Excerpt of Taboo by Jess Michaels

She shrugged delicately. “It seems I have little choice. You are determined to ruin me if I do not bend to your will, and though I have doubts that you won’t simply destroy me even when this bargain has ended, this is my only option. I must do as you ask and pray you are a man of your word.”

Nathan’s cheek twitched. “You are daring to question my word?”

Fire flashed in her eyes for the first time since she entered the chamber. “You are the one making threats, Nathan.”

He crossed the room in three long strides and caught her upper arms in his grip. Tugging, he yanked her against him with little gentleness.

“I was never the liar between the two of us, Cassandra. I showed up that night,” he hissed.

She stared at him for a long moment, searching his eyes, his very soul. And then she shook her head with what seemed to be a combination of sadness and disdain.

“Tell me what your terms are, Nathan. Let us just finish this.”

He released her and paced a few steps away. “I told you. You will come to my bed, for as long as I desire you to be there. I expect I’ll bore of you soon enough.”

“I expect so,” she said without expression or inflection.

He arched a brow, driven to hurt her now. “Besides, I am here in London to find a wife. Once I have found her, I will be a faithful husband and I won’t need a mistress any longer.”

She nodded once. “Very well. Then you expect our affiliation will not last out the Season?”

He examined her face carefully. She had added no special emphasis to her words and her maddeningly cool expression had not changed, yet there was a faint look of sadness in her eyes. He stared at the flicker, shocked by the fact that it shamed him to know he had put it there.

Didn’t she deserve that much? Christ, after she broke her vow and he left the country, he had spent much of a year drinking and feeling sorry for himself. Didn’t he owe her some fraction of that pain in return?