His gray eyes mesmerized her and promised danger—a lethal combination for an MI6 agent who fed on adventure. Her pulse pounded like a beating drum, the rhythm rising toward a crescendo.

“Elise.” Harry whispered her name while his eyes mined her soul.

He dipped his head, and his mouth grazed hers, barely touching her lips. Harry’s thumbs skimmed her cheekbones and shot mind-numbing tingles straight into her brain.

She looped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his face down to hers.

He kissed her again, his fingers threading through her hair as swells of joy rocked her body and made her heart spin, turning her insides to molten gold. The whirlpool of emotions consumed her, and she floated on a euphoric sea, buoyed by luminance so magical that her very soul glowed.

Elise sighed his name and pulled back just enough to rest her forehead against his while their hearts thundered and crashed in tandem.

Neither of them spoke; they just breathed in each other. Yet even while Elise’s soul rejoiced, her mind protested that this would lead to sorrow. Still, her heart refused to be denied and thrust the warnings into the darkest reaches of her mind.

Her fingers played with the gold frogging on his scarlet blazer while her insides twirled in a vortex of elation.

He kissed her again. “I didn’t know it could be like this between us—again.”

Lightheaded, Elise closed her eyes in an effort to reset her equilibrium.

“Are you all right?” Harry asked.

“Aye.” She opened her eyes and expelled a shaky breath.

For a decade, she had regretted caving to parental pressure. With a few years of perspective under her belt, she now understood her parents’ reasoning more clearly on that fateful night. It wasn’t Harry’s birth her parents had opposed so much as his inability to provide—his utter lack of prospects.

With such a short connection between them, Elise had bowed to parental pressure. Had she dated Harry longer and forged a stronger bond, her life and his might have gone very differently. Och. The sheer stupidity of her youthful blunder made her almost weep.

She wanted to shoot something or beat her head against an anvil. What an utter bampot she’d been.

Elise scooted back the tiniest bit so she could see him better. Harry’s eyes were naked, his emotions bare. He had come out of hiding. This was the Harry she had known all those years ago. And he cared for her still.

Even though their circumstances had changed, her mind shouted that they had no future.

Harry’s sharp eyes read her, and his expression hardened with determination. She frowned as their wills collided, each battling for dominance.

Hope pulsed within her, feeble at first like gossamer wings, then took flight, soaring with the truth of her discovery. Footsteps sounded, heels clicking on wood. A man and woman rounded the screen.