Someone to Watch Over Me

by Lisa Kleypas

“Females always seem to fear strangers, when it’s usually the men they know who do them harm.”

He was dark-haired and attractive, with no trace of boyishness in his features. His complexion was tanned and slightly weathered, the grain of black shaven whiskers lending a dark cast to his jaw. The hard planes of his face were complemented by a long nose and a generous mouth, and vivid green eyes. Strange, cynical, perceptive eyes, that seemed to look right through her.

“It’s fairly easy to break hearts, Miss Duvall. The more interesting challenge is how to keep someone’s love, not to lose it.”

He sat and studied her with those perceptive green eyes…long-lashed eyes that weren’t quite emerald. The shade was deeper than that, a color that reminded her of beech leaves, or the smoky green of an antique wine bottle.

“There is nothing, among the things I once believed to be true, which it is not permissible to doubt…”

“I think the truth is something you recognize with your heart, even when the evidence seems to prove otherwise.”

A beautiful woman, a fire on the hearth, a roomful of books, and a bottle of wine…It might not have been every man’s idea of heaven, but God knew it was his.

Some obstruction in his throat prevented him from making the situation easier for her. He was angry with her, for being so beautiful, for having led the kind of life that made all this necessary. He wanted to punish her for being spendthrift with her sexual favors…for not saving herself for him alone. The thought shocked him, but he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

He stared down at her with smoldering green eyes. “You are beautiful,” he said. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and the most desirable. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. And I’m afraid to look at you for too long, or I’ll end up taking you in the middle of the drawing room floor.”

“You can hardly bear to hurt anyone, can you?” Grant murmured. “Even when they deserve it. But that’s not like you. You used to rip a man’s heart out and crush it beneath your foot with no more concern than you would swat a damned fly. What the hell has happened to you?” She had never truly felt like a prostitute until this moment. Suddenly she wished—for the first time—that she could instantly change back into that other Vivien, the shameless, uncaring woman who did exactly as she pleased.

He loved her short legs and high waist and little hands…loved the way she felt in his arms…loved every detail of her, perfect and imperfect. The knowledge spread inside him like an opiate, the kind that caused the senses to soar dizzyingly high and then crash with sickening speed.

“I want you to stay with me,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to be mine.”

A man wasn’t entitled to lie or take advantage of others merely because he didn’t respect them.

“Believe me…the only place in the world I want to be is wherever you are.”

“If I find Vivien today,” Grant said, his green eyes filled with warmth, “it will change nothing between you and me. And when you recover your memory, I don’t give a damn about what or whom you remember. I had no part of your past…but I intend to be your future.”

“Because it’s not every day that a man discovers that one small, fragile, accident-prone woman is the center of his very existence.”

“You don’t have to,” she said earnestly, pulling her hand away and clenching it by her side. “I want you to understand…you’re under no obligation because of what happened. We can part as friends, very dear ones—” “I don’t want a friend. I want you. Every day and night. Every minute for the rest of my life.”