The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2)

by Julia Quinn

Men are contrary creatures. Their heads and their hearts are never in agreement. And as women know all too well, their actions are usually governed by a different aspect altogether.

And then there was Kate Sheffield. The bane of his existence. And the object of his desires. All at once.

Her brown eyes, wise and warm and undeniably perceptive, focused on his. For one split moment he had the bizarre thought that she somehow knew everything about him, every last detail from the moment of his birth to his certainty of his own death. It seemed, in that second, with her face tipped up toward his and her lips slightly parted, that she, more than anyone else who would ever walk this earth, truly knew him.

Anthony knew he was being fanciful, but when he gazed upon her face, he could not help thinking of the new dawn, of that exact moment when the sun was creeping over the horizon, painting the sky with its subtle palette of peaches and pinks.

But if she was destined to be alone, even with a husband at her side, then by God she’d be alone and strong.

His heart felt as if it had been sliced wide open—and he had the most unsettling sensation that the hand wielding the knife had been his own.

And when a man loved a woman, truly loved her from the depths of her soul to the tips of her toes, wasn’t it his God-given duty to try to make her happy?

It was simple. His world was Kate. If he denied that, he might as well stop breathing right now.

This woman made him a better person. He’d been good and strong and kind before, but with her at his side, he was something more. And together they could do anything.

“You have to live each hour as if it’s your last,” she said, “and each day as if you were immortal.

“I think the human heart must be stronger than we could ever imagine.”