“Do you think so?”
“Confession would take too long at this point, Layna. I’m beyond it. I might as well just accept it for what it is and move on from there.”
Her heart thundered, anger burning through her veins. “At least you can move on. Gloss over it, pretend it didn’t happen. It’s a lot harder to do that when you have to look at the effects of the past in the mirror every day.”
“Then how about I wake up to the effects of the past every morning?”
“What?” she asked, her stomach hollowing out.
“I’ve changed my mind about changing my mind.” He put his legs out straight in front of him, his eyes fixed ahead. “After thinking about it, I believe the best idea is for you to marry me.”
CHAPTER SIX
SHE HAD BEEN silent the rest of the ride back the palace. He supposed that it was probably a no, but he wasn’t going to let her get away with not giving an answer. In his mind, it just meant he had to change hers.
“I’m tired,” she said, once they reached the entryway of the palace. “I’m going to my room.”
“I shall accompany you.”
“No, you shall not,” she said, starting to walk away from him, down an empty corridor, away from where the servants were bustling around.
“Then we will speak here.”
“No, we won’t.”
He went to stand in front of her and she stopped and backed up quickly, her back making contact with the wall. “Yes,” he said, advancing on her. “We will.”
He studied her face, really studied it, for the first time since that day at the convent. It was a shame what had been done to her beauty. She’d been uncommon. He could remember her clearly. Those full pink lips, smooth skin, perfectly arched brows. Oh, he had wanted her badly. He could still remember that.
Being twenty-one and wanting his fiancée with a ferocity that he could scarcely understand. He’d been no virgin, even then, but she’d made him feel like one. And his father had made it clear Xander wasn’t allowed to touch her, at least not until closer to the wedding. Something about respect and honor. About preserving the people’s vision of their future queen.
So he had obeyed.
But they never would have made it that long. The chemistry had been too potent.
He’d nearly kissed her once. He remembered because it had happened the day before his mother’s death. The day before the revelation about who he really was.
After that, he hadn’t seen her.
He lifted his hand and put his fingertips on her scar-roughened cheek, drawing them down her neck. He could imagine the attack clearly, how it had made these particular scars. A hard hit to her cheek, spray over her nose, eye and forehead, down one side of her neck.
The other side of her face was virtually untouched, but it made her scars all the more shocking. It gave them contrast. A living, breathing before-and-after shot.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.