His Wicked Sins (27 page)
portal shut with a firm tug.
Feeling trapped, Beth half rose, appalled.
"Sit. Please." His voice was little more than a whisper. It did not need to be more. She
sat, her heart thudding ever harder, a dull, steady rhythm, too fast for comfort.
"Tell me, Miss Canham. Tell me your greatest fear. Closed, tight places? The dark?"
She was frozen in place, unable to follow the shift in his mood. Where was the tug of
amusement that he often showed at the corner of his mouth? Where was the gentleness she
had witnessed in the garden when he had opened his hand to free the wasp, unharmed?
He was not that man now. He was hard and implacable and chillingly calm.
Dear heaven, she was caught in his grasp as surely as that wasp had been, but she
doubted in this moment that she would escape unscathed.
"I will scream," she whispered, her voice hoarse and cracked.
HIS WICKED SINS
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Of course, she would not. In truth, he had done nothing more than close the door. What
had she to scream about, other than her myriad terrors? And those she should have long
ago learned to bottle in the depths of her soul.
"Then scream." He shot her a sardonic look and strode to the window to jerk the heavy
draperies closed, blocking out the sun, blocking out the light, leaving the room small and
closed and dark. "But I think you will not."
In that instant, she hated him. Hated him for the meanness that made him choose to
torment her so.