He kissed her again, and she succumbed to it, the misgivings of the morning melting away with every touch. “I would never expect you to give up doing what you love. I swear to you, I will see to that. As for us, I can’t promise anything more than I want to try. And if you want to as well, I will make a way for us.”
“How can you be so sure? It’s only been a few days.” She hoped he had a perfect answer that could let her believe she wasn’t risking everything for something fleeting.
He ran a finger along her hairline, pushing back the riot of curls around her face. His eyes took her in greedily. “I’m sure in the same way you are. Some things are inevitable, and that’s how you felt to me from the moment I saw you.”
She could say so many things. More reasons why this could end terribly for them both. But she could not deny the truth of his words. He’d made her feel for what seemed like the first time in her life. She could turn her back on that, or she could trust it, and right now Arlo Kenworthy was too good to let go of.
“Kiss me,” she demanded, and like he’d done over and over in the last week, he gave her exactly what she wanted.
Marena decided it was a very good place to start.
The End.
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Also by Adriana Herrera
The Dreamer Series
American Dreamer
American Fairytale
American Love Story
American Sweethearts
American Christmas
Standalones
Mangos and Mistletoe
Finding Joy
Here to Stay
Anthologies
Caught Looking (He’s Come Undone)
The Duke Makes Me Feel… (Duke I’d Like to F…)
About the Author
Adriana was born and raised in the Caribbean, but for the last fifteen years has let her job (and her spouse) take her all over the world. She loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people, getting unapologetic happy endings. Her Dreamers series has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist and has been featured in The TODAY Show on NBC, Entertainment Weekly, OPRAH Magazine, NPR, Library Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She’s a trauma therapist in New York City, working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
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My Dirty Duke
Joanna Shupe
Chapter One
London, 1895
It was the social event of the year and Violet was squandering it. She should have been dancing or chatting with friends. Instead, she was propped against the wall, hiding in plain sight, staring at him.
She could not stop staring at him.
The ballroom was filled with titled lords and ladies, but she was always able to find him. He was tall, nearly the tallest man in any room. Elegantly dressed. Starkly handsome, without frills to pretty up his visage. His features were strong, harsh like a Roman warrior, with dark hair, and eyes like twin pools of midnight. If she could photograph him right now, the caption would read, “Feared by most, revered by the rest.”
Once upon a time he spoke to her with kind words, during her parents’ dinner parties when she was deemed old enough to attend. That was before finishing school. Before her debut. Violet fell in love with him then, this intelligent and beautiful man who commanded every room.
At the time, she hadn’t a clue as to why her stomach dipped and swirled in his presence. Now, at eighteen, she understood. She’d read books and seen racy photographs. Moreover, she’d overheard the maids talking about their beaus. So, Violet knew why her breathing quickened around him, knew the reason for the slickness between her thighs when she thought about being alone with him. Why she possessed this mad desire to have him smile at her again.
He never looked at her, though. Not once. Nor did he visit her father, his closest friend, at their home any longer. Since Violet’s debut, he’d not asked her to dance, though most of her father’s friends had indulged her at least once. He hadn’t even spoken to her during her season. It was as if she were beneath his notice.
But then, most of London was beneath him. He was a duke.
And not merely any duke. His was one of the wealthiest and oldest of the titled families, the Duke of Ravensthorpe, Maximilian Thomas William Bradley III. She once looked his lineage up in Debrett’s and learned that the very first Ravensthorpe received the title after thwarting an assassination attempt against Charles II.
“Why are you not dancing?” Her friend Charlotte appeared, her gaze studying Violet’s face. “You are forever on the outskirts, observing. You should be having fun.”
“I am taking a break.”
“Who were you watching?” Charlotte’s head swung about, searching. “Was it that newly widowed viscount everyone is talking about? He is scrumptious—and under thirty years of age.”
“There is a newly widowed viscount?”
“Have you not heard? Honestly, Violet. What do you do with your time at these things?”
Stare at Ravensthorpe, obviously. “Why should I exert myself to learn all the latest gossip when I have you to do that for me?”
Charlotte laughed. “Fair enough. Tell me, at whom are you staring? Perhaps I can help you get his attention.”
“Do not be silly. There is no one here for me. Just a bunch of old dukes and boring dandies.”
“The dandies are quite nice to look at, however. Better than the stodgy dukes.”
Not all dukes are stodgy, Violet wanted to say. Some were quite glorious.
“I wish I had my camera,” she told her friend. “Then I could prove to you how not boring it is to watch.”
Her father had gifted her with a camera two years ago and Violet had been taking photographs ever since. She’d converted a space in their attic into a developing room and had been studying photography at London Polytechnic for the last six months. She liked the challenge of photography, of achieving the perfect image. One of her dreams was to someday photograph Ravensthorpe, to capture the harsh angles and pretty features of his face. The cool stare and the haughty lift of his brow. Then she could have the image forever.
Such was the advantage of photographs. They were a way to record an instant, preserve a memory that might otherwise have been forgotten to the sands of time. Who knew what sorts of discoveries were ahead as cameras grew more advanced?
Violet continued to watch Ravensthorpe out of the corner of her eye so as not to alarm Charlotte. Her friend would try to dissuade Violet from her singular purpose this season, which was to somehow get Ravensthorpe to notice her. Again.
Suddenly, a woman walked behind Ravensthorpe and lightly touched his shoulder. The edge of the duke’s mouth hitched and he leaned to whisper in the woman’s ear. She was a countess, wife to the Earl of Underhill. Whatever the duke said must have satisfied her because she nodded once, and then slipped through the terrace doors.