One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels, #2)

by Sarah MacLean

It was perfectly fine if those around her wanted to hide the truth, but she had found long ago that dishonesty only made for more work in the long run.

“Only that in the real world, where girls are not protected from every bit of reality, we are all cloaked in grey, where truth is relative.”

“Alea iacta est,” he said. The die is cast.

Hardworking worms that had left the life they’d known—and all its comforts—and spun cocoons, preparing for a life they did not understand and could not imagine, only to be stopped halfway through the process and turned into a wedding gown.

Because he knew, without a doubt, that after six years of celibacy, if he touched Philippa Marbury, he would not survive it.

“Temptation turns you. It makes you into something you never dreamed, it presses you to give up everything you ever loved, it calls you to sell your soul for one, fleeting moment.”

“You’ll make any promise, swear any oath. For one . . . perfect . . . unsoiled taste.”

Vicious jealousy flared, and six years of control snapped. He caught her to him without hesitation, lifted her in his arms, pressed her to the richly upholstered wall, and did what he should have done the first moment he met her.

“You once told me that if Castleton hurt me, he wasn’t doing it right.” He stilled. “Yes.” She met his eyes. “You’re not doing it right.”