“And how was it?” he asked, his voice resuming its usual arrogant tone. Although she couldn’t fault him, not now. It was tremendous.

“You know how it was.” She took a deep breath. Reminding her, as she inhaled, that his fingers were still on her breast.

She didn’t want him to take his hand away. Even though they should be nearly home soon.

“It was.” He paused, and then he extricated his hand from her gown in as graceful a manner as was possible, given the circumstances. “What do you propose we do about it?”

She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze forthrightly. “I propose that we have an affair.”

Chapter 7

“It’s the only thing to do,” she continued. For the first time in possibly ever, Griffith felt unable to speak.

“We are clearly attracted to one another,” she pointed out. “Also, neither one of us wants to get married, so there is no danger of a continuing relationship. We can give in to our attraction in the most logical way with neither one of us getting hurt.”

It sounded so reasonable, how she put it. So naturally he wanted to object, since the last thing he ever aspired to be was reasonable.

But if it got him into her bed—and her into his—he’d swallow his objections, no matter how reasonable they were.

“How would this work?” he said. He was pleased he could manage to utter a complete sentence, given how startled and intrigued and, of course, aroused he was.

“Are you saying you don’t know how it works?” She spoke in a teasing tone, and he felt even more flustered.

“Not that,” he said through his clenched jaw. This woman was the only person who had managed to get under his skin, for both good and bad.

He had the strange suspicion that it would take more than an affair to get over his obsession with her.

“Ah, I had thought your skills particularly . . . persuasive,” she said in a low, knowing voice.

He resisted the urge to preen.

“But as to your question.” She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, not as though she was suggesting anything shocking at all. “I suppose we will look for Mr. Wattings, get you accepted into Society—as we’d agreed to—and we can also add a physical relationship to our agreement. It is that simple, there isn’t much to it working. It either is pleasing to us both, or it isn’t. If it’s the latter, then no hard feelings.” She stuck her hand out between them and he took it, allowing her to shake on the bargain. Another bargain on top of the first one.

This one was far more compelling.