"You want me to tell you I'm madly in love with you, Sophie? Hey, I'm a lawyer-I can lie with the best of them."

She blinked. There it was out in the open, under the harsh glare of light. Except that the light wasn't harsh at all, it was a soft glow from the fire and the old lamps.

"Then we've got a problem," she said softly.

"Do we?"

"Because I'm in love with you."

He didn't look particularly happy to hear it. "It's just sex, Sophie."

"So why did you come back?"

He shrugged. "Unfinished business? Lust? A latent sense of decency?"

"You said you're a lawyer. No such thing."

"What do you want from me?"

"Why don't you tell me what you want from me?"

He hesitated. "I want you."

"Yes," she said, gently encouraging.

"I want you in my bed. I want you in my house. Hell, Sophie, I want you in my life. I want to take you upstairs to that nice big bed and make love to you, very slowly, and then I want to sleep with you, which is weird as hell because I don't like to sleep with the women I have sex with. I want to wake up with you in the morning, I want to fight with you in the afternoon, and I want to make love on any and every available surface in this place. And then I want to do it all over again. Come upstairs with me, Sophie. I'll keep you warm. I'll keep the darkness away."

She was beginning to melt. "We have nothing in common," she said.

"I know."

"We'll fight all the time."

"But then we'll make up."

"True," she said. "You're going to marry me."

He blinked at that. "Yeah," he said morosely, "you're right."

"And you're going to love me." She stood and dropped the raincoat in the chair behind her.

He rose, towering over her, and he put his big, strong hands on her shoulders and pulled her to him. "God help me, you're right about that, too."

And he kissed her.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-4937-4.

Also available from MIRA Books and.

ANNE STUART.

THE WIDOW.

SHADOWS AT SUNSET.