Chapter 25

He shook his head, grimacing as his idea took him again to the horrific stipulations of some of the recent ladies that he'd been forced to pretend he didn't notice. “No, Amelia , trust me. There was nothing… nothing emotional in those… interactions.” His stomach felt sick. “Especially lately. The total program… it is sick, Amelia . The only purpose I hadn't come for you quicker was because I was convinced you had been safer barring me. But lately that changed.”

“What changed?”

He regarded down at her and his coronary heart expanded. She had what the people described as a coronary heart fashioned face—wider at the temples, narrowing to a chin just shy of sharp. He used to joke that her face was the structure of his heart. Her eyes constantly went soft when he stated that.

Her eyes, catlike and flashing followed his face as he lifted his different hand to seize a strand of her mahogany hair that had caught to her cheek and returned it to the rest t