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life would have been like if she’d defied her family and chosen Dane. Still, to take this step—
    â€œGo ahead, Jemma, bolt.”
    His quiet taunt made her angry.
    â€œI’m no coward,” she informed him, pride stiffening her resolve. “I’ve never been a coward.” She’d accepted her fate, made her decisions, and built her life the best she could. No, nothing had been perfect, but she had done her duty, and, to this point, her family name and pride had survived.
    Nor would she run now.
    She walked into the room.

Chapter 5
    D ane almost dropped his jaw when Jemma walked into his bedroom. She was going to go through with it.
    As regal as a princess, she moved right up to the bed and then stopped. Her gaze traveled thoughtfully from the foot to the head. She looked over her shoulder at him, her expressive eyes, with their heavy lashes, shyly seductive, the highlights in her hair red in the candlelight. “Are you ready now or do you—?” She waved a hand.
    He forced himself to breathe. “Or do I what?” he managed to croak out, his body reacting to the hundreds of ideas that leaped to his mind. He took a step back.
    â€œI don’t know. This is your bedroom.”
    Yes, and the one woman he’d always wanted but could not have was now standing in it, apparently prepared to do whatever he asked.
    And the thought scared Dane stiff, in more ways than one!
    Here was the one woman who had made him vulnerable. She’d defeated him in a way he didn’t like to remember. Consequently, he’d spent over a decade proving to himself that he didn’t need anyone.
    He wasn’t one to lie even to himself. He’d always known they would meet again. Every coin that he’d earned, every warehouse he’d filled had all been to prove to her she had married the wrong man. There had even been a time, as he’d faced certain death in a Turkish prison, when the one thing that had given him the will to survive had been his need to have her see him as a successful man.
    Since his return to London, he’d always been a bit on edge, aware that she walked these same streets, that they traveled in some of the same circles. That at any moment he could turn a corner and she would be there.
    But they had not met until tonight.
    And never, not even in his wildest imaginings, could he have anticipated this turn of events.
    Dane didn’t quite know what to do. This was not the Jemma he remembered. Gone was the innocence. For both of them.
    â€œJemma—” he started and stopped, uncertain of what to say. The decent part of him, the gentleman, should send her packing.
    But there was another, darker, side that wanted her. Desperately. Then maybe his soul would find peace.
    She waited, her eyes so wide that they threatened to swallow her face. “You’ll have to help me,” she said hesitantly. “You must tell me what you want me to do.”
    What he wanted her to do?
    His mind reeled at the possibilities. He wanted to know if she still tasted the same when he kissed her. And there were questions that had plagued him: Were her legs as long as he’d always fantasized they were? And what color were her nipples, dark or pale pink? And he had a need to feel the hair at the juncture of her thighs—
    â€œCome here,” he said.
    She bowed her head a moment, as if in silent prayer, and then, squaring her shoulders, she moved to him.
    Dane might have backed down and sent her packing—except for the squaring of the shoulders. The action pricked his conscience and made him angry. She was not the injured party. He was.
    She stopped in front of him.
    He said, “Kiss me.”
    Jemma hesitated, her gaze shifting away from him as if to distance herself from this place and this moment. She drew a deep breath of fortitude.
    Dane’s temper snapped. “Kissing me is no damn chore,” he said tightly, angry at how much he suddenly wanted