She pushed open the door to her sitting room and immediately spied the lush white bathrobe hung over her settee. Then her eyes fell on the fresh flowers in a vase by the window. Did all castle guests get these little touches, or had Vic ordered them for her? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

She didn’t want to get too comfortable in this place. She walked through to her bedroom, noting her perfectly made bed. She didn’t pretend she’d arranged the mountain of pillows so neatly. Surely the staff noticed the times they had to fix them corresponded more often with midday naps than long nights of restful sleep, since she spent most of her evenings in Vic’s bed, further evidence that the castle wasn’t the only thing she shouldn’t let herself get used to.

And yet, wasn’t that exactly what she was doing? Never mind the fact that she’d already come to think of this as her room, her settee, her bed. She’d also come to think of Vic as her evening plans, her object of desire, her easy conversation at the end of a complicated day. Of course, they’d yet to give voice to any of these things, but she’d be lying to herself if she tried to pretend an unspoken routine hadn’t taken root between them. And she never lied to herself.

At some point she needed to dial things back, but while focus had always been her strong suit, self-denial was a shaky virtue in her world. Passing up a bubble bath with a beautiful, sexy woman might be a bridge too far, especially given her lingering frustration.

She changed out of her clothes and shrugged on the soft warmth of the robe. She had to give Victoria another nod of approval. This woman never flaunted her wealth, choosing a more subtly graceful sense of style, but that didn’t make her any less luxurious. And that kind of luxury, lacking in flash but dripping in class, kept Sophia on her toes. It was one thing to acquire wealth. She’d managed to do so with relative ease, but she knew enough about how the world worked to understand acquiring class was another matter entirely.