The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(89)

“Good morning,” he returned gravely.

She squeezed her eyes shut and then shook her head. When she opened them, she sat up. “I suppose we have to do this now.”

“Jane…”

She set her fingers over his mouth. “Let me speak first. I have spent the last months thinking of my many mistakes. I wanted you so badly, and I almost never had you.” She looked away and shook her head. “I have had months of thinking about you, Oliver. About that moment in the park when I simply accepted that because you could not marry me, I would have nothing. I’ve thought it through and through.” She raised her chin. “You mustn’t think of this as ruination. Only girls with no money can be truly ruined. And my reputation has never been one of my assets.”

“Jane.” He didn’t know why he said her name except to say it. To hear it sing on his tongue. The entire world thought the word Jane was one syllable, but he knew better. When he said her name properly—when he whispered it slowly in the early morning, with the owner a few feet from him—it came out to almost a syllable and a half. Ja-ane.

He was so damned aware of her—of her breath, of the slight warmth in the air to his right where she lay. Of what they’d done together last night. Of what they couldn’t do together any longer.

He touched her shoulder ever so gently.

“I am the last woman in the world you want to marry,” she whispered. It was not quite a question.

He shut his eyes. “Yes. You’re the last woman in the world I should want to marry. So why are you the only one I’ve been able to think of for months?”

Her eyes flashed.

“Jane.” He reached for her. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to—”

“Stop apologizing for speaking the truth,” she snapped out. “It is what it is, and there’s no use my crying over it.”

“But I—”

“I told you, I’ve had a long time to think it over. And you’re right. Marriage between us would be a disaster. I know what I can do and what I can’t. I can pretend to be a great many things, but even if I could act the proper hostess, the sort you’d need, I wouldn’t want to do it. I’m done taking on the role of pretender.”

It made so much sense when she spoke it aloud. It was only the other half of his own objections. If this was rationality, some part of him recognized it and agreed with it. The other part…

Well, she was near and she was naked. That curtailed most of his thoughts beyond the obvious.

“I have been thinking,” Jane said to him. “In fact, I have been thinking for months now. Of what I would do when this was all over. Once Emily was safe and no longer dependent on my uncle.”

He turned to her.

“It’s unlikely I will ever marry. Not that I couldn’t find a husband, but I don’t need one, and I don’t want the ones I can get.” Her lips pressed together. “Any man who was honorable enough for me to fall in love with… Well, I think my birth and reputation will put him off. Even if he could look past it for himself, I would be nothing but a liability to him.”

There was a hard note to her voice, something barren and desolate.

“Jane. That’s not true.”

“If I could find a man exactly like you, but without ambition…” She laughed. “A sun that was warm but not bright, a fish that lived in air.”

He recognized the sentiment precisely, recognized it like the cruel edge of a knife blade that it was. “You want someone exactly like me, but completely opposite.” How appropriate. How utterly appropriate.

This wasn’t the way he was supposed to fall in love. He was supposed to meet someone, to discover that her wants and wishes coincided with his, that their dreams overlapped. He didn’t want to meet a woman, to discover that the breath he drew seemed to come from her lungs, and then to realize that they couldn’t both breathe at the same time.

“So that is that.” She smiled sadly. “An impossible girl. I decided long ago that you and I should have been lovers, when we had the chance. Last night confirmed my belief.”

He didn’t answer. Oh, his body did; he’d gone from interested to ready at her words.

“We’re here,” she said. “We’re together until we find Emily. Why not make the most of it?”

Because he didn’t want to agree with her. He couldn’t say yes, Jane, you’re right—we should be lovers. It would remove what had happened last night from a land of fairy-tale pretense, one where he could imagine that the obstacles between them could be swept away without so much as a second glance. It would make what happened next real and therefore impermanent. This would be an affair. Nothing but an affair.

Her voice dropped. “I’m glad I started with you.”

She leaned toward him.

He set his hand on her lips, blocking her kiss. “Jane.” Started implied that Oliver was a beginning, that there would be another after him, and another after that. That Jane would be kissed by men who were not Oliver. If he acquiesced in this, he’d be admitting to the end when they had barely even started.

But the alternative… The alternative was just as impossible.

“Jane,” he said helplessly.

“Oliver.”

He surrendered and found her mouth.