The Virgin's Proposition. Anne McAllister

her. There was nothing but silence between them.

      Seconds. Minutes. Probably not aeons, but it felt that way. Millions of years of mortification. What had been a magical night had become, through her own fault, the worst night of her life.

      Outside she heard the muffled sound of a car passing in the street below and, nearby, the ticking of Tante Isabelle’s ornate French Empire brass-and-ebony mantel clock. Finally she heard him draw in a slow careful breath.

      “All right, Anny Chamion,” he said, getting to his feet and crossing the room to hold out his hand to her. “Let’s do it.”

      She stared.

      At his outstretched hand. Then her gaze slid up his arm to his broad chest, to his whisker-shadowed jaw, to that gorgeous mouth, to the memorable groove in his cheek, to those amazing green eyes, dark and slumberous now, and more compelling than ever. She swallowed.

      “Unless you’ve changed your mind,” he said when she didn’t speak or even more. He looked at her, waiting patiently, and she knew he expected that she would have changed it.

      But she couldn’t.

      Faced with a lifetime of duty, of responsibility, of a likely loveless marriage, she desperately needed something more. Something that would sustain her, make her remember the passion, the intensity, the joy she’d believed in as a girl.

      She needed something to hang on to, her own secret.

      And his.

      She reached up and took Demetrios’s hand. Then she stood and walked straight into his arms. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

      

      When she slid into his embrace, Demetrios felt a shock run through him.

      It was like the sudden bliss of diving into the water after a burning hot day.

      It was pure and right and beautiful.

      He could almost feel his body reawaken, as his eyes opened to Anny’s upturned face as she lifted her lips to his.

      He took what she offered. Gently at first. With a tentativeness that reminded him of his first fumbling teenage kisses. As if he’d forgotten how.

      He knew he hadn’t. He knew he’d been burned so badly by Lissa that he’d learned to equate kisses with betrayal.

      But this wasn’t Lissa. These lips weren’t practiced.

      These lips were as tentative as his own. Even more hesitant. Infinitely gentle. Sweet.

      And Demetrios drank of their sweetness. He took his time, settling in, soaking up the sensations, remembering what it was like to kiss with hope, with joy, with something almost akin to innocence.

      That was what they were giving each other tonight—a reminder of who they had been. Not to each other, but as a young man and a young woman with dreams, ideals, hopes.

      He didn’t have hopes like those anymore. Lissa had well and truly ground those into the dust. But right now, kissing Anny, he could remember what it had felt like to be young, hopeful, aware of possibilities.

      It was as powerful and intoxicating a feeling as any he could recall.

      So why not enjoy it?

      Why not celebrate the simple pleasure of one night with this woman who tasted of apple tart and sunshine, of citrus and red wine, and of something heady and slightly spicy—something Demetrios had never tasted before.