“Any man, you'll soon learn, has an insurmountable need to blame someone else when he is made to look a fool.”

“She had been born for this man, and she had spent so many years trying to accept the fact that he had been born for someone else...”

“It was juvenile, he knew, this need to assign blame, but everyone had a right to childish emotions from time to time, didn't they?”

“When he looked up at Annabel, he was just a man, looking at a woman, praying and hoping that she loved him the way he loved her.”

“Suddenly it was too hard to be in his presence, too painful to know that he would belong to someone else.”

“All—all right," she said, looking dubiously at the chair. "I—um, I need to change, though.""I'll just wait in the hall." He straightened his spine and walked from the room, deciding he was the noblest, most chivalrous, and possibly the most stupid man in all Britain.”

“Daniel held himself very still, waiting for the wave of jealousy that never came. He was furious with the man who’d taken advantage of her innocence, but he did not feel jealous. He did not need to be her first, he realized. He simply needed to be her last. Her only.”