Excerpt from "His Woman" by DIana Cosby

Duncan tilted his head and appraised her with eyes that held a combination of ice and heat. "I was thinking you are the most beautiful lass I have ever seen." As Isabel caught her breath, he added, harsher, "and the most deceitful." He stepped toward her. "I have waited for the truth, Isabel, a truth I will have this night."

She held his gaze. "Any lie I have made had a purpose."

"Purpose?" His face darkened with anger, his body cast in the outlines of flames at his back adding to the ominous image. He strode to her and caught her face between his hands. "Hear me, Isabel," he said between gritted teeth. "Tonight, you will tell me everything."

"It is not so simple," she whispered. Frasyer's threats to kill Duncan if she broke her vow of silence of their arrangement clattered in her mind, more so of the twisted ways the earl would seek vengeance.
"Nothing of importance is."

Panic swirled inside her. She could not allow harm to come to Duncan, but neither could she lie to him further. Already, too many mistruths had passed her lips, but she'd given them to save Duncan.

Except he would not see it as that.

And he would hate her.

When she loved him with her every breath.

Wanted him as no other man.

"Isabel!"

His harsh voice unnerved her further, but she held her ground. "I will tell you what you want to know, but first," her voice trembled but she reached her hand over to cover his, "can we not share this one night?"