But she had dreamed of being his for too long. He had quite ruined her for a marriage of convenience. She wanted everything from him: his mind, his body, his name and, most of all, his heart.

I feel able to comfort myself emotionally, and this keeps my heart open.

He raked his fingers through his hair. "She doesn't need me." Ralston smirked. "You are laboring under that mistaken impression that it is their job to need us. In my experience it is almost always the other way around.

I had a perfect life in my reach once, and it was a crashing bore. Perfect is too clean, too easy. I don't want perfect any more than I want to be perfect. I want imperfect.

She took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling for a long moment. A raindrop moved slowly down her neck; he watched as it turned down the slope of her breast to disappear inside the collar of her shirt. He was seriously contemplating becoming jealous of a droplet of water. Yorkshire was obviously damaging to his sanity.

You are beautiful and brilliant and bold and so very passionate about life and love and those things that you believe in. And you taught me that everything I believed, everything I thought I wanted, everything I had spent my life espousing--all of it...it is wrong. I want your version of life...vivid and emotional and messy and wonderful and filled with happiness. But I cannot have it without you.

She looked up at him and said,"What did you say?" "You have beautiful eyes." "You told my father that he has beautiful eyes?" He smiled. "No. You distracted me. I told your father that, while I was very grateful for the lesson, I doubt I would ever need of it again- because I was planning to court only one woman in my lifetime.