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That pleased her. He saw it in the small smile she tried to conceal, in the quick dip of her lashes. Seeing it did something dangerous to his composure. “What would you wager?” she asked.

“An honest answer to a question of the winner’s choosing.”

“How do we determine a winner?” she asked.

He held back a grin. Dominic hadn’t been certain she would play along, but he should have realized she would. She wanted to play with him as much as he wanted her. “By discovering which of us can surprise the other more thoroughly.”

She considered him, her gaze traveling briefly to his mouth. Dominic felt that small glance as distinctly as he might have felt her fingers, a slow, tingling warmth that spread through his chest and lower. “And if we disagree?”

“Then we each answer a question.” He didn’t honestly care who won. He was already winning just by having the three nights with her.

“An unusually convenient outcome for you.” She laughed.

He shrugged. “I had hoped it might be convenient for us both.”

Amelia reached for her water again but did not drink. She held the glass between her palms and studied him, while he watched her thumbs move against the crystal, slow and absent. “Either of us may refuse anything offered,” she said. “Without forfeiting the wager.”

“Agreed.” He would agree to any terms she set as long as he had this time with her.

“And agreeing to an evening does not mean agreeing to everything you might wish to do with it.”

His amusement faded, and his voice gentled. “Of course. I would never do anything you did not want.”

She nodded, accepting the answer, though her fingers remained around the glass. He understood, with a pang, that she had needed to hear it, and that someone, some time, had failed to give it to her. “No expensive gifts,” she continued. “I have no desire to discover that I am expected to be grateful for something I did not request.”

“I shall leave my diamonds at home,” he deadpanned.

“And no promises made merely because the hour is late and we are enjoying ourselves.”

That deserved more than a jest. He set aside his smile and met her gaze, willing her to see that he meant it. “Agreed.”

Her shoulders eased, and he wondered whether she realized how much that small movement told him. She had made her wishes sound brisk and practical. They mattered to her far more than she intended to show, and the knowledge made something protective and fierce rise in him.

“There is one more condition,” she said.

“I am listening,” he replied.

“No staying until morning.”

Dominic glanced toward the tall windows, where the darkness reflected the candlelit room, their two figures faint and wavering in the glass. He had been thinking of her last remark ever since she took his arm. Apparently she had been thinking about it too, with a different kind of weight. “You have reconsidered your threat?”

Amelia’s mouth curved, though her eyes remained serious. “I said I had no objection to keeping you occupied until morning. I said nothing about where you would sleep.”

“A distinction I shall endeavor to remember.”

“Do,” she said. “When the evening ends, we say good night.”

He wanted to ask why that particular boundary mattered. The question pressed hard against his teeth. He sensed she would tell him when she was ready, and that asking now would cost him the trust she was tentatively extending.

“Then we say good night,” he agreed.

She set down the glass and offered him her hand. Dominic took it, closing his fingers around hers. Her hand was small and warm and not quite steady. No one needed to do more. They had made an arrangement, and a courteous acknowledgment would have suited it perfectly.

He lifted her hand to his mouth. This time he did not kiss her knuckles. He turned her hand gently and brushed his lips against the inside of her wrist, and her pulse fluttered against his mouth. Her breath caught. He lifted his head at once and watched her face. The color had deepened in her cheeks, and her fingers remained curled around his, clinging a little, as though she had forgotten to let go.

“That was not part of the agreement,” she said, and her voice was not quite her own.

“No.”