The Perfect Temptation (33 page)

leave her. Common sense could be
damned, right along with

his conscience.

He grinned roguishly, knowing
full good and well that

she always melted in the face of
it. "Just how appreciative

are you?"

Oh, the master was truly at his
best. Alex quickly considered

her choices and daringly
discarded all but one of them.

Two could play the game and while
she certainly didn't have

the worldly experience he did,
she did have the element of

surprise to her advantage. It was
a reckless gambit, to be

sure, but somehow that didn't
matter
to
her nearly as much

as the chance to gently rattle
his cool composure.

Studiously avoiding his gaze, she
reached out, slowly

trailing her fingertips along his
shirt collar before moving

down ever so slightly and taking
the open edge of the front

gently but firmly in hand.
Deliberately drawing him toward

her, she leaned forward and
lifted her gaze to his lips.

He swallowed. Or rather tried to.
His breath came shallow

and quick, from between slightly
parted lips. And then,

just before she touched his lips
with hers, he stopped breathing

altogether. She lingered purely
for the pleasure of it;

fully savoring the softness of
his lips and the sweet taste of

his absolute acceptance. Only
when he murmured her name

and slipped his hand up the
length of her arm did she stop

and draw away.

''Thank you, Aiden," she
whispered, releasing him, her

pulse racing and her senses
overfilled. "For being here."

Aiden knew it was the moment, the
quality of the light.
It

wasn't real. And he didn't care.
He was consumed by a

hunger, a desire so compelling
that it took his breath away

and left him quaking with need.
His conscience prickled, reminding

him of how he'd vowed just that
morning that he'd

be a gentleman and close the door
with Alex. Now ... It was

irrational. Unjustifiable and
indefensible. Nevertheless, he

had to know if there was a
chance. Even the slimmest one

would be enough. He could be
patient if he had to be.

"May I ask you a very
personal question, Alex?"

"You may ask anything you
like as long as you understand

that I reserve the right to
refuse to answer."

"Do you see yourself ever
marrying?" he asked without

further prelude.

"Honestly? No." She
shrugged a slim shoulder and gave

him
a shy smile. "Oh, from time to time, I dream
about being

swept away by a handsome prince
on a white charger.

But I know that it's never going
to happen."

"It
could."

With a soft laugh she replied,
"On the very remote chance

that it does, he'll promptly drop
me. I don't have the temperament

to be a good wife, Aiden. I'm
stubborn, opinionated,

rigid, and far too independent.
And as
if
that's not bad

enough, I've never learned how to
flutter my lashes, faint in

a timely fashion, or dither
helplessly over minor decisions.

The world is full of women who
are far more suitable for

marriage than I am. There's no
reason for a man to choose

me over them."

He disagreed but it wasn't in the
interest of his more

immediate hopes to share that
with her. "Does the idea of

being alone forever bother you?"

"I'm never truly
alone," she blithely countered. "Here in

London I have Preeya and Mohan.
Emmaline. You. And starting

tomorrow, Sawyer as well. And in
India
.
..
It's a very full

and busy household."

"That's not exactly what I
meant," he grumbled, frustrated

but unwilling to risk shocking
her by more clearly stating the

question.

"Does the idea of never
lying with a man bother me?"

He blinked, stunned. ''That was
... "

"Frank?" she supplied
impishly. "Indians are much more

open about such matters than the
English are, Aiden. And

the answer is sometimes yes, but
most of the time no. And

this is the point in our
conversation where I refuse to say

anything further."

Everything he really wanted to
know lay on the other side

of "further," beyond
the current limits of her trust. "Fair

enough," he acceded. But
only because he really didn't have

any other choice.

"Do you hope to someday
marry?"

"No," he replied,
feeling oddly dispassionate about the

assertion. Of course, he reminded
himself, it was a decision

he'd made quite some time ago and
then put away from further

consideration.
It
was done
and it was final. There really

wasn't any great emotion wrapped
up in it anymore.

''That's truly a pity. You'd make
a wonderful husband and

father. You've done wonders with
Mohan. He's become a

completely different, much
happier child."

"I had my chance. And I
destroyed it."

She considered him in silence for
a long moment and

then nodded slowly. "I can
see how you'd feel that way. My

mother's marriage was a painful
disaster in every sense. Like

you, she thought that her chance
for happiness was lost

forever." A smile lifted the
comers of her mouth ever so

slightly.
"Life
and
the raja proved her wrong."

Aiden chuckled. "Is there a
lesson in that for me?"

"I hope so."

''To keep my eyes open for a
raja? No, thank you."

The smile ebbed away. ''The
lesson, Aiden,"-she said gently,

"is that sometimes what you
least expect comes to you

from where you least expect it,
when you least expect it."

It
was a lovely sentiment, but she'd missed the point.
"I

don't want anything to come my
way," he countered. "Expected

or otherwise."

"So deliberately living your
life without hope is your

penance for not being God?"
she posed, het brow arched.

"For not being able to lift
up your hand and brush aside the

salvo that killed the woman you
loved?"

"More or less," he
agreed, disliking the way she'd put it

and sensing something ominous
closing in around him.

"How very British of you:'
she remarked somberly,

openly studying him.
"If
you
were an Indian, a Hindu,

you'd view
it
completely
differently. You acted in the belief

that you were doing a good deed,
a true and loving kindness

for another human being whose
soul was in pain. Your good

intentions, however, were
thwarted by the gods and the

power of the universe through no
fault of your own. To love

and to lose was your fate. To
rise above the failure and engage

in further good deeds, to risk
failing again, is your

challenge."

"But I'm not Indian or
Hindu. I'm British to the core;' he

pointed out, trying to tamp down
his inexplicably rising
irri
tation.

"Blaming the outcome of
something on fate is nothing

more than an excuse for the lack
of sufficient will. Fate

is mine to shape as I
desire."

"So you didn't truly, in the
heart of your heart, want to successfully

run the blockade?" she asked
gently. "You didn't

strongly enough want your Mary
Alice to live and become

your wife?"

He didn't like the way she'd
framed that issue, either, but

he supposed that it was the
fundamental truth of how he

looked at it all. "And there
you have the foundations of an

abiding guilt."

She hummed softly, looked down at
the kittens, petted

one, and then looked back up at
him to ask, "So now your

great challenge in life is to be
as alone and miserable as humanly

possible?"

Damn if she didn't have a way of
making the most rationally

arrived-at decisions seem
downright featherbrained.

And, he had to admit, there was
the tiniest kernel of truth

to the point she was making.
Being with her, kissing her,

definitely didn't fall in the
category of human misery and he

certainly wasn't the least bit
interested in abandoning either

pleasure. Accepting that reality,
he willingly conceded, "Not

all the time."

Her smile bright and her eyes
twinkling, she replied, "Well,

that's a relatively healthy sign.
Apparently you haven't given

up the struggle altogether. Which
might suggest-to an open

mind-that you're not really fated
to spend this lifetime wallowing

in regret."

He didn't like the culmination of
her logic any more than

he had the process of getting
there. The promise he'd made

was a solemn one, a noble,
honorable sacrifice for his having

failed. While he could still make
the argument that it was

well within the bounds of noble
and honorable, he wasn't

quite so sure anymore about the
fundamental intelligence of

it. Lord knew the qualities
didn't necessarily go hand in

glove. The world was full of
honorable, noble fools. And he

didn't particularly relish the
notion of being one of them.

Alex and her way of looking at
the world ... He hadn't

had a single second thought about
his course until he'd met

her. Not one
.
Not so much
as a twinge of doubt. But, having

spent less than a week with
Alexandra Radford, his world

was, if not turned fully upside
down, then at the very least

severely tilted on its axis. Had
she done it to him deliberately?