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His smirk was weirdly addictive.

“I’m serious,” she shot back. “I think that until you take a little bit of revenge, you’ll always feel pissed off about this.”

“I might have felt that way once, too.” He started walking, each footstep almost like an electrical current. She frowned, following behind, wishing for once she wasn’t wearing high heels.

“Hey, did I miss the lion on your tail?” she asked, reaching for his wrist and grabbing it. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t you get it, Tia?” His eyes raked her face slowly, tracing the lines, the features and finally every single fleck of light in her irises. “Cress has always wanted kids. Always. I saw her today and I knew…I saw…a part of her is dying. She has to choose between staying with Ewan, the man she loves, or leaving him and finding someone else to have a family with.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit,” Tia muttered. “She could have IVF with donor sperm, adopt, there are other options. I know it’s a curveball⁠—”

“She wants his baby,” Hamish ground out, the words lacking any emotion whatsoever. “And she’ll never have it. I don’t need to get revenge. The universe did that for me.”

They started walking but a fire had sparked in her belly and wouldn’t die. “That’s not your fault.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I want…”

“What do you want? For them to be happy? Even after what they did to you?”

He dropped his head forward.

“I want to be able to go on with my life, and never think of them. I guess that would be easier to do if I thought…things worked out as they wanted.”

She stared at him, somehow appalled by the generosity in that statement. “Are you real?”

He looked baffled.

“You can’t seriously be this generous with your forgiveness?”

“It’s my brother.”

But that wasn’t it, not really. Only, as Tia stared deep into his eyes, something shifted inside of her, a protective mechanism she hadn’t used for a long time. “Are you still in love with her?”

His reaction was so automatic, she doubted it immediately. “What?”

“You’re still in love with her.”

“It’s been years. She’s married to my brother.”

“Neither of which is a denial.”

He moved then, his hands cupping her cheeks, holding her face steady. Strangely, the contact didn’t feel weird or out of place, it felt perfect. Appropriate. Somehow necessary. “No. I’m not in love with her. If I still loved her, I wouldn’t have married you, even under these conditions. I wouldn’t be trying for a baby with you. If I still loved her, I wouldn’t have come here like this. If I still loved her…” he shook his head, emotions flooding his features, but she was too discombobulated by the feel of his hands on her cheeks to react. “I am not in love with Cressida.” Silence throbbed between them. “But I was, once upon a time, and that doesn’t just die. It’s like a part of me, the fact that I loved her, even when I wish it wasn’t. Is that always how this works? I don’t know.”

Tia stared at him, and strangely, believed him. He wasn’t a stupid man, and he’d had a long time to come to terms with his feelings. What he said made sense. She moved forward then, perhaps surprising them both by wrapping her hands around his waist. “There is no way on God’s green earth she ever deserved you, Lord Ashcombe. And you may be prepared to forgive and forget, but I’m not.”

He looked down at her, his expression completely unreadable. “What does that mean?”

“That I’m going to be the best goddamn contracted wife you’ve ever had, and if she has a problem with that? Then she’s just reaping what she’s sown.”

Their eyes locked and held for a long time, and then he smiled, shook his head in something like disbelief. “Please remind me never to cross you.”

“If I have to remind you, it’ll be too late,” she said, with a wink, then affected her best British accent. “Now, come on. I shan’t have you making me tardy for cocktail hour.” She told herself the strange feeling in her stomach when she dropped her hands was nothing more complicated than hunger.

Choosing a dress for dinner was more complicated than she’d appreciated and Tia felt a pang of longing for her own wardrobe. One whole level of her home had been converted into something more akin to a personal boutique than anything else. It was the indulgence of a childhood fantasy. Hamish had spoken of a touchstone, and perhaps that was hers? For all her success, there was nothing quite so validating as stepping inside her wardrobe and knowing it was all hers. The little girl who’d grown up wearing clothes that were too small, or stained, trying desperately to adopt the latest fashion with what she had, still lived inside Tia and the wardrobe was one hundred per cent for her.