What a Vulgar Viscount Needs (Romancing the Rake 5)

Her blonde hair blew softly in the breeze as her chocolate brown eyes stared up at his. “They can.”

“I’ve deceived you,” he said before he could take it back. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Ash,” she said, her lilting voice dancing over his skin. “I haven’t been honest either.”

That made his eyes pop open. “How?”

She shook her head, staring off into the night. “I made it sound like I wanted you because I wanted my music career, but the truth is…” She drew in a long shaky breath. “The truth is I am falling in love with you.”

He nearly howled in pain and shouted in triumph at the same time. Instead, he turned her face toward him. “Don’t say that.”

He saw the pain etch the lines in her face. “Why not?”

A muscle in his jaw flexed, pulsing with his pain. “Because…”

“You,” she started, and he heard her breath catch. “You don’t feel that way about me.”

“I do,” he said one of his hands threading into her hair. “More than I can ever say.”

She made a strangled sound, her hands coming to his chest. “But I don’t understand. If I love you and you love me, what’s the problem?”

“It’s so much more complicated than that, love.”

She shook her head. “Is it my music?” She looked away. “Did you want me to choose?”

“Never.” The single word ripped from his throat. “I would never want you to give that up.”

“Then what?” she asked, wiggling to escape his lap but he held her firm.

“I’m scared to tell you. I’ve never told anyone and once I do. Everything will change.”

She stilled again. Her breath coming in ragged gasps, her hands cupping his cheeks. “Tell me.”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure that I can.”

“We want to build a future, correct?”

He nodded, looking down at the stone laid artfully under his feet. “Then I need to know the truth. We’ll have to build our future on a strong foundation.”

“I know you’re right. But I’m afraid there won’t be a future at all if you knew the truth about me.”

She ran a hand over his chest. “I’m going to need you to trust me.”

“Trust you?” He reached up, grasping a single lock of her hair and let it slide across his hand. “All right. Here goes…”

* * *

Cordelia trembled as she waited to hear what he’d say next. She’d known they’d been dancing around something. Would he finally tell her what it actually was?

“You have to understand,” he began, his face tilting up to the sky. “I didn’t start like you.”

“Start like me?” Her voice sounded high and tight even to her own ears.

He nodded. “I was born in Cheapside, to an unmarried woman who cleaned a whorehouse.”

She held in a gasp as she covered her stomach with her hand. Of all the things she might have thought he would say, that hadn’t even entered her mind. He was a viscount. “But if you’re mother was unmarried then—”

“Cordelia,” his voice dropped low and his lids slowly closed. “I am the viscount’s bastard.”