The Persuasion of Molly O'Flaherty (3 page)

I hadn’t even thought that far ahead—that he must be staying here in London, that all of my regular haunts might be extra haunted.

And now he was making me feel like I needed to hide in my own city—
damn him!

My anger crystallized into something hard and cool. “Thank you, Hugh,” I said calmly. “I so appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

He gave me a small smile, the kind that could easily be called smug.

I laid a hand on his forearm. “Do you mind getting me another drink? The dancing overheated me.”

“Of course.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek, a gesture that felt oddly proprietary. I clenched my teeth together but made no reaction until he walked away, and then I gave the flagstones one hard stomp under my dress, like a little girl throwing a tantrum.

I didn’t want to be kissed, I didn’t want to be coddled, I didn’t want to marry Hugh and I didn’t want Silas to be here. I stomped my foot one last time, shook my shoulders to rid myself of the rest of my anger, and then stepped back into the ballroom, my face schooled into a placid mask.

I would find Silas. I would tell him to leave. And that would be the end of it. The end of my thrumming pulse and the end of the balled need in the pit of my stomach.

The night had grown late enough that some of the more unique elements of the Baron’s parties were beginning to show. Skin uncovered, hair unbound. Dancing turning to kissing, kissing to fondling. I used to thrive in the midst of this, I used to be the princess of this scene, but now it merely irritated me. All these people basking in their frivolity, their escapism, and me stuck with my powerless, joyless future.

I pushed past them all until I reached the end of the ballroom, where I’d last seen Silas. I couldn’t find him, and for a moment, I thought perhaps he’d left, and my heart soared at the same time as it split apart and withered.

“—Provence is always beautiful, although not as beautiful as you, darling.”

I froze. And turned.

And right behind me, surrounded by a group of young tittering women that I didn’t know, was Silas.

From this vantage, I could see the way his dinner jacket stretched across his wide shoulders. The way it tapered into his lean hips, hips that had once dug into my thighs, hips that I had bitten and licked and tickled. I could see where the smooth skin of his neck met the dark brown of his hair. I could see the angle of his cheek as he turned to survey the dance floor. His cheek was dusted ever so faintly with stubble, which was unusual for him, and unfortunate for me, because it only highlighted those high cheekbones and the square-carved symmetry of his jaw.

I swallowed. It didn’t matter how square his jaw was or how delicious that neck would taste against my tongue. He was not welcome here.

I strode forward and touched his shoulder, opening my mouth to speak the words, but then he spun and his eyes were so goddamn blue. His eyebrows lifted as if he were about to grin that beautiful, terrible grin, and instead of speaking, I raised my hand and hit him across the face as hard as I could.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Molly slapped me. I deserved it, for one, and for another, the look we’d exchanged on the ballroom floor earlier had not boded well for our reunion. Not because she’d looked angry when our eyes met, but because she’d looked hurt.

What was surprising about the slap, however, was
my
reaction. I’d never been a man who’d liked things rough. I liked things pleasant and fun and easy. But in those three days I’d spent with Molly last year, something had happened. I had been fiercer and rougher with her than I had been with anyone ever before. And she—she had let me do things I would have never thought Molly O’Flaherty capable of letting be done to her.

And so when her palm sent fire stinging across my cheek, my dick thickened and my stomach tightened and something like a growl came out of my chest. And before I knew it, I was hauling her away from the crowd, my fingers wrapped around her wrist, the soles of her dancing shoes hissing against the polished wood as I pulled and she fought.

“Let
go
,” she snarled, and since we had reached my destination—a small curtained nook near the foyer—I obeyed.

She crammed herself into the corner, silk bunching around her legs, and I yanked the curtains shut.

“How dare you—” she started, and then I strode forward and sealed my mouth over hers, swallowing her words along with the sigh that followed, a sigh that was anger and pain and surrender all in one.

Her mouth tasted like champagne and cinnamon, her lips were soft—softer than I remembered—but warm. When I parted them, her tongue was a slide of silk and heat, a sensation that went straight to my cock. It throbbed for that tongue, for that hot mouth. It wanted to violate her…again and again and again.

Molly’s face tilted up to mine, exposing her throat, and I don’t know how my hand found it, just that it did. And my hand caressed the smooth white column of her neck before I cupped her nape to keep her face tight to my own.

She pulled back, gasping, her breaths forcing her tits against her corset. I was so fucking hard right then, I swore I could feel every beat of my pulse in my dick.

“Don’t touch me,” she managed, trying to catch her breath. Her pupils were wide black pools and her lips were swollen. I dropped my hand from her neck.

I had no idea why I had dragged her off like a caveman or why I’d felt the need to brand her with such a possessive kiss. It had come from some dark place inside of me that I was unfamiliar with, despite the fact I’d seen it last year when I’d been with Molly. It had laid dormant since, but now that I was with her again, now that I had those pert, small breasts in front of me and all that scarlet, silken hair, and that adorable smattering of freckles across her nose—it flared back to life, roaring.

Take her,
it urged.
Use her.

Love her.

I shook it off. Donned the charming Silas mask everyone knew and loved. “Darling, I am so sorry. I simply couldn’t help myself; you are such a rare vision tonight.” I grinned at her, reaching out to run my thumb along her lower lip, but she swatted me away.

“Don’t call me darling,” she spat. “And don’t pull that playboy shit on me. We both know better.”

The dark thing reared its head again. “We do know better, don’t we? How many times did you let me come in your ass, Mary Margaret O’Flaherty? And how many times on your face? How many times did you let me spank you until you were begging for more? Begging for me to ram my—”

“Stop,” she said, her voice shaking. Her jaw was set, but her eyes glittered, unshed tears turning the bright blue eyes into dark sapphires. “Just stop.”

I looked at her—really looked at her. At the delicate swoop of her nose and the fine china of her skin under her freckles. At the dark smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well in months, and at the angular dip of her collarbone. At the frail curve of her shoulders.

“You’ve lost weight,” I said quietly, and the dark thing in me was pacing and angry. Not at her, but at
myself
. I felt the unaccountable urge to find some food and make her eat it in front of me.
She’s your responsibility
, the dark thing said.
She is the woman you love, the woman you should be serving. The woman you should be doing everything in your power to care for.

I pushed the voice down, down and away from my mind. “Molly,” I tried again. “I’m so sorry. May we start over?”

She cleared her throat, not meeting my eyes. “I think you should leave.”

“Leave the Baron’s?”

She took a breath and then lifted her gaze, firm and still wet with tears. “No. Leave London.”

Something jagged sliced through my chest. Jagged and cold.

“We ended badly,” she continued, “but I see now that it was for the best. You and me—what we had—it wasn’t real. It was only three days, and Silas, we know better than to believe in love. Whatever we said to each other, whatever we promised each other, it was delirium brought on by good sex and nothing more. And you did us both a favor by dispelling that delirium as quickly as possible.”

The cold, jagged slice went deeper. “Dispelling it by fucking Mercy, you mean,” I said hollowly.

She hesitated, her throat bobbing ever so slightly, a tiny tremor in her chin. “Yes,” she said after a minute. “By fucking Mercy.”

We stared at each other again.

“Molly—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t. Just—whatever you were here to prove, you’ve proven it, okay? And I wish that I could rage at you, I wish that I could rain hellfire on your head, but I can’t. Not tonight. You’ve won, Silas. Now take pity on me and leave. I have too much going on in my life to expend the effort it would take to hate you.”

I felt completely sliced in two now, bleeding and severed. I had done this, I had earned this apathetic defeated tone, with my own weakness and cowardice last year. But tonight wasn’t supposed to be about last year. It was supposed to be about a fresh start, a straightforward agreement.

Just say what you came here to say, you idiot.
“Molly,” I said, as contritely and also as charmingly as I could. “I came here to help you. Not to fight you.”

She lifted an eyebrow. She didn’t believe me, which was fair, I supposed, given our history.

I went on. “Julian told me about the board and their decision to make you marry.”

She sighed, making a yes…
and?
gesture with her hand.

“And I came back from France because I want to help you.”

“Silas,” she said, “you can’t help. No one can. I’ve seen every solicitor in London and there’s nothing to be done. Their decision is in no way illegal. They have every right to sell their shares if they so choose, and even though using that to force me into marriage feels like blackmail, legally, it is not.”

“I wasn’t talking about solicitors, Mary Margaret,” I said softly. “I was talking about me. Me and you. I came here to marry you.”

Her mouth fell open into a small
O
, and the glimpse of her pearl-white teeth and pink tongue reminded me how stiff my erection still was, how much my skin still burned to touch hers.

“You want to
marry
me?” she asked disbelievingly. “Why?”

Because I love you.

Because I can’t stop thinking about you.

Because I’ve found heaven, and it’s you and your perfect mouth and your perfect pussy.

“Because I have a proposition for you,” I said, still friendly, still smiling, still all business. “I can marry you, so you can satisfy the board’s demands, and then I will never, ever interfere in your running of the company or allow the board to use me to coerce you in any way—even if we have to playact at me taking charge, I never will interfere. And then you give me what I want. A transaction. No emotions, no entanglements, simply an exchange.”

“Exchange? Exchange for what?” Her tone was still doubtful, still incredulous. I knew that what I was about to say next would not repair that in any way.

I gave her the most dimpled and handsome smile I could muster.

“For a child.”

Her skin went even paler than normal, chalk-white against the sandy ecru of her freckles. “A baby,” she said, her voice devoid of any affect or feeling. “A…child.”

“A human baby. Yes.”

She blinked. Stared at me. Like she’d never heard of babies before.

“You want a baby,” she said, her face slowly changing from flatly pale to flushed and suspicious. “You want to marry me so that…what? So that we have children together?”

“Yes.”

She spun on her heel, realized she was facing a wall and then spun back. “Have you gone mad?”

“It’s been a while since I checked, buttercup.”

She didn’t even crack a smile at my response. She stepped forward, her cheeks flaming scarlet. “Are you joking, then? Is this some sort of elaborate prank?”

“My offer is as serious as sin, Molly. I’m not insane and I’m not joking.”

She came closer, so close I could smell her again, spices and the clean, flowery smell of her hair. “Then how
dare you
,” she seethed. “How dare you come here after what you did and presume to think that I could ever—
ever
—entertain the idea of being bound to you. How dare you think that I would debase myself enough to marry you? To carry your fucking
child
?”

Her volume had risen with her color, and I was certain people on the other side of the curtain could hear her. She was magnificent right now, her hands balled into fists in her skirt, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, her slender frame visibly shaking with anger.

I hadn’t expected her to hit me and I hadn’t expected my very physical (and deeply wrong) response to her striking me—but this? This bone-rattling, blood-boiling rage?

This I had expected.

“I know we have a history—” I started.

“A
history
?” she shrieked. “
A history?
Is that what you call it? You told me you cared about me, Silas, you told me that you wanted me and me alone and that you were done being with other women. You saw me
crying
! I told you…” She faltered and trailed off, her gaze breaking away from mine, her thin arms wrapping themselves around her body. “I told you I loved you.”

She didn’t have to say any more. We both knew what had happened next.

“I won’t try to defend myself,” I said quietly. “I don’t have any reasons or excuses except that I’m a loathsome troll.”
And that I was scared to death of the way that you made me feel.

Of the way you still make me feel.

“But I don’t think we should let this bad blood keep us from a mutually beneficial arrangement. You need a husband to appease the board, and I can be that husband, just for appearances’ sake. We won’t have to live as man and wife, and I won’t ever involve myself in your business. It will be like we aren’t even married, and then the board will have lost that particular bit of leverage over you.”

“We won’t have to live as man and wife…except you want a baby,” Molly pointed out. Irritation and hurt still laced her words. “So you’ll get to marry me and fuck me…and I am supposed to be grateful for it? For your charity?”

God, when she put it that way, it did sound terrible. “This isn’t charity, darling, this is a mutually beneficial business arrangement. You need a husband. I want a family.”

“And why do you want a family so badly, anyway?” she demanded, arms still crossed and eyebrow raised.

I didn’t have a ready answer to that, not because I couldn’t name all the reasons why I wanted one, but because it just seemed so…apparent. So obvious.

Who didn’t want a family?

Molly. That’s who.

I gestured to the curtain, where a chink in the fabric revealed a whirling tableau of dancing, drinking and sex. “Is this really all you want your life to be? Meaningless fucking and too much wine? You don’t ever think about your future—about settling down and being content? You don’t ever want to experience the kind of pure, unconditional love that comes with a family?”