Flawless Read Online Free PDF Page B

aware of him again. Tiny flecks of gray at his temple blended with sun-streaked strands, while matched creases on the insides of each brow were more pronounced. She’d never noticed the scar behind his left earlobe, never truly appreciated the shape of his Adam’s apple. Proper dress had always concealed such tiny details, heightening their intimate appeal.
    “What, no more sweet venom?” he asked near her ear.
    “How do you mean?”
    “I’ve been touching you for roughly thirty seconds and you’ve yet to protest.”
    “I never did protest, remember?”
    “Yes, quite the good little wife,” he said genially. “When we lived on the same continent.”
    He ushered her aboard the train. Close confines pressed the front of his body almost indecently against her back. Or maybe that was just more of his baiting. She shivered either way.
    The first-class carriage smelled faintly of leather and strongly of cigars. Sunlight shimmered across carved wood, gleaming brass railings, and beveled, gilt-trimmed mirrors. Richly upholstered benches faced each other along the right bank of windows. Three double-wide sleeping berths stretched along the left, their fine white coverlets peeking from behind parted, dark blue velvet curtains.
    Viv stood in the center aisle. She hadn’t thought to find such sumptuous amenities, nor so few people. Well-dressed men read newspapers, with tumblers of liquor at their fingertips. The only two women in the carriage sat together,their coiffed heads angled over a fashion catalogue. The contrast between the glut of passengers outside and the calm decorum of the carriage left her light in the head.
    “Only the best for the world’s wealthiest colonists.” Miles’s murmur sounded equally derisive and bored.
    “Then we’re in the wrong car.”
    “Because you’re no longer a well-heeled Christie?”
    “No,” Viv said. “Because I am no colonist. I have no intention of staying here a day longer than necessary.”
    They took seats across from one another. Miles’s long legs brushed her skirts, but she was ready for him this time. No flinching. His old patterns were remarkably unchanged. Taunt. Tease. Unnerve. Until she was so topsy-turvy that his certainty was all she could cling to.
    She knew how to fight back now. By ignoring him, to start.
    After the whistle bellowed again, the conductor shouted, “All aboard.” The wheels squealed and the train car jerked.
    So strange to think that she would’ve remained in London had he been humorless, ignorant, physically repellant—an arranged marriage without complications. She would’ve endured no disappointment when Miles drank a sailor’s ration or smoked like a Bowery chimney, nor would memories of mutual passion haunt their shared past. But despite his disheveled clothing, he held himself as every inch the fine gentleman and could produce a flash flood of charisma.
    That he could charm every other female with the sameprecision made her stomach burn. And after what Viv witnessed on the morning after the Saunders’ gala, she’d been forced to admit that she could no longer rely on him. Not even for discretion.
    He lit a cigar. “You’re staring.”
    As the station slowly crept out of sight, Viv forced herself to confront him directly. “Why are you here? I can understand why you’d attend the reading of the will. That could’ve meant easy money.”
    “Is that what you’d expected?”
    “Maybe,” she said softly. “But you should’ve stated your intentions, rather than trying to unsettle me.”
    “Did I? Unsettle you, that is?”
    “You know you did.”
    “Frankly, someone needed to get a jump on this two-year contract.”
    She frowned. “When did you arrive?”
    “Early January.”
    “But the war was on!”
    “It hadn’t been when I departed England. A lot can change on that blasted long journey.” His expression hardened. “Besides, I had no intention of being the one left behind this time.”
    Viv didn’t reveal what