Exit, Pursued by a Baron (The Beaumonts, #1)

by Aydra Richards

“How very like a man to make a woman his mistress and then to hold her in contempt for it. I am what you made me.”

Only now, watching himself savage her honor, demean her and humiliate her, could he understand the rage she had carried with her onto the stage when she had acted Paulina. Only now could he understand how little Leontes deserved the happy ending he would, after all was said and done, receive.

Leontes = ultimate unsatisfying grovel?

Instead he had expected her to swallow down her own pride as if it had no value, as if her desires ought always to come secondary to his own.

I love how in most AR books, the heroes must confront the privilege their gender affords them

​How did one make amends for so many wrongs? How was he meant to atone? Probably she had experienced things he could not even conceive of, and even if he had not directly caused them, still the blame for them could be laid at his door. Five years of struggle, which she would never have suffered if not for him.

​It was startling that everyone else seemed to know precisely what they were meant to do; a revelation of a whole world full of moving parts that he had never before considered.

“For so long—years—I believed her to be untrustworthy, when all along I was the one who could not be trusted.”

“All the power was mine,” he said. “And once, she trusted me with it. But then I used it to hurt her. I abandoned her, when I knew she had sacrificed everything for me.”

I suppose that men in his position who never have to think about money can’t truly consider how often the rest of us do.

The ragged sound—like a suppressed sob—that reached Lydia’s ears surprised her. And when she turned to glance over her shoulder, it was to see Marcus struggling to compose himself once more.

Oh! <3

​“I love you,” he said. “I have always loved you. And that is yours without expectation or obligation. Even if you don’t want it. Even if you throw me away.”

Just let me love you. Because I—I could spent the next fifty years of my life paying for my transgressions in whichever way you deem appropriate, and still I would be happier than I have ever been without you.”

“Twice I savaged her pride to protect my own,” he said. “Twice, Rafe. I don’t think I would have forgiven myself even once. If this salvages hers? Yes; I will do it.”