“I won't write or try to see you. You have twelve months to mourn Josiah and decide what you want. You have your bargain. But never imagine for an instant that this is ended. You and I have unfinished business, Grace."
With focused ruthlessness, he lifted her hand and quickly stripped away the glove. She should protest. This moment would just become a bitter memory to taunt her.
When he bent over her hand, his long hair fell forward to hide his face. He pressed his lips to her bare palm and she couldn't stifle a sigh of pleasure. Impossible not to remember nights when he'd kissed each inch of her. Every cell of her skin remembered his possession. Every cell of her skin longed for him to take her again. But it could never be.
Tears blurred her last image of him as he lifted his head and stepped back with a formal bow. How she loved him. She would never love another.
He turned away and at last strode across to Kermonde. He held himself straight and moved with an unhindered confidence she'd never seen in him before. This was a man ready to embrace his challenges. Embrace and conquer.
Only when Kermonde's carriage left in a clatter of hooves and wild cracks of the whip did she realize he'd taken her glove with him.”