" And yet he was holding the hand of a little boy and trailing the boy’s exasperating mother. Perhaps he was lonely. Or perhaps it was the look in her eyes when he’d emerged from the pond and found her watching him that urged his footsteps on. It had been a long time—a very, very long time—since a woman had last looked at him like that. As if she saw something she liked. "

― Elizabeth Hoyt , Darling Beast (Maiden Lane, #7)