CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO – SEEKING HIS AFFECTION AGAIN

Cupping her face again, he brushed his lips across her forehead, her cheeks, the corner of her trembling mouth. "I won't lie and say it won't be dangerous confronting him. But I vowed long ago to love you fearlessly, consequences be damned. And I intend to keep that vow until my dying breath." Scarlett's throat worked convulsively as she warred with herself - the urge to flee opposing the steel-wrought trust she'd always had in this man. This indomitable force of nature, her protector. "If I lost you..." The words stuck like knives in her airway. "You won't," Henry murmured, the words both benediction and vow. "We end this once and for all, love. Then it's just you and me against the world for all eternity." He slanted his mouth over hers again in a scorching, desperate kiss. One that promised both ecstasy and terror, tragedy and triumph, life and the grave inextricably intertwined. When he finally released her, Scarlett's lips were swollen and her knees unsteady. Henry's stormy e