The Wallflower Wager

"I know a hidden treasure when I see one."

As a person who wanted to like everyone, it hurt to know that not everyone liked her in return.

Good Lord, Penny. He's a person. Not merely a collection of muscles with an intriguing distribution of hair.

"I know a hidden treasure when I see one."

As a person who wanted to like everyone, it hurt to know that not everyone liked her in return.

Good Lord, Penny. He's a person. Not merely a collection of muscles with an intriguing distribution of hair.

Her curves yielded beneath him, welcoming all his hard edges and giving them a place to rest.

Though her features were exquisite, and her lips the pinkish hue of rose petals, her most beautiful feature by far was her heart.

Penny wasn’t unused to men, but there was a difference between friendly acquaintance and a close-range confrontation with sheer masculine physicality. It felt like someone had taken a mallet to a gong of femininity hidden deep in her belly, and now the vibrations traveled through her bones, summoning an ancient, primal force. Penny could think of only one name for it: lust.

“Listen to me,” he said sternly. “My motives are never kind. Neither are they generous or charitable or good. They’re money-driven and entirely selfish. You’d do well to remember that.”

I’ll look. I’m not afraid. I intend to be there for every moment of the miracle of my own child’s birth.” He crouched and squinted. “And . . . I’ve changed my mind.” Chase retreated to the far corner of the stall and sat on a crate, his pallor having turned a pale, sickly green.
“Fine,” Ashbury said. “I’ll do it. If I could stomach my own injuries from that rocket blast, I can stomach this.” He went to look, then reeled a step backward. “Oh, God. Something’s coming out.”
“Of course something’s coming out,” Gabe said. “A baby goat.”
“No,” Ash said grimly. “No.”
“If it’s not a goat, then what is it?”
“It’s a punishment for all my earthly sins, is what it is.”

“Your Ladyship, you are anything but calming.”
“You’re not particularly cuddly yourself,” she said. “Luckily, I have some experience soothing prickly beasts.”

“Good God. That man is intolerable.”
“Yes,” Penny said. “He is.”
Alexandra sat up—no small feat, in her condition—and regarded her with concern. “Oh, Penny.”
“What?”
“The way you said that. You sounded. . . dreamy.”
“I am not dreamy,” she fibbed. “Chase remarked that he was intolerable, and I agreed. If you like, I’ll add that he’s ill-mannered and beastly.”
“Precisely,” Nicola said. “That’s what worries us. He’s just the sort of man you’d be drawn to. We all know how you love a challenge.”

“There is no way in hell that your unmarried state is due to a lack of interest.”
“Please, enlighten me as to the reason.”
“That’s simple. You’ve been hiding yourself, and you’re good at it. A master of camouflage.”
She laughed. “Camouflage?”
“That’s the only possible explanation. You’ve made a frock from the same silk covering the drawing room walls, trimmed it with cat hair and feathers. Then when gentlemen visit, you stand still and blend in.”