never came to you in—as I have. As we have together?""No. I never thought of him that way.""You do me, though."She nodded.”

“His eyes darkened. "You're in pain, aren't you?" He touched her temple, and she leaned her head against his hand."Yes." The inside of her head felt stuffed full like an iron band slowly tightened around her brain."Still having bad dreams?""Nightmares." She put her palms flat to his chest and spoke to the buttons on his coat. "Always the same. A face looming over me. I can't breathe. I feel helpless. And frightened.""Hush, my heart." His fingertips nudged her chin up so that she looked into his face. "Hush."She leaned against him. "Why can't I remember?""It isn't time, yet." His hands landed on her shoulders.”

“Come here into the warmth," he said easily. He reached for her, taking her hand and pulling her toward him. "I've been waiting for you." He stroked her hair, shifting a bit to let the light fall on her. "For a very long time."She, too, reached for him, following a line in the air along the length of the forming scar that marred his chest. A corona flared around him until she moved past the point where the sunlight hit her eyes. She stared at his chest, at the gashed and ill-healed flesh, and he, seeing her attention, took her hand and brought her fingers to his mouth. She felt the warmth of his breath, the pressure of his lips, soft and warm. "I wish you had never been wounded," she said. "Even though it brought you home to me.”

“What do you want most in life, Miss Willow?""For my mother to be well.""Imagine you had that." His fingers rested on the nape of her neck. "What do you want for yourself?""Peace on earth?""Come, Miss Willow. I want a serious answer from you. Better yet, a selfish one." Though she stood inches from him, she seemed not to notice their proximity. As a grown man, he could control his base urges. He'd done so for years. He would do better by her than his father and brothers. Slowly, he lifted his fingers from the back of her neck. His palm took their place.Head tilted, she considered him. "You'll laugh.""Try me.""A family. Children.""What? Not thousands of pounds at your disposal? A mansion? Jewels to dazzle you? Servants at your beck and call?"She rested the side of her head against the doorway and looked at him from beneath her thick red lashes. "I always thought I'd be married one day with half a dozen children at my knees." Her eyes danced again, and for a moment, the space of a breath, he was caught like a fly in a web. "I was right about the children at least, though I was sure they'd be mine.""Are you sorry?" What soft skin she had, such a tender nape."That I'm not a wife and mother?""Mm." He imagined her with a husband, with children. His children. He saw her gravid by his doing, and him cradling an infant in his arms, the one he'd made in her. He could give her what she wanted, and, of course, he could imagine the act of making her so.”

“Pleasure eased the edges of Tiern-Cope's face, and with his mouth curved in a smile he resembled his brother more than ever. But the eyes gave him away. They were cold, a lifeless, icy blue. He grasped the woman's hips, and this woman who had Olivia's copper hair and even her features, cried out in a low, guttural moan of pleasure incapable of containment. "I am coming," he said. He opened his eyes again, looking at her, and she wanted to weep from the heartbreak.His hips came up, and he gasped and said, "My heart. My love. I'm coming."She slid away, down and away, and into the safety of Sebastian's embrace. His arms enfolded her, warm and tight. Hurry, she thought.”