“I’ve always been different. Never had many friends. But . . . Beavin didn’t mind. He never thought I was odd. And then he disappeared. And I never met another person who seemed to understand me. I never thought I would.” She paused. Gave a little shrug. “Until you.”

And now you’ll go away, too.

And it would hurt more than losing an imaginary friend ever could.

She wasn’t sure she would be able to manage it.

“I can’t help but think,” she started, then stopped. Knowing she shouldn’t say it. Knowing, somehow, that it would make everything harder. “I can’t help but think . . . if only I’d . . .”

He knew it, too. “Don’t.”

But she couldn’t stop it. She looked up at him. “If only I’d found you first.”

The words were small and sad, and she hated them, even as they brought him to her—his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks and tilting her up to him. Even as they brought his lips to hers in a kiss that robbed her of strength and will and, eventually, thought.

His long fingers threaded through her hair, holding her still as he lifted his lips, met her gaze, and whispered her name before taking her mouth again in long, lavish strokes. Again and again, he did the same, whispering her name against her lips, her cheek, the heavy pulse at the side of her neck, punctuating the word with licks and nips and sucks that set her aflame.

If only she’d known that she might find someone like him.

A match.

A love match.

They did exist. And here was the proof, in her bedchamber. In her arms. In her thoughts. Forever.

She closed her eyes tight at the thought, even as the tears came, and he sipped at them, whispering her name over and over, again and again. “Pippa . . . don’t cry, love . . . I’m not worth it . . . I’m nothing . . .”

He was wrong, of course. He was everything.

Everything she could not have.

She pulled away at the thought, pressing her palms flat to his chest, loving the warmth of him, the strength of him. Loving him. Looking up at his wild grey eyes, she whispered, “My whole life . . . two and two has made four.”

He nodded, utterly focused on her, and she loved him all over again for paying attention . . . for understanding her.

“But now . . . it’s all gone wrong.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make four anymore. It makes you.” Heat flared in his gaze, and he reached for her again, but she pulled back. “And you’re to marry another,” she whispered, “and I don’t understand.” A fat tear escaped, expelled by fear and frustration. “I don’t understand . . . and I hate it.”

He brushed the tear away with his thumb, and said, achingly soft, “It’s my turn to tell you a story. One I’ve never told another.”

Her heart in her throat, she met his gaze, knowing with keen understanding that what he was about to say to her would change everything.

But she would never have dreamed he’d say what he did.

“I killed my brother.”

He’d never said the words aloud, but somehow, remarkably, saying them to Pippa was easier than he imagined.

Saying them to Pippa would save her.

She had to understand why they couldn’t be together. She had to see why he was utterly, entirely wrong for her. Even as every ounce of him ached to claim her as his own, forever.

And the only way to show her these things was to show her the worst in him.

She stilled at the confession, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for him to go on. He almost laughed at the realization that it hadn’t occurred to him that she might not immediately exit him from the room. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might want more of an explanation.

That she might believe in him.

So few ever had.

But here she was, waiting for him to continue, quiet, serious, scientific Pippa, waiting for all the evidence to be laid out before drawing her conclusions.

Perfect Pippa.

His chest tightened at the thought, and he turned away from her, imagining that he could turn away from the truth. He went to the doors he’d left open, closing them softly as he considered his next words. “I killed my brother,” he repeated.

Another woman would have launched into a litany of questions. Pippa simply watched him, eyes wide and stunning and unimpeded by spectacles. And it was her eyes on him, sure and without judgment, that spurred him on.

He leaned back, the cool windowpane comforting against his back. “Baine was perfect,” he said. “The perfect son, the perfect heir, the perfect brother. He was full of all the honor and dignity that came with being the future Earl Harlow, and none of the crass entitlement that seemed to accompany titles in other men. He was a good brother and an even better heir.”

The words came easier now. He spread his hands wide, looking down at them. “I, on the other hand, was the perfect second son. I loved vice and loathed responsibility, I was highly skilled at spending my father’s money and my own allowance, and I had a knack for counting cards. I could turn ten pounds into a thousand, and took any opportunity to do so. I had little time for friends, even less for family.” He paused. “It never occurred to me I might someday regret that lack of time.”

She was close enough that he could reach out and touch her if he chose, but he didn’t—he didn’t want her near this story, near the boy he’d once been. He shouldn’t want her near the man he was now.

She watched him carefully, riveted to his story and for one, fleeting moment, he allowed himself to look at her, taking in her unbound hair and her blue eyes—full of knowledge and more understanding than he deserved.