“Yes. I didn’t mean to, but I do.” Sophia sank back onto the settee. “But I am always going to put you at risk, and I won’t do that to someone I love. I have to leave.”

Vic eased down beside her and took her hand once more. “Please don’t.”

“I have to go. I can’t change.”

“Then don’t change,” she begged. “I don’t want you to. If you did, I’d love you less, too.”

“Vic, stop. Please don’t say any more.”

“I have to be honest. It goes hand in hand with being honourable.” She sounded frantic now more than romantic, but all the words rushed out. “I can’t let you go without telling you how much I love everything about you, your passion, your wit, the ability to read people, the way you refuse to back down when you know you’re right. I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Not for an entire dukedom.”

Sophia placed her hand on Vic’s cheek. “We’re a terrible fit.”

“We’re not. Or maybe we are by other people’s standards, but not ours. Not by mine. You’re exactly what I’ve dreamed of.” She kissed Sophia softly on the mouth. “I want you, just as you are, right here, right now, but also forever.”

Sophia kissed her this time, a little deeper.

“Please,” Vic begged. “Please stay with me forever.”

Sophia shook her head. “I can’t.”

They kissed again, and Sophia softened slightly against her.

“Then stay tonight?” Vic asked. “Can’t I keep you like this, like nothing’s changed, for one more night?”

Sophia hesitated, and Vic used the moment to kiss her eyelids, her temple, her forehead.

“Please,” she murmured against her ear.

Sophia nodded slowly.

Vic’s heart ached so badly she might have pressed a hand to her chest where her fingers still intertwined with Sophia’s. She pulled her up, pulled her close, and kissed her again, then walked them back toward the bedroom.

The acquiescence and the quiet peace that followed seemed so tenuous, they dared not shatter it by talking. As they caressed and clung to one another in turn, slowly removing clothes and kissing their way into bed, she understood she’d won not a victory but merely a stay of execution. Still, as they eased into bed, she relished the press of Sophia’s warm body and shallow breathing beside her.

In the final moments of exhaustion before she surrendered to sleep, she stared up at the canopy of her four-poster bed. She felt only a twinge of guilt for the lie she’d told to buy them this last night. It had only been a little one, hadn’t it? She didn’t want to change virtually anything about Sophia . . . except for her last name.