“Are you quite finished?” she spat in a tone that he hadn’t expected. After the slightest pause, as if she were considering whether or not she should speak the words she wanted to, she continued. “Are you quite finished being such...such an insufferable ass?”

Ben scowled. “I haven’t even started.”

Remi’s face turned an angry red. A sea of pent-up frustration roared between them. Too many questions unanswered, too many feelings unresolved. The waves crashed against the walls they’d built up against each other.

“I don’t understand you!” she finally cried. “One minute, you’re angry with me, and the next you’re kind, almost sweet. Why?”

Her question broke the damn. Ben opened his mouth, and the words rolled off his tongue easily, tasting in equal parts like honey and vinegar. Honey, for the relief they brought; vinegar for the regret that instantly stung. He couldn’t take them back.

LOVER’S QUARREL

REMI

“Because you married my father,” he snarled, backing her into the shelf, “and I loathe you for it. I loathe myself for being jealous of him.”

Remi cringed. The hurt in his voice and the pain in his crumpled expression pierced her heart like a dagger. With fists at her side, she held her ground as Ben unleashed his wrath.

“And then there was your letter,” he said, trembling with anger. “Can you imagine for a moment how it felt to receive a formal announcement of your engagement to my father weeks after you’d begged me to come home? The first correspondence I’d received in over a decade, and both ripped me apart.”

Remi pressed her lips together. She remembered her own words well enough that she could still smell the fresh ink as it soaked into the parchment.

“Do you know what that fucking invitation did to me?” His voice cracked, raw, and almost pleading. “Seeing your name next to his—I thought I’d dreamt it all, but a week went by, and I realized it was true. My father’s cousins even sent you gifts! Gifts! I burned your letter and the invitation. I couldn’t stand another day knowing you’d played me.”

“Played you?” she asked tightly.

“Don’t pretend, not when I know the truth.” He leaned in, his face closer to hers. The lines of his frustration cut deep into his skin. “I almost came for you.”

Remi’s eyes widened, sparkling with fresh tears. “You did?”

“You have no idea how I yearned to come home.” He bared his teeth and hissed at her through them. “And then you married him, and I wanted to die.”

“Ben…” Her own voice cracked.

He looked miserable. “When I saw you again, standing on the steps outside my home, I knew I had made the wrong choice. I should have come home.”

She swallowed. He had wanted to come home. More than that, he almost came for her. Her letter had moved him more than she thought, and with that realization, she was undone. Her heart beat so hard in her chest, she could feel it in her ears.

Their eyes met, trapped in each other’s gaze for a few breathless moments. Remi reached up to stroke his cheek; his shoulders sagged as he turned his face into her palm, the warmth of his lips sending a ripple of desire through her body. She sighed as a hand circled her elbow, the other sinking from the wall to hover beside her waist. Ben inched his face along her hand, brushing the tip of his nose along her wrist. A whimper escaped her throat, catching his attention. He looked at her, his dark eyes burning with an unspoken passion.

Remi licked her lips, and Ben surged forward, capturing her mouth with his own. The air left her lungs. His kiss was unlike anything she had ever imagined.

His petal-soft lips moved against hers, teeth nipping at her lips until she parted them enough to feel his tongue. The quietest sigh escaped her, and he moved against her, one hand grabbing the fabric at her waist and bunching it in his fist at her side. His other hand slid to her back, starting a fire across the skin of her shoulders where he tugged at the neckline of her nightdress. At the same time, his leg moved between her knees, the heat at her center building to an unfamiliar ache.

I want more, she thought in ecstasy. More, more, more.

Just as Remi pressed her hips into his thigh, Ben stilled, pulling away. The suddenness of his retreat left her spinning, and she drew in a steadying breath.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said, out of breath as he dropped his forehead to her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have… I should have asked.”

Remi felt her heart in her throat. “Don’t apologize.”

“It wasn’t right,” he stammered. “You’re a widow now.”

“I didn’t want to marry your father,” she said abruptly. “But I did. I thought it was my responsibility to my family, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.”

Ben raised his head. She couldn’t make sense of his expression, but she also couldn’t stop herself once the words started forming.

“But I…I also wrote you that letter. That was my choice, too.”

“Did you mean any of it?”

Remi grasped his arm. “Yes. Every word.”

Ben was silent, a thoughtful look on his face.

“I married your father—out of duty and respect for my family,” Remi breathed and lifted her chin a fraction in defiance. “I regret it with every day that goes by, but I won’t have you condemn me for my actions, not when I tried so hard to bring you back.”

“Duty and respect,” he scoffed. “How noble of you.”

“Yes,” she insisted, hating the way he spoke to her but wishing he would kiss her again. “I owe a debt to my family, and marrying Edgar was part of that reparation.”

“And you paid for it with your body.”

Remi shoved Ben, though he did not budge. “I paid for it with my life!”

“Whores do the same,” Ben said.

“Stop it,” Remi spat, full of indignation. “No one has ever touched me without my consent, least of all your father.”

Ben’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“I won’t be your villain,” she paused. “Not when I want to be your friend.”

“And how do you expect to be my friend? You have no idea what it was like for me to be…exiled... I’m but a stranger in the home I grew up in.”

“We talk. However painful that might be, however, it might hurt us, we talk and we try to understand each other.” And maybe kiss again, she wanted to add because she desperately wanted to. She wanted that and more.

The wrinkle between Ben’s brows deepened. “Is that so?”

She took his hand and held it, palm up. When his fingers finally curled around hers, she spoke. “You’ve been so honest and I’ve hurt you. I can see that now.”

“I don’t like secrets.” He sounded exasperated, as if burdened by too many already.

“And I have none.” She reached for his chin and held his eyes with her own. “Except this, and that is the reason why I am here. It’s why I cannot deny anything asked of me.”

He blinked, waiting for what came next.

“I am not my father’s daughter.”