You can’t refuse the Duke. Not if it means leaving your father like this. No, it was true. They needed the money too urgently. Her father needed better care and, since she was the reason he was sitting in this chair, his career—his whole life—in ruins, then it made only logical sense for her to be the one to fix it.
But she wasn’t going to give the Duke everything. She had to draw the line somewhere to protect herself too.
She would marry him, but she wouldn’t sleep with him. And she’d give him the child he wanted, but only via medical assistance. Her father would find her reasoning flawed, but then, her father wasn’t the one who had to do this. She did. And she could tell herself all she liked that the Duke didn’t affect her, that she was stronger than the chemistry that leapt between t
