... Our favorite Lady was seen eating lemon ice from Merkson's Sweets with Miss P— earlier this week. It seemed not to concern either flaxen-haired beauty that the weather was far too cold for lemon ice. It should be added that a source close to Merkson's reports that a certain Baroness will be stocking lemon ice at her next ball...

... London's finest casino continues to indebt gentlemen with little sense and less money, apparently. We have it on good authority that several aristocrats will be offering land in exchange for loans this spring, and we pity their poor, put upon wives...

The News of London, May 4, 1833

"Cross says that you've selected a husband."

Georgiana did not look up from her place by the fireplace in the owners' suite, where she pretended to be enthralled in a pile of documents requiring her attention. "I have."

"Are you planning to tell us who it is?"

In The Fallen Angel and the lower club the founders owned, seventeen members owed more than they could repay from their cash coffers, which meant that she and the other partners needed to decide what they were willing to accept in lieu of money. This was not a small project, nor was it to be taken lightly. But there was no possible way a woman could work with her business partners' wives collected about her.

She looked up to find all three seated nearby, in the chairs that usually housed their husbands.

Or, at least, the chairs that had housed their husbands before those husbands had gone soft. Now they housed a countess, a marquess, and a duchess and future duke – aged four months.

Lord deliver her from men's wives.

"Georgiana?"

She met Countess Harlow's serious gaze, wide and unblinking behind her spectacles. "I feel certain that you know the answer to that question, my lady."

"I don't," Pippa replied. "You see, I've heard two possible names offered."

"I heard Langley," Penelope, Lady Bourne piped up, reaching to take the infant from the arms of his mother. "Give me that sweet boy."

Mara, the Duchess of Lamont, relinquished her son without question. "I heard Langley at first, as well, but then Temple seemed to think there was another, more suitable possibility."

Not at all suitable.

"There is no such thing."

"Now that is interesting," said Pippa, pushing her glasses farther back on her nose. "I am not certain that I have ever seen a lady in trousers blush."

"You would think that embarrassment would not be so easy for someone of your experience," the marchioness added, her tone fit only for the child in her arms.

Georgiana was fairly certain that the sound that came from Temple's son was best described as laughter. She considered tossing them all out of the room. "You know, before any of you turned up, this was called the owners' suite."

"We're virtually owners," Penelope pointed out.

"No, you are literally wives of owners," Georgiana retorted. "That is not the same thing at all."

Mara raised an auburn brow. "You are not entirely in a place to condescend about wives."

Her partners' wives were the worst women in London. Difficult in the extreme. Bourne, Cross, and Temple deserved them, no doubt, but what had Georgiana done to warrant their presence now, as she reconciled herself to the events of the past day? She wanted nothing more than to sit quietly and remind herself that it was her work and her daughter who were the most important things in her life, and everything else – everyone else – could hang.

"I heard that West was in the running," Pippa said.

Starting first with her gossiping business partners and their nattering wives.

"Duncan West?" Penelope asked.

"The very same," Mara said.

"Oh," Penelope said happily to the boy in her arms. "We like him."

The boy cooed.

"He seems a very good man." Pippa said.

"I've always had a soft spot for him," Mara agreed. "And he seems to have a soft spot for women who are followed by trouble."

Something unpleasant flared at those words as she found she did not care for Duncan West having a soft spot for any women, particularly those who might decide they wished to be protected by him in perpetuity. "Which women?" Only after she'd lifted her head and spoke did she realize she was supposed to be pretending to work. She cleared her throat. Returned her attention to the file in her hand. "Not that I'm interested."

Silence fell in the wake of her statement, and she could not resist looking up. Penelope, Pippa, and Mara were looking at each other, as though in a comedic play. Temple's son was blessedly asleep, or he would no doubt be watching her as well.

"What is it?" Georgiana asked. "I am not interested."

Pippa was the first to break the silence. "If you are not interested, then why ask?"

"I was being polite," Georgiana rushed to answer. "After all, the three of you are chattering like magpies in my space, I thought I might play hostess."

Penelope spoke then. "We thought you were working."

She lifted a file. "I am."

"Whose file is that?" Mara asked, as though it were perfectly normal for her to ask such a thing. And it might be.

But damned if Georgiana could remember whose file it was.

"She is blushing again," Pippa said, and when Georgiana turned a glare on the Countess Harlow, it was to find herself under a curious investigation, as though she were an insect under glass.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know," Penelope said. "We've all found ourselves drawn to someone who seems entirely wrong for us."

"Cross wasn't wrong for me," Pippa said.

Penelope lifted a brow. "Oh? And the bit where you were engaged to another man?"

"And he was engaged to another woman?" Mara added.

Pippa smiled. "It only made the story more entertaining."

"The point is, Georgiana," Mara spoke this time, "you should not be ashamed of wanting West."

"I don't want West," she said, setting down her file and standing, the frustration of these women and their knowing gazes and their attempts at comforting words propelling her away from them, to the massive stained glass window that looked out on the casino floor.

"You don't want West," Mara repeated, flatly.

"No," she said. But of course she did. She wanted him a great deal. But not in the way they meant. Not forever. She simply wanted him for now.

"Whyever not?" Penelope asked, and the other women chuckled.

She could not bring herself to confess that he did not seem to want her. After all, she'd very overtly offered herself to him the night before – and he'd refused her. Wrapping a towel around his handsome hips and stalking from the room that housed his swimming pool without looking back.

As though what had transpired between them meant nothing.

Georgiana leaned into the window, splaying her fingers wide and pressing her forehead to the cool, pale glass that made one of Lucifer's broken wings. The position gave the illusion of floating, of hovering high above the dimly lit pit floor, the tables empty and quiet now, untouched until the afternoon, when maids would lower the chandeliers and light the massive candelabras that kept the casino bright and welcoming in the darkness. Her gaze flickered from table to table – faro, vingt-et-un, roulette, hazard – every table hers, placed with care. Run with skill.

She was royalty of the London underground, vice and power and sin were her dominion, and yet a man, who made pretty offers and tempted her with lovely promises that he could never keep, had somehow flattened her.

After the long silence, Mara said, "You know, I never thought I could have love."

"Neither did I, though I wanted it quite desperately," Penelope added, standing and moving to the pram in the corner, where she settled the sleeping future duke into his pristine cocoon of blankets.

"I did not think it was real," Pippa said. "I could not see it, and therefore, I did not believe it."

Georgiana closed her eyes at the admissions. Wished the three women gone. Then said, "There are days when I find myself sympathizing with MacBeth."

"MacBeth," Pippa repeated, confused.

"I believe that Georgiana is suggesting that we are like witches," Penelope said dryly, turning from her place across the room.

"Secret, black, and midnight hags and all that?" Pippa asked.

"The very same."

"Well, that's mildly unkind."

Georgiana turned and asked, "Don't you have places to be?"

"As we are indolent aristocrats," Mara said, "no."

It wasn't true, of course. Mara ran a home for boys, and had raised thirty thousand pounds in close to a year to expand the home and send the boys to university. Pippa was a renowned horticulturalist, always speaking to some society of old men about her work with hybrid roses. And between raising a lovely little girl and preparing for a second child – who Bourne was certain was going to be a boy – Penelope was one of the most prominent, active members of the ladies' side of the club.

These were not idle women.

So why did they insist on hounding her?

"The point is, Georgiana —"

"Oh, there is a point?"

"There is a point. Namely, that you think you are somehow different from every woman who has ever come before you."

She was different.

"Even now, you think it. You think that because of this life you lead, because of your casino and your secret identity and the company you keep —"

"— present company excepted," Penelope interjected.

"Obviously," Mara agreed, turning back to Georgiana. "But because of the company you keep other than us, and the damn trousers you wear... you think you are different. You think you don't deserve what every other woman deserves. What every other woman seems to have. Even worse, you think that even if you did deserve it, you don't have the opportunity for it. Or maybe you think you don't want it."

"I don't." The words shocked everyone in the room, none more than Georgiana herself.

"Georgiana —" Mara was out of her chair, headed for her, when Georgiana held up a hand.

"No." Mara stopped, and Georgiana was grateful for it. "Even if I could have it. Even if there were someone willing to give it to me – someone to have me despite my being saddled with ruin, an unwed mother, a casino owner with three male business partners and a bevy of prostitutes at my beck and call – I don't want it."

"You don't want love?" Penelope sounded shocked.

Love. The thing that had seen her through the heights and depths of life. The threat of it had ruined her ten years ago, then the reality of it had made her strong and resolute when Caroline was born. And then, last night, it had lured her. "I do not. While it teases with its pretty words and prettier touches, love has already had a run at me, and I am too wrecked by it."

There was a pause, then Mara asked, "But if he would have you? If he would give it to you?"

He. Duncan West.

"He does not seem the kind of man who would ruin you," Penelope said.

"They never seem like the kind of men who would ruin you," Georgiana replied.

They had lied so much to each other. It was hard to imagine the truth between them. She shook her head, spoke the words that she thought whenever he was near, and she ached for his touch, and she wished for more than one night. One week. "It is too dangerous."

"For whom?"

An excellent question. "For both of us."

The door opened, revealing Bourne. He crossed the room, not even looking at Georgiana, focused only on his wife, beaming at him from her place by the pram. He smiled, pulling her into his arms. "Hello, Sixpence, I would have come more quickly, but they only just told me you were here."

Penelope smiled. "I came to see Stephen." She nodded at the pram. "Doesn't he look just like Temple?"

Bourne leaned over the sleeping child. "He does, indeed. Poor thing."

Mara laughed. "I shall tell him you said it."

He smiled. "I shall tell him first." He looked to Georgiana, his smile fading. "But first, I've something to tell you." He moved to sit in one of the large chairs, pulling Penelope down to his lap, placing a large hand over the place where his second child grew. "West went to Tremley today."

She did not hide her surprise. "Why?"

Bourne shook his head. "It is unclear. But it was early, and he was not entirely welcome." He paused. "And then he was somewhat irritated that we were following him."

Her eyes widened. "You were seen?"

"It was Mayfair at nine o'clock in the morning. It's not easy to hide."

She sighed. "What happened?"

"He hit Bruno." Bourne shrugged. "Bruno hit back, if that's any consolation."

It wasn't.

"But the point is, there's something there. He didn't just want Tremley for the papers. He wanted him for more. And you should also know that he is furious with us."

"With who?"

"With the Angel. And I think you're the one to talk him down, so —"

A sharp knock sounded, interrupting the words, heralding one of the handful of people who knew that the owners' suite existed. Pippa moved to the door, cracked it. Turned back. "I believe my line is, Something wicked this way comes."

She opened the door wide to reveal Duncan West.

What in hell was he doing here?

Bourne was out of his chair instantly, setting Penelope on her feet as Georgiana headed for West, who was stepping over the threshold and into the room, his gaze taking in everything from the stained glass behind her to her aristocratic companions, finally settling on her. She saw irritation in his eyes when he looked at her, as though he had not been expecting her.

As though he had been expecting another.

But behind the irritation, somewhere in the depths of his beautiful brown eyes, she saw something else. Something akin to thrill. She knew it, because she felt it, too. Felt it, and feared it.

She stopped short. "Who let you in?"

He met her gaze, spoke. "I am a member of the club."

"Members are not allowed in this room," she said. "Members are not even allowed on this floor."

"Perhaps you ought to tell that to Bourne."

"I was going to say," Bourne said from the doorway, ignoring the look she sent in his direction, "that you should know I invited him up."

Anger flared, hot and unwelcome. She turned on her partner. "You had no right."

Bourne raised a supercilious brow. "I am an owner, too, am I not?"

Her gaze narrowed. "You violate our rules."

"Don't you mean Chase's rules?" Bourne said, and Georgiana wanted to slap his face for the sarcasm in the words. "I wouldn't worry. Chase seemed to forget those rules in certain cases."

She did not misunderstand. At one point or another all three of the women in the room had been invited to The Fallen Angel by Chase, without the permission of their husbands. She didn't care that Bourne was somehow viewing West's invitation as retribution, she was too busy being furious at him for ignoring the rules. For smugly disregarding their partnership.

For the way he seamlessly stripped her of power here – the only place where she had any power to begin with.

Before she could argue with him, West spoke. "Where is he?" West's words were clear and firm in the dimly lit room, as though he fully expected to be heard and responded to despite the fact that he did not belong here.

Despite the fact that she did not want him here.

"Where is who?" she replied.

"Chase."

He had not come to see her. Of course, she should have known it. She should not be surprised. But she was, nonetheless; after all, they had spent much of the prior evening together, and... shouldn't he wish to see her? Or was that mad?

Should she not wish him to wish to see her?

The thought ran through her head and disgusted her with its stupid, simpering simperingness. And then she was disgusted with the fact that she could not think of a better word than simperingness.

She did not wish him to want her. Everything was easier without that.

But there was something about the way he looked – thoroughly serious and thoroughly dismissive, as though she were nothing but a door-man to the room he wished to enter – that made her hate the fact that he was not here to see her.

Except, of course, he was.

He just didn't know it.

"He is not here." A lie, and somehow not one at all.

He took a step toward her. "I'm sick and tired of you protecting him. It's time he face me. Where is your master?"

The angry question hung in the air, seeming to reverberate off the stained glass. Georgiana opened her mouth to brazen it through when the Duchess of Lamont interjected, "Well. I think it's time for Stephen and me to find Temple."

The words unlocked the rest of the room. "Yes. We must be home as well," Penelope said as Mara pushed the pram to the door, more quickly than any young mother had in history, Georgiana imagined.

"We must?" Bourne asked, looking as though he weren't at all interested in leaving the drama unfolding before them.

"Yes," Penelope said firmly. "We must. We have things. To do."

Bourne smirked. "What kinds of things?"

His marchioness narrowed her gaze. "All kinds of things."

The smirk became a wicked smile. "May I choose the things that are done first?"

Penelope pointed to the door. "Out."

Bourne heeded her instructions, leaving Pippa only. The Countess Harlow had never been very good at perceiving social cues, so Georgiana hoped she might stay and protect her from this man, his questions, her answers, and her silly feelings about the whole thing.

Hope was a fleeting, horrible thing.

After a beat, Pippa seemed to realize she'd been left. "Oh," she said. "Yes. I should... go... as well. I have... well..." She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. "I have a child. Also... Cross." She nodded once and left the room.

West watched her go, his gaze lingering on the door for a long moment before he turned to Georgiana. "And then there were two."

Her stomach flipped at the words. "So it would seem."

He did not release her gaze, and she marveled at the way he seemed to see and ask and somehow know everything with a simple look. And then he said her name, soft and tempting in this room she loved so well. "Georgiana." He paused, and she wanted to go to him. Wanted to curl into him and tell him everything, because if she did not know better – she would think the word was spoken in understanding.

But she did know better. And if she did not understand, it was impossible that he did.

He asked the only question she could not answer. "Where is he?"

She was wearing trousers.

It was the first and only thought he had when he'd entered the room – his gaze flying past Countess Harlow, to the woman who had consumed his thoughts for what seemed like forever. She stood against the far wall of the room against an enormous stained glass mosaic, one he knew well. One he had seen a thousand times from its opposite side.

He'd always assumed there was a room here, on the far side of Lucifer's fall, but he'd never imagined this was how he would find it, with the beautiful Georgiana framed by the dark angel beyond. Wearing trousers.

It was the most sinful, spectacular thing he'd ever seen, and when she'd come toward him, an avenging queen, insisting that he was trespassing, he'd wanted to catch her in his arms, carry her to that glorious window, press her back against it, and show her all the ways he would like to trespass.

But then the frustration had taken over. She'd been protecting this place in spite of the fact that it was overrun with the wives of The Fallen Angel's owners and in spite of the fact that the Marquess of Bourne had paid him escort.

Which made him realize she wasn't protecting the place.

She was protecting the man, just as she had the night before.

He doesn't own me.

He heard her words again. The lie in them.

Because it was clear Chase owned her, just as he owned every bit of this club and all the men and women who frequented it. There was no freedom at The Fallen Angel. Everything – everyone – belonged to Chase.

And even now, as they stood alone in this dark room, with none but Lucifer to hear them – Georgiana protected the man who had ruined her life. Who continued to do so. And he was through with it. He wanted her out from under him. He wanted her far from this place and its sin and vice and history of taking lives for sport.

He wanted her safe, for God's sake. Her and Caroline.

He'd get her married. But not because Chase had asked.

Because she deserved a chance at happiness – she, more than anyone he'd ever known.

He only wished he could be the one to give it to her. But he couldn't, his secrets too legion, too dangerous. And so he would secure it for her in another way. He would face Chase. Free her, first. Protect himself, second.

Because somehow, in this strange play, she had become the most important.

His question hung between them. "Where is he?" And he willed her to tell him. To open the door and point in the direction of this mysterious man. To free herself along with the information.

She did not.

"He is not here," she said.

He bit back his disappointment. "Bourne told me I would find him here."

"Bourne does not know everything. I am the only one here."

"And so I find you, once again, protecting he who does not need it."

"He does —" she started, and he found he could not hear it any longer.

"Stop."

She did, blessedly.

He came toward her, closing the distance more quickly than he would have liked – the speed betraying the emotions he had promised himself he would no longer reveal to her. Not after last night. Not after she'd so thoroughly rejected him.

Not that he could have given her what she deserved.

He met her eyes, willing to give anything to see the truth in them. "Stop," he repeated, and this time, he was not certain if he meant the words for himself or for her. "Stop defending him. Stop lying for him. Christ, Georgiana, what does he have on you? What is this power he holds over you?"

She shook her head. "It's not like that."

"It is, though. You think I have lived an entire life and not learned to identify a woman in a man's thrall?" He hated the words as they came – the truths they betrayed in him. He lifted his hands, cupped her face in them, adoring the way her skin felt at his fingers, soft and terribly tempting. "Tell me. Is he the one? Did he ruin you all those years ago? Did he offer you pretty promises that you could not refuse and that he did not keep?"

Her brow furrowed. "What?"

"Is he Caroline's father?"

The furrow cleared and her eyes went wide. "Is Chase Caroline's father?"

"Say it," he said. "Tell me the truth, and I will take pleasure in destroying him. In avenging both your names."

She smiled, small and surprised. "You would do that?"

Of course he would. He would do anything for this woman, so perfect, so unmatched. How did she not see that? "With unbridled pleasure."

The smile grew sad. "He is not Caroline's father."

There was truth in the words, and he hated that. Hated that there was not another reason to loathe this man who dominated her as surely as he breathed. "Then why?"

She lifted one shoulder. Let it drop. "We are two halves of a coin."

The words were so simple, so honest, that they tore him asunder. Two halves of a coin. For a moment, he considered the implications of the words. The meaning of them. He wondered what it would be like to be so needed by her, so cared for by her, that he was the other half of her coin.

He pushed the thought from his head, liking it far too much.

He released her, moving back far enough to be out of her reach. He did not think he could bear her touch at this point.

"I am here to speak to him," he said. "It has been six years, and I've never asked to meet him. It is time."

She hesitated, and it seemed to him that she hovered on some kind of precipice in the moment – as though whatever decision she made would change her world. And perhaps it would.

If Chase gave him what he wanted, it would.

Chase's identity for her freedom. For his own.

"Why?" she asked. "Why now?" He did not reply, and she pressed him again. "Six years and you've never cared to meet him. And now..."

She trailed off, and he filled the silence. "Things have changed."

Now his life was on the line. His life, and Cynthia's secrets.

But those reasons paled in comparison to the one that loomed so powerfully here and now. Chase was the key to Georgiana's freedom. And he found he would do anything for that.

"Take me to him," he said, and the words sounded more plea than demand.

When she nodded and headed for the door, he thought for a moment that she would toss him out. But then she opened it and stepped into the hallway beyond, turning back, silhouetted by the dim corridor, her face awash in color from the stained glass. "Come," she whispered.

He followed, realizing that he would follow her anywhere.

She led him through a maze of corridors, curving and turning in ways that made him feel as though they had doubled back more than once, finally reaching a massive painting, a dark oil featuring a man stripped of his clothes and belongings, lying dead at the feet of two glorious women as his killer crept from the frame. He looked to Georgiana.

"Charming," he said, referencing the gruesome, stunning piece.

She offered a small smile. "Themis and Nemesis."

"Justice and Vengeance."

"Two halves of a coin."

The words were an echo from moments earlier, her description of her relationship with Chase, and they stung. He looked carefully at the divine figures in the painting, one holding a candle, presumably to light the way to justice, the other holding a sword to exact vengeance on the thief. "Which are you?"

She smiled at the painting – the expression small and filled with something he could not quite understand – and placed her hand at the frame of the painting. "I cannot be both?"

She punctuated the question with a tug on the enormous artwork, which swung out on a hinge, revealing a great, yawning blackness. He bit back his surprise. He'd always imagined that there were secret passageways throughout The Fallen Angel – it was the only way to explain the ease with which the founders appeared and disappeared – but this was the first evidence he'd seen of them.

She waved him inside, and he did not hesitate, his heart and mind racing with the knowledge that he was closer to Chase than he'd ever been. With the knowledge that she trusted him enough to bring him to the owner of the casino.

With the knowledge that that trust was not easily given.

She stepped in with him and closed the portal behind her, and they were cloaked in darkness, a hairsbreadth from touching. He could have moved back, pressed himself against one of the walls and allowed her space, but he didn't wish to. He wished to revel in the heat of her. The smell of her. The temptation of her.

He would give anything to touch her.

Her breathing was shallow and quick, as though she could hear his thoughts. As though she was thinking the same ones.

She seemed to hover there in the darkness for a long moment before she turned away, the fabric of her breeches rustling, sending his thoughts to the place where the wool rubbed, where her long, beautiful legs met. He could not stop himself, reaching out his hand, capturing her arm, letting his touch slide to her fingers, interlacing them with his own.

"You risk a great deal by bringing me here."

Her fingers twitched in his grasp, and he wondered what they would feel like on him. The time in his swimming pool had been so fleeting, and her touch had been like a breath, there, then gone.

Gone because he'd pushed her away.

Gone because she belonged to another.

To the man he was about to meet.

He released her. "Lead on."

She hesitated, and for a moment he thought she might speak, might tell him something in the darkness that she could not find words for in the light. But she was stronger than any woman he'd ever known... and her secrets were well-guarded.

She led him down the corridor, and he counted four doors before she paused in the dim glow of a candle near a dozen yards away, the shadows of the flickering flame playing across her face, hiding her truths from him. She reached for the silver chain that hung heavy beneath the linen shirt she wore tucked into those sinful breeches, and he watched as she extracted the pendant that lived there between her breasts, warm from her skin.

She threw a catch on the locket and extracted a key and set it in the lock, revealing her unrestricted access to these rooms. To the man inside them.

Jealousy flared, hot and angry.

She swore she did not belong to Chase and here she was, unlocking his rooms. Providing entry to them.

What else had she unlocked? Where else did she have entry?

The door unlocked, she replaced the key, her hand settling on the handle. Duncan could not bear the idea that she would bring him here, to this place. To this man. He reached to stop her from turning it, loving the softness of her skin as she stilled beneath his touch.

"Georgiana," he whispered, and she looked up at him, those amber eyes slaying him with their attention.

He didn't want her here. Not for this. He wanted her far from here. He wanted her safe and secure, somewhere across London. In his town house.

Forever.

Christ. The word came from nowhere and lingered, wrapping him in promises that could not be kept. In thoughts he was too intelligent to entertain. Even if he could give her everything for which she asked, his past was too dark and his future too threatened to give her everything she deserved.

So he did what he could, offering her freedom in this moment. "You don't have to come with me."

Her brow furrowed. "I don't understand."

"Let me face him on my own. He needn't know you led me here."

She exhaled, and the breath was heavy with emotion. "Duncan —"

"No. I can face him. Whoever he is. Whatever he is."

She smiled at that. "Whatever?"

"He's such a legend, I would not be surprised to discover that he is something beyond human." He paused. "I would not be surprised to find the Oracles themselves behind this door."

She chuckled. "Themis or Nemesis?"

He met her smile with his own. "I suppose I can rule them out."

Her brows rose. "Oh?"

He explained. "As they are female and I find it difficult to believe that there is another woman either on earth or in the pantheon with your strength."

Something lit in those beautiful amber eyes, but he did not have time to identify it. He wanted this moment done. For a heartbeat, he considered telling her the truth – that he did this for her even as he knew she would not accept his help.

But there would be plenty of time to explain – to fight for her – once Chase was beholden to him.

Once he had Chase, he had the keys to Georgiana's freedom. And if he could not guarantee his own, he would do everything he could to secure hers.

"Let me do this," he asked quietly, his hand still on hers, staying her movement. "Let me keep you from this, if from nothing else."

She looked up at him. "You care to protect me?"

He watched her for a long moment before he said, "In my experience, there are few things worth protecting. When a man finds one, he should do his best to keep it safe."

She opened her mouth, as if she had something to say, but seemed to think better of it, ultimately releasing the handle, pulling her hand from beneath his, making him wish they were somewhere else – anywhere else – alone, with an eternity to fill with nothing but touch.

His desire for her terrified as much as it threatened.

For Georgiana Pearson was the most dangerous woman he'd ever known.

He wondered what he would not do for this woman and her beautiful mind and her tempting body.

He turned away from her and opened the door with a quick, economical movement, stepping into the room.

He took in the space, registering two things instantly.

First, the room was enormous and nearly blinding in its brightness, heavy white curtains pulled back from floor-to-ceiling windows to let in the daylight. The room was decorated in crisp, clean white lines, carpet, settee, even the art white and welcoming. There was nothing dark about the space. Nothing that indicated its inhabitant owned a casino. Nothing that hinted at the sin and vice that reigned feet away from the office.

And second, Chase was not there