Megan Chance by A Heart Divided

But then, she had been in his life for two years. She had been the only person he trusted. He supposed those things were hard to simply put aside. It was natural to miss her. It was natural to regret those days were gone.
    And now that he'd admitted that, he could get on with his plans.
    Conor winced at the brutality of the thought, but it was true and he couldn't deny it. Missing Sari had nothing to do with now. Wanting her still only made his job easier. He had to keep himself from being drawn in, had to treat her as a means to an end and nothing more. When she looked at him with vulnerability in her eyes, he had to be sure it didn't bring back memories of those days in Tamaqua. When she smiled at him, it would be best to forget those other smiles. He was using her, and he couldn't forget that. Not even for a moment.
    He could not care about her. He didn't want to care. And so he wouldn't. It was that easy.
    That easy.
    He ignored the chill the words cast around his heart.
     

Chapter 7
    S ari bent over her mending, concentrating on the flash of her needle in the dim lamplight, her lips pursed as she worked to make the stitches small and neat. It was a difficult thing to achieve tonight, her hands were trembling so.
    '"Alas, they had been friends in youth; but whispering tongues can poison truth.' "
    His voice moved over her skin like honey, the whiskey-rough sound of it shaping Coleridge's words into secret meanings and subtle seductions. Her burned palm throbbed in time to his cadence.
    He should be an actor, she thought, marveling at the ease with which he formed the words and worked the rhythms. But then, he was an actor, she reminded herself. Strangely the grim thought didn't help distance her from his words. It had been a horrible idea to let him read. She blamed her uncle for suggesting it, though she had agreed readily enough. But how could she have known Conor would pick Coleridge—why should she suspect that he would even know the most romantic of the poet's stories?
    Christabel . It had been her favorite as a young, romantic girl. A foolish girl, she amended quickly.
    The thread snagged, and Sari yanked it free impatiently, too preoccupied to care whether she snagged the worn fabric. She stopped for a moment, trying to calm her emotions, but that voice of his wrapped around her nerves. The harder she struggled against him, the harder it was to escape. He tore down all her fences before she even had time to erect them.
    It was becoming harder every day to remind herself of what Conor Roarke had been, what he had done to her. He'd said it was only a job, that it had only been an act. In a way that was what she wanted to hear. She wanted to know that he'd callously set out to break her, to use her.
    Then there was last night.
    The memory rose easily in her mind. Trust me, love . Those words, and his admission of deceit, affected her strangely, filling her with an odd desire to ask him questions, to learn about him all over again, to know what kind of man Conor Roarke was and how he felt. Was it honesty she sensed now, or was it simply that crushed gravel voice that lulled her, that made her yearn to trust him all over again?
    He finished the poem. The sudden silence seemed to fill the very corners of the small room.
    "You read very well." Charles's quiet voice was startling.
    "Thank you." Conor said.
    Sari felt his gaze on her, and reluctantly she met his eyes. "You do read well," she conceded.
    "Sari should know." Charles grinned. "It is her favorite poem."
    " Christabe l?"
    Sari nodded. Her throat felt tight and swollen. "I used to love it."
    "Used to?" Conor prompted.
    She glanced away, trying to control the butterflies chasing through her stomach. "There are more important things now than poems that are so—"
    "Romantic?"
    "I wouldn't have used that word."
    "No, of course you wouldn't." He smiled, flipping through the warped, water-stained pages. "Shall I read another?"
    Charles grinned. "No more poetry