Tommy kept her voice even. “I thank you for your kind offer. I must decline. I want my partner to be the person I can be myself with.” She now despaired of such a dream ever coming true. “Even if that means it cannot be you.”

“I didn’t mean…” Philippa’s voice wobbled. “It seemed like…a compromise…”

“I don’t want a compromise,” Tommy said. “I want to be loved. I want forever. I want it all. And I want you.”

Philippa’s gaze jerked back to hers. “What?”

“I love you,” Tommy said simply. “I love Miss Philippa York, without qualification or limitations.” Her ribs ached. “Saying no to you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I hope my counteroffer is one we can both say yes to.”

“What counteroffer?”

“This: I’ll be Tommy, and you’ll be Philippa, and we’ll live here, together, happily ever after.”

Philippa’s face twisted in anguish. She let out a long, shuddering breath. “I can’t.”

Those two words sliced through Tommy as though she had been run through with a blade. “You can’t or you don’t want to?”

Philippa stepped forward, her face beseeching. “My parents expect—”

“Aren’t you sick of your parents’ expectations?” Tommy burst out. “Don’t you expect better of them?”

“They are trying their best,” Philippa said in misery. “I’m the one who is not. I have shamed them. And if I were to…With you…”

Tommy turned away before her blurring eyes could blot out Philippa’s face.

Anyone but Tommy Wynchester. She was leave-able. Abandonable. Unimportant. A fine distraction for a month or two, but ultimately unnecessary. She was not nearly as enticing as the roles she played. Fiction was better than the real person.

“The ‘new’ Baron Vanderbean is a lie,” Tommy ground out, “and marrying him is a fairy tale. It is not reality.”

“Tommy—”

“I am flesh-and-blood. I don’t want to only be useful when playing a role. I’ve been acting my entire life. I am real. I want to be myself with the woman I love.”

“You said you were happy to be Baron Vanderbean,” Philippa said. “The word we used was ‘indefinitely.’”

“We were talking about this season. I was willing to play a baron as much as you needed within the context of those three months. ‘Ninety-one days,’ you said. I agreed to a temporary ruse. I did not agree to cease being Tommy for the rest of my natural life. It was just supposed to be—”

Tommy raked a hand through her hair. What had she expected? Philippa was a Proper Young Lady. Used to giving orders and having every whim granted. She was haut ton. Born with the silver spoon. And everyone knew Polite Society did not mingle with Wynchesters.

Much less voluntarily give up their high social class for a dalliance.

There was no possibility of Philippa choosing Tommy for herself.