But instead Lottie had surprised them both and found her way in the world, on her own terms. Alec could not help but admire her for it—even if his worry had nearly driven him mad. She might want him for comfort this evening, but she had already proven she did not need him. Not the way he needed her. Since he had first stepped out onto that hillside terrace in Tuscany, somewhere, in the deepest part of his heart, Alec had wished for something like this. Prayed for it.

When he opened his eyes, Lottie was slowly stripping off her evening gloves. He had yet to respond to her declaration beyond a muttered curse, and the sight of her bare arms was not helping. The open shutters let in the bright moonlight, casting her in an otherworldly glow. Standing there proud and tall in her gown, she looked like a fairy queen—one who came to visit every five years for only a few precious hours. Alec’s mouth filled with both the familiar tang of regret and of longing so visceral, so all consuming, that it suffused every cell of his body. She met his gaze, those green eyes as sharp and determined as ever, and Alec had to swallow past the lump in his throat. He was wrong. She was no fairy queen, but a warrior goddess.

“Tell me what you want.” He tried to inject the words with a cold, clinical authoritativeness to mask the pathetic need currently coursing through him.

“I…I want you to touch me,” she breathed. As her eyes heated, a kind of desperation stirred within him, a brutal greed he had never before experienced. And he craved more.

Her hands then went behind her back and the gown puddled to the floor. She wore only a paper-thin chemise. “The corset is built into the bodice,” she explained with an impish smile.

“A modern marvel,” Alec managed to quip, while his gaze roved all over her body, taking in every newly exposed inch: the slope of her slender shoulders, the length of her arms, the delicate collarbones framing her décolletage, the soft swell of each breast. A shard of moonlight illuminated her pale skin dotted with freckles. If they’d had all the time in the world, he would kiss every one.

Lottie canted her head. “Are you going to stand by the door all night?”