Before He Was Mine (Before Series, Book 2)

Early Morning Surprises

Will stood in the streets of Mayfair, directly outside the mansion that was Kingfield House. He couldn't tear his gaze away from the window where he knew Emilia was sleeping on the other side. A hot breeze blew around him even though it was well into the darkest hours of the night.

He suddenly wished for snow or rain to cool his body from its raging need. It was only proof that he shouldn't have done what he had. It had not soothed his aching for Emilia, and it had only made his situation worse.

Will hadn't promised anything to her tonight. He told her that he'd won that bloody wager, and he would be sticking to it. But Will still felt like he had betrayed her by leaving her in the dead of night, sneaking away after she had fallen asleep.

He used her. Will felt sick to his stomach.

It was torture to be next to her. The warmth of her body seeped into his own, settling in his bones. It was torture sliding away to where he stood now, with the warmth of the night suffocating him instead.

Finally, Will spun around and moved briskly through the darkness, heading home.

He remembered the first time that he walked away from Emilia. Then, it had been skirting along the edges of winter. It was that magical time when the snow begins to fall, and people about town seem blithesome with the season.

Will had passed through the crowds of shoppers, making his way to Kingfield House as if he was in a trance. The merrymaking around him seemed like a dream. And at the time, he hadn't been able to understand their happiness.

He had planned it all out: what he would tell her, the words he would use, when exactly he would leave. Will had to have that plan; otherwise, he never would have been able to do it. He would have changed his mind and begged her to forgive and forget everything he had said.

Will used the one thing he knew would break her. He told Emilia that she embarrassed him, her ways too peculiar and unrefined for a gentleman going into politics. She would make him look bad, he'd said.

And because she believed those things about herself to be true, she believed him. Even though by then, Will had told her a million times that he loved everything about her, just the way she was.

It was amazing how easily doubt can leak into the human mind.

The look on Emilia's face was the worst. It had not been long after Will made love to her the first time, and by then, he had known her body. He had known her mind. Will had been able to see every emotion, every thought, as it flashed across her face.

And he'd felt it all along with her. Will was still reeling from the blow of blackmail. He was still not over the moment when a royal footman had shown up at his door, insisting that the King of England wished to see him. He hadn't exactly been able to deny the request, so Will was carted off to see Ernest.

And that, of course, had been when everything had changed.

Now, Will wasn't sure of anything anymore. He didn't know if he was doing the right thing by leaving Emilia to marry Trevor.

The only thing Will knew was that he was the worst sort of degenerate to have gone to her house like that. He should have walked clean away instead of toying with her emotions and body. He was everything that Kingfield called him that one time at Weston's home. 

Satan's spawn. The devil's debauchee. Defiler of women.

It was all true. Now more than ever.

Will slid through the front entrance of his townhome. He was about to walk up the stairs to collapse in bed when he noticed light shining through his study door.