She will break his heart even at the cost of her own.
Lydia Alcott left London beneath a cloud of shame and ignominy five years ago, when her affair with Marcus Beaumont, Baron Newhaven, came to a disastrous end. Now she has built a successful career as an actress, but her return to London places her once more within Marcus’ notice—and the reach of his wrath.
Marcus ordered Lydia away from London when the revelation of her infidelity left him devastated and heartbroken, warning her that to return would be to invite her own destruction. Now, seeing her upon the stage, the desire for revenge consumes him—he will hold her heart in the palm of his hand and crush it as she once did his own.
But Lydia has resentments of her own to satisfy. Unjustly accused of infidelity, she now intends to bring Marcus to his knees in truth. Thus begins a dangerous game of retribution and seduction neither intends to lose. But when old passions surface once more, each must make the choice whether to surrender their antipathy. She will never again be his mistress, and he will not make her his wife…unless the truth, long buried, can set them free from the past.
**NO INFIDELITY (MMC only thinks FMC cheated); MMC is celibate during separation
“I will make you miserable if you stay,” she said, though it hadn’t come out sounding as much of a threat as she would have hoped. “I will give you back every bit of pain you gave to me and more again.”
“That’s fair. And just.”
“I will have you working until your back breaks in service of me,” she said, and she tried desperately for the ferocity she had possessed only days ago that had somehow deserted her. There was a wealth of disorder in her mind; every ugly thing that she had buried down deep coming up again and out and filling her with a wretched jumble of conflicted emotions. “I’ll have you begging to be free of me within the week.”
“I will beg, if it so pleases you. But not for that.”
There was a stark sort of relief there in his dark eyes, and he collected her cold hands in his, warming them in the clasp of his fingers.
“Thank you,” he breathed, and his lips brushed over her knuckles. “I don’t want to leave you. I never want to leave you again.”
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