The Bachelor Bargain (Secrets, Scandals, and Spies)

staring steadily through the window and watching the streets they passed. “Think nothing of it.”
“It’s probably just as well he didn’t know your true identity, for I think you already scared him,” she said, belatedly noticing how much space he took up in the carriage with the breadth of his shoulders and his muscular legs. The man was like a Viking dressed in a tailored black suit. She rather liked it. “And, after what we’ve just been through together, please do call me Livie and I shall call you Sebastian.” She already did in her head, so it would be easier to do so when she spoke to him, too.
“Very well, Livie,” he said, her name rolling off his tongue like butter, smooth and velvety. All she wanted to do was lap it up.
Perhaps it hadn’t been one of her best ideas. Hearing her name from his lips was far more intimate than she thought possible.
“Tell me this, though,” Sebastian continued, leaning forward, his head lowering close to her ear. “I scare most people. Why don’t I scare you, Livie?”
His breath was a rough whisper against her skin. She softly gasped as desire, sharp and swift, unlike anything she’d ever felt, filled her. Pulling her head back, her eyes flicked up into the vivid gray of his, and her heart began to gallop at the intensity staring back at her. “How do you know you don’t scare me?”
“Because I can sense fear in others, but in you I do not.” He raised his hand slowly up to her face before gently brushing the pads of his fingers over her cheek, caressing the smoothness of her skin with the roughness of his. “In fact, what I sense in you is…excitement.”
It was all Livie could do not to melt into his hand. His touch was like lightning, sending a searing heat of awareness to the core of her being. She was in unknown territory with the feelings he was eliciting in her, feelings she’d never experienced before.
“Should we not discuss the events of what just occurred?” she blurted out, not wanting to discuss any of the odd feelings the man was conjuring within her. When he dropped his hand, she was glad of it, and perhaps even a little disappointed. Though the way her emotions were all currently jumbled, it was hard to tell the difference.
“Yes, I suppose we should,” Sebastian said as he sat back on the seat, his eyes settling upon her intently. “Tell me, then, how did you come to be in the alley? You mentioned something about it being at my request, which, I assure you, was not the case.”
Livie told him of the note apparently authored by him that she’d received while at the McAuley ball. She pulled it from her cloak pocket and handed it to him.
His eyes scanned the parchment. “It’s not my writing or my signature.”
“How was I to know that?” Livie replied. “If you had replied to my previous letters, I should have known it was not from you in an instant.”
He merely raised a brow.
She lifted her chin and smiled somewhat sarcastically at him. “Now your turn. Why were you there? You mentioned something about me having a party and not inviting you?”
He nodded. “I received word that you were meeting an informant in the alley. As I knew it to be a dangerous area, I decided to attend to protect you.”
“That’s very gallant of you.” For some reason, Livie was thrilled with the thought.
“I assure you it wasn’t,” he stated, his voice gravelly. “I went because you’re my sister’s ticket to the Dragon Duchess. I had to protect my soon-to-be investment. Especially when she makes such hairbrained decisions.”
Obviously that was why he’d attended. She should have reasoned that before conjuring some image of him being noble and heroic. To him, she was nothing more than Charlotte’s entrée into Society. “It wasn’t a harebrained decision. Getting your note seemed like a godsend after spending a fruitless day searching for you,” she said.
“You were searching for me?”
Livie nodded.
“Then you have gotten your godmother to agree already?”
The man was quick, she would give him that, and she got the impression, vague though it was, he was somewhat surprised she’d been able to get the duchess’s agreement so swiftly. “Indeed, I did,” she took great pleasure in telling him. “I am to bring Charlotte to her house at midday next Monday to meet with her.”
“That was fast.” He didn’t sound too thrilled with the news as he ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it somewhat.
For a mad moment, Livie wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through his hair. Brush the locks away from his head and caress each strand through her fingers…perhaps trailing some kisses along his jaw as she did so. A delicious heat spread through her stomach even just thinking about it. Goodness, she was getting carried away and had to get her mind back on track.
“I haven’t even told Charlotte yet,” he continued, glancing distractedly out the window.
“Why does that not surprise me?” Livie sighed. “In any event, as I’ve filled my end of the bargain, you’re still going to honor your agreement, aren’t you?”
“I told you, I always fulfill a promise. I will sign the contract and fund your gazette.”
“Good. I need the funds you’ve promised, and urgently, too.”
“Explain.”
Livie chafed a bit at the command, but she succinctly told him of Mr. Mooney and his threat regarding the rent. “Clearly, now you can see why I went against all good sense to meet you. The gazette is on the brink of disaster before it has even begun. It’s imperative I get the funds. Though, in my defense, I thought I’d be perfectly safe with you there, so I saw no real issue in attending.”
She saw the surprise that flashed in his eyes for a brief moment.
“You thought you’d be safe with me? Even knowing all you do of me?”
“Yes.” And perhaps some would question her sanity