He thought about it. For the longest time, he’d thought he wanted her back, but lately all his thoughts were focused solely on Charlotte. Wanting her felt different. It wasn’t comfortable, it was fierce and passionate and unknown. He might have kissed Octavia for a long time, slowly, feeling comforted in the moment, but when he kissed Charlotte, it was as if something fierce was awoken inside of him. He didn’t want to wait any longer than he already had. He wanted her with reckless abandon. “You are, for it is true.”
She bared her teeth and stared him down, her dark eyes as cold as November rain. She shook her head slowly and William’s stomach dropped. The thought of her being that disappointed in him made him ashamed still. “If forging an insincere affection with her is your way of healing, then so be it, but do not test my patience. If your goal is to convince me that you are over me, then you are a failure.”
William’s ears burned with anger. He felt the fire rising up and out of him as if he was nothing but a wick. “I am completely healed of you. You are wrong.”
“Really?” she asked. “What if I told you that you can have me? Right now.”
Before he even knew what he was doing, William shook his head, refusing her. “No.”
“No?” she scoffed. “No?” She laughed. “You are stronger than I thought. Are you sure? When I am so willing to give you everything?”
She was eluding to the fact that William and her had never crossed a certain boundary. He refused to adore her as if she was his wife, not until he could promise her the rest of his days. She had not been so faithful to him. Right there in the stable, he had walked in to find her with him, weeks before their wedding. He was still prepared to marry her, because at that time, he thought it to be his fault. He wanted to apologize for not loving her enough or the way she deserved, but with Owen slipping away, she had more important matters to attend to.
All she ever seemed to want was the rush of being made to feel like she was perfect and desirable. William no longer wished to keep up with her because he was starting to realize that women who didn’t even love him treated him better. That was a heartbreaking and yet much needed realization.
“You may leave,” William shouted. “Leave me and never come back. I want nothing to do with you. I will never love you in the way I used to. Not ever again.”
“Fool,” she spat, breaking into his personal space. “You will regret this the next time you realize how lonely you are.” She leaned her face close to his, her expression snake-like and venomous. The door opened. When Charlotte saw them, her smile dropped, and her hands began to shake.
Octavia took one look at him and stormed off, clicking her heeled slippers across the hardwood floor.
ChapterSeven
Charlotte hadn’t expected to find anything worse on the other side of the door. He said he wasn’t a rake, and yet here he was with another woman in the study. He didn’t need Charlotte. It seemed he just needed a warm body. Charlotte entered the room and quickly shut the doors behind her. The room was lined with tall bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. In the center of the room, a heavy brown desk stood, proudly displaying trinkets and trophies near the quill. A large, leather chair sat on the other side, overlooking the room.
“That was Octavia, my former betrothed,” he quickly pointed out.
“That is so much worse. You are behind closed doors with her when you two share such a history?” Charlotte’s voice raised and her chest burned with frustration. “How dare you risk such a scandal in my name? I would be forever mocked should someone find you with another woman. I promise, you would not fare much better.”
“Charlotte,” he snapped sternly. “If you do not wish to be involved in a scandal, then you should never have agreed to a false courtship or seeked out my company in the gardens. We are equally at fault for this.”
“No,” Charlotte said. “I did not invite my lover into solitude. You, however, did.”
“She is not my lover,” he refuted. “She came here to ask for my affections. I declined her advances. Do you wish to know why?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“It is because I have been too busy thinking of you!” Once the words left his mouth, Charlotte was stunned into silence. Her breath hitched at the top of her throat and she stepped back, until her heels hit the door.
“That cannot be true,” she said.
“You were willing to believe it a week ago. Now what changes your mind?”
“It was a joke then. Is it not still a joke? I can hardly believe that you might actually feel affection towards me.”
“Charlotte, do not,” he rolled his eyes. “I am not talking about romance, nor do I crave it. I am simply talking about you. It is you that I crave.”
Charlotte swallowed hard. “I am surprised that you still feel this way.” Part of her had been sure that once their thrill in the gardens was over, he would surely be ready to move on.
“Do you?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “I cannot stop thinking about what might happen if we are alone.”
He shuffled, rubbing a hand across his shoulder. “We are alone.”
“We are,” she said.
“It would not be forward of me to assume that you will want to make the most of it with me?”