An exerpt from David Orsini’s
Schemes, Disguises, and Traps
“We agreed that you were never going to come here,” Lauren told him the moment that he stepped foot inside the house. “If anyone sees you, you will ruin everything for us.”
Her soft voice and petitioning manner could not conceal her angry resentment that he had come here so unexpectedly, complicating the scheme that they had been devising together, even though in these days they were often apart.
He knew her too well to accept this petition as anything more than her fear of him. There had been other times when she had more persuasively disguised her fear or, with carefree words and a light caress of his arm, kept her fear at bay. But always her fear held her words in its chains. Always, the memory of how rough he could be with her subdued any impulse that might impel her to cross him. That she loved him despite this fear intrigued him. Such love, as far as he understood it, was a perversity of the will. It drove its energies against safe convention and against the expectation of quiet happiness.
For the moment, he met her softness with his own subdued response, a disguise that lent conviction to his husky voice and nearly affable manner.
“There’s no need to worry,” he said. “Most of the summer people have left the area. Besides, if any of the regulars here do recognize me, they will accept me as a friend of yours who happens to be passing through.”
“But I do worry, Bryce,” she said. “I do worry. One wrong move and everything we have worked for will be ruined.”
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