He loved her.
Good Lord.
He stopped short at the realization, so clear as he considered the possibility that he might have hurt her. He loved her. He never wanted her hurt again. He’d do anything to stop it. He’d do anything for her.
Forever.
And he wanted her to know it. Immediately.
“Sophie, wait,” he said, unable to keep the laughter from his tone as she tore the door open, desperate to be rid of him. He was going to catch her and take her back to bed and tell her how much he loved her. Again and again, until he’d professed it as much as she had.
Until she believed him as he believed her.
He was going to propose to her, and capture her pretty agreement with his lips and make love to her until the sun rose and painted her with gold.
She loved him.
Except she’d gone still, her gaze fixated on something in her bedchamber, horror on her face. King stopped as well, dread twisting in his gut as she shook her head. “No,” she whispered, her hand clutching the edge of the door. “No,” she said again, louder. “I changed my mind.”
Changed her mind.
Jack Talbot stepped through the doorway, his gaze finding the bed and sliding back to where King stood. Naked.
The earl’s brow rose. “Eversley.”
King looked only at Sophie. “You changed your mind about what?”
“You’ve ruined her,” her father said.
Understanding flared, clear and angry, on a wave of pain he would not acknowledge. King spat his reply. “Except it seems she had quite a hand in the ruination.”
Pain flashed in her blue eyes, and he almost believed it. “King—I don’t want this.”
“You did, though, didn’t you? You wanted to trap me.”
Betrayed by the woman he loved.
She shook her head. “I didn’t. I swear.”
“You wanted to trap me,” he repeated, hating the way his throat tightened around the words. They way they reminded him of another woman. Another time. Another love that wasn’t love at all. “You wanted to be a duchess.”
“No,” she said. “I was leaving.” He could hear the distress in her voice. It sounded so honest. “I told you, I was leaving!”
“You were leaving to be caught,” he said. “So I could be caught.”
“No!” she cried.
“You lied to me.”
She wasn’t leaving.
She hadn’t planned one final night.
She didn’t love him.
It was the last that destroyed him. He met her gaze. “You lied to me.”
Her eyes went wide at the words, at the anger in them. “I didn’t,” she said, coming toward him, reaching for him.
He stepped back. If she touched him he did not know what he would do. He’d never felt so broken. Not even the night Lorna had died.
He’d never loved Lorna like he loved Sophie.
The realization stung worse than any blow.
“You wanted to marry me.”
She swallowed. “No,” she said.
He heard the lie and it wrecked him. He was unable to keep himself from thundering, “Stop lying to me!”
Her father stepped between them. “Shout at her again and you won’t be alive to marry her.”
“You arrange to trap another duke using your daughter as bait, and now you rush to protect her?” King did not have a chance to punctuate the question with a fist into his future father-in-law’s face, however, as Sophie was shouting herself, now.
“Fine! I did want to marry you!”
He shouldn’t have been shocked, but he was.
He shouldn’t have been devastated, but he was.
Even as he’d heard the lie, he’d hoped it was true.
I wished to say that I love you.
What an idiot he’d been. He’d never in his life wanted to believe something as much as he wanted to believe that she did love him. But he couldn’t. She’d betrayed him, Ariadne and the Minotaur in the labyrinth. And like the goddamn monster, he never saw it coming.
“I wanted to marry you. Yes. No woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to marry you. You’re . . .” She paused, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “You’re perfect.” She was destroying him with her simple words, with the way she spoke them, her voice rising just slightly, as though she couldn’t quite believe them herself. “You don’t have to marry me. Think of all the others—you never married them.”
He hadn’t ruined the others. He’d never touched them. He’d never known the feel of their soft skin or the way their hair fell across his bedsheets or the way their lips looked, red and lush, covered in strawberry tart and kisses.
He hadn’t loved the others.
He considered her for a long moment, hating her for her tears, for the way they clawed at him even as he dealt with her lies. Hating her for making him love again. For making him love her. For making him hate loving her.
“You might not be the prettiest or the most interesting, but you’re the most dangerous of all the daughters, aren’t you, Sophie?” he said, hating himself for the words as she went rail straight.
He imagined he’d be hating himself a great deal over the course of this marriage.
He wanted to punish her as she had punished him. To give her everything she’d ever wanted, and then snatch it all away.
King looked to his future father-in-law. “You’ll have your wedding,” he said, before turning away, stalking to his desk, extracting paper and pen. “Now get out.”
King summoned her to the drive of Lyne Castle the next afternoon.