“Oh my god.” I stare at my husband in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”
Dean looks as if he doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed or defensive.
“No, I’m not kidding you,” he says.
“How is that even possible?”
He shrugs. “I just never got around to it.”
“You’re a professor,” I say. “A PhD summa cum laude. A graduate of Yale and Princeton. You’ve taken a million honors classes in your lifetime. You’ve read the Magna Carta in the original Latin.”
“I know.” He’s starting to look faintly irritated. “That doesn’t mean I’ve read every book ever written.”
“But how could you miss this?” I wave the paperback in the air. “In all your years of history and literature classes, you’ve never read Pride and Prejudice?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“I want a divorce.”
Dean laughs, pushing to his feet and crossing the sunroom to where I’m almost vibrating with righteous indignation over the fact that the man I love and adore beyond all reason has been—this whole time—ignorant of the restrained passion of Lizzy and Mr. Darcy.
Dean settles his hands on my hips and pulls me against him in that effortless way that fits our bodies together like puzzle pieces locking into place.
“If you tried to divorce me, Mrs. West,” he says, his gaze warm as he looks down at me, “I would spend the rest of my life fighting to get you back. I’d scale the tallest buildings, climb the highest mountains, cross the most treacherous rivers and deserts, all just to prove how wildly and passionately I love you and to bring you back home to me.”
Okay, so that wasn’t bad.
“But…” I tap his chest with the book. “Would you go to great lengths to make a rogue marry my sister to preserve my family’s honor?”
“Uh…” Dean scratches his head. “Yes?”
“You’d better.” I give a little sniff. “And just so you know, Mr. Darcy is my top romantic hero. Fictional, I mean,” I add hastily, when Dean’s expression starts to darken.
He takes the book from me and looks at the synopsis on the back. “Isn’t Darcy a girl’s name?”
“His first name is Fitzwilliam.”
“Does everyone call him Fitzy Darcy?”
“Mr. Darcy is extremely handsome, masculine, and noble. He’s also uncompromising and overly proud, but he casts that aside to confess his ardent love for Lizzy.”
“I’m sure he’s rich too,” Dean remarks.
“Well, yes, but that’s not why she falls in love with him.”
He rolls his eyes ever so slightly.
I tweak his nose. “That’s not why I fell in love with you.”
“Ah, now this conversation is getting interesting.” Dean slides his other hand around to my ass. “Let’s talk more about why you fell in love with me.”
“Hah. I’m not about to stroke the ego of a man who’s never read Pride and Prejudice.”
“Want to stroke something else?” he asks with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows.
I’m not so offended that the thought of getting sexy with my husband is unappealing—I’m quite certain nothing could provoke such blasphemy—but I’m also not about to let him off the hook that easily.
“That is so not something Mr. Darcy would say.” I press my breasts against his chest to tease him, then wiggle out of his grip and go into the kitchen. “However, maybe we should dress up as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet for Halloween.”
“Yeah…no.” Dean returns to his sprawled position on the sofa with his tablet.
I let my gaze travel surreptitiously over his long, muscular body, imagining him dressed in well-fitting breeches, a snowy white linen shirt with a double-breasted silk waistcoat hugging his lean torso beneath a navy, superfine coat…
“You’d be very sexy in a Regency gentleman’s clothing,” I say. “And besides, you haven’t come up with a single other idea for a couple’s costume.”
“I’m the one who suggested Olga Danilova and Vasili Buslai.”
“I don’t even know who they are.” I return my attention to the white shirt spread out on the central island. “No one knows who they are.”
“They’re characters from one of the greatest Russian films of all time—Alexander Nevsky. It’s a historical drama that I can’t believe I haven’t shown you before. I’ll order a DVD or see if we can download it.”
“No hurry,” I reply dryly. “And it can’t be that great because I’ve never heard of it. Besides, not a single person will get the reference.” I check the seams of the shirt I sewed. “We could just be Arthur and Guinevere.”
“Isn’t that a little obvious?”
“That’s the point of a couple’s costume. It’s not supposed to be totally obscure.”