Seductive Deception

Chapter 29

She anticipated what he might say, yet the hairs on her arms rose as she froze from panic, her chest tightening and tightening as if something had a hold of it and was crushing her. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe he didn't know at all.

But she knew, as she always sensed, he'd somehow known her as she had known him. It wouldn't have mattered how she'd dressed or how she'd hidden; he'd strip her of her disguise with those simple words.

In a final bid to deny it, she stood, meeting him face to face, "I'm not who you think I am."

And, as if it was vital for unlocking him, his shoulders loosened, and he leaned him, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from hers. "Tell me."

She swallowed the lump lodged in her throat. A strange mixture of arousal and fear coursed through her body as his warm breath grazed over her mouth, his eyes pleading for an answer as they traced over her lips and nose and then pinning her in her spot.

"I know exactly who you are." He lifted his hand and traced her cheek to her chin before placing a soft, devastatingly sweet kiss on her lips.

"And I want to know why you didn't tell me. Why you felt you couldn't trust me."

The sound of his voice about to crack nearly did her in before he uttered the words that would throw her from the ledge of an invisible cliff.

"You're Lady Allegra Warren."

A thrill of goose pimples ran up her arms as her blood ran cold. She wanted to tell him she was no longer a lady and had no desire ever to be one again, but it didn't matter.

"I can explain."

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me when I told you I have been looking for you?" his voice wavered in and out, and Allegra hated the sound of desperation in it—hated that she'd caused it. She huddled into herself, holding herself tighter as she wrapped her arms around her chest. "I have searched for you since I returned. I have gone down the wild goose chase you led me. I was face to face with the head matron at the all-girls school. And she was not pleasant."

She swallowed as he caught her eyes, the pressure to hold back a flood of tears nearly unbearable as she gritted her teeth, her hands tightened into fists.

"I have written everyone who has ever known you. Do you know that I thought you, I thought perhaps you had..."?

She knew he couldn't look at her then, his voice strangled.

He swallowed, his throat moving. She hated the look of betrayal as he glared at her. She stayed silent, pressing her lips together. Her stomach clenched, twisting and causing her to feel as if, at any moment, she could cast up her accounts.

"You gave up on me."

"Gave up?" Morgan's voice shrieked. "Gave up? You think I gave up on you?"

She crossed her arms tighter, her chin raised. "You slept with someone else. You slept with Madam Cerise."

It was a weak excuse, but the best she could come up with. Part of her believed it, part of her used it to push him away, knowing he had better life ahead of him...without her.

"Jesus, Aggie," he said, shaking his head and sending another thrill of goose pimples up Allegra's arms, this time for an entirely different reason. When had she heard that name last? No one besides Morgan had called her that. And it was bittersweet hearing him say it, wondering if she'd ever hear it again.

"I slept with you...as Madam Cerise. You are her. She is you. How could you possibly fault me for that?"

He held his hands open to her, but she held her ground.