His lips twisted fondly before his eyes returned to hers earnestly. “I hope I thought of everything you might need, but you already met Fedor and Anya during our tour, my valet and his wife. Anya will be at your service for any domestic needs, and Fedor for anything else. Always call me first, with anything serious, even if I’m occupied with state emergencies. But Anya and Fedor are always ready for immediate and trivial matters.” She nodded and he walked away. Midway to the door, he turned again. “You promise you will call me if you need anything?”
Heart expanding at his solicitude, shriveling at his withdrawal, she knew he’d wait until she said, “I promise.”
Once he was gone, she rushed to the nearest bathroom and locked herself in. And let the tears flow. For she’d just promised she’d call him if she needed anything.
Anything but him. When he was all she needed.
Eight
Leonid stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
He looked like hell. Much like he had in those days after he’d sent Kassandra away. He’d been keeping her away since they’d come to Zvaria three days ago. Every hour, every minute, every second had been sheer torture. Total chaos.
Every moment had been dedicated to concocting legitimate ways to escape being alone with her, so he wouldn’t be forced to clarify his position. It had been getting progressively harder, with him perpetually on the precipice of doing something totally insane or irrevocably damaging. Or both. Like taking her against the nearest vertical surface, as he’d done back on the jet.
And he’d run out of excuses, could no longer run from a confrontation. Doing so could cause the very damage he’d been trying to avoid.
So he hadn’t disappeared after they’d put the twins to bed. He was sure she would come after him. He could feel her drawing nearer, his every cell rioting with her proximity.
And he had no idea about what to say or do. None.
Severing the visual clash with his own bloodshot eyes, he stiffly moved away from the mirror, shuffled back to his reception area and sank down on an armchair facing the door. Counted down the heartbeats that would bring her to him with an infallible certainty. The soft knock on the door came as his countdown ran out. Though expected, it still juddered through him. His nerves were shot, his resistance depleted. At any point in this encounter, if she touched him, he would devour her.
Unable to rise again, he called out thickly, “Come in.”
She’d realize he knew it was her. Who else would his guards allow to walk up to his quarters at this hour, or at all?
Bracing himself, his nerves still fired in unison when he saw her. That magnificent creature that had occupied his every waking and sleeping thought since he’d first laid eyes on her. In that deep burgundy floor-length dress she’d worn earlier tonight for dinner, which accentuated her complexion and curves. With her thousand-shade golden waterfall of silk and green-meadow eyes, she looked as magical as always. And as haggard as he did.
Without closing the door behind her, she approached, her gaze stripping away what was left of his tatters of control.
Thankfully, she didn’t come close enough to test his nonexistent resolve. She started without preamble.
“I could pretend I didn’t still want you when I was angry with you, when I was afraid of you. But even before I quit being either, I admitted it to myself first, then to you on that jet. I do want you, more than ever.”
He stared at her. He’d expected outrage, scolding, blame, anything but this confession.
She went on, “I know we agreed on a plan, and I haven’t changed my mind about it. You tell everyone whatever would be best for you, the girls and your kingdom, and I’ll back it up. I know you’d prefer to be together only for the girls, and I realize you haven’t said a word about what happened between us on the jet because you’re uncertain how to handle it. But I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to overthink it or feel anxious about it. If your response to me wasn’t just a random male one, if you want me, I am asking you not to hold back out of worry for your other considerations. Let’s have this. Let’s be together. No strings, no expectations. Just like in the past.”
Then she fell silent, the brittle hope in her gaze shattering what remained of his sanity, and his heart. He struggled to force himself to remain still, expressionless, but inside him, a hurricane raged.
How was it possible she could offer him this? Not knowing his reasons for taking everything she had, in the past and recently, then throwing it in her face, she would be a masochist, a victim, to offer him a second, and now a third chance. Which she wasn’t.
So did she want him so much that she was convincing herself his reasons were justifiable? Or was it even worse? Did she love him? In the past, and still now? Was she, after this magical trip to Zorya, and their explosive episode of passion, ready to expose herself to further injury for the chance of resurrecting something she shouldn’t believe had ever been real?
It overwhelmed him, agonized him, that her feelings for him could be so fierce and profound they’d survived his humiliation, his desertion. When he had to let her down, again. And for the last time.
Even though it would leave him bloodied and extinguished.
But he was still unable to rebuff her, hurt her like that again. He had to try to soften the blow any way he could.
Feeling he’d be cutting off a vital part of himself with a jagged blade all over again, he started, “I doesn’t matter what I want...”
Her stepping closer stopped him, and her tremulous objection twisted the knife hacking his guts. “It’s all that matters. This isn’t the past. Things have changed. You have. I have, too, along with things between us and everything else. We should be together for the sole reason that we want each other.”
Feeling he was drowning, a breath away from heaving up and crushing her in his arms, begging for anything for as long as she would give it, come what may, he shook his head.
“You’re right, this isn’t the past. It’s far worse. In the past, when I messed up, I hurt only you. Not that that was any less significant, or any more forgivable, but it remains a fact the damages I caused were limited to you. You’ve contained any repercussions for the twins so far with your strength and resourcefulness, aided by their young age. But now the situation is exceedingly more complicated. Personal considerations are the last thing to feature in my worries, and any damages would ripple out into widespread destruction.”
Another urgent step brought her closer, her incredible beauty alight with passion. “That’s what I meant by no expectations. There would be no repercussions to your kingdom or your relationship with the girls no matter what happens between us.”
Destroyed by her offer of carte blanche, hating himself and the whole world even more for being forced to do this, her next words cleaved the remaining tatters keeping his heart in place.
“I’ve been thinking back to the time of your accident. Just before it happened, I was starting to feel restless. You were right when you thought I wanted to change the rules of our liaison. Though it wasn’t premeditated, as you had believed. And contrary to what you thought, I wanted to negotiate, not for strings, but for more freedom. Our secrecy imposed too many barriers and limitations, and I wanted to be free of those, not to suggest different shackles. But when I saw your crumpled car, I knew then I only wanted you alive and well. That if I could only have you again, any way at all, I’d never want anything more. That feeling came back to me on the way here, made me face that I prefer the way it ended a million times to having it end...that way. And now I can’t bear the possibility of missing out on being with you because I didn’t let you know how I feel.”
He looked away, unable to bear her baring everything inside her to him like that. He wasn’t worthy of her courage and generosity, deserved none of her pure and magnificent emotions.
But escaping her gaze only brought her closer, until she touched him. Burned him to the marrow with one gentle, trembling caress on his shoulder.
“All that time, after you said you didn’t want me anymore, what hurt most was the confusion, the disbelief. I couldn’t imagine that what I felt from you, and so powerfully, didn’t exist. Now everything inside me tells me what I felt from you back on the jet wasn’t just sex. So please, Leonid...” Her cold, trembling hand cupped his jaw. It clenched so hard he was worried he’d grind his teeth to dust. “Tell me the truth. If you tell me you don’t want me now, I’ll walk away and this time I’ll keep my distance and will never bring it up again. Just tell me, and I promise you, it won’t change anything for you.”
Tell her you don’t want her. Set her free.
But he couldn’t look at her and tell another such terrible lie. He couldn’t watch the last embers go out in her eyes, and be replaced by the darkness of his final letdown.
Unable to breathe, praying he’d suffocate, cease to exist, he escaped the brutality of her gossamer touch, pitched forward, elbows crashing on his knees and head in his hands.
“Was this my mistake, then and now? Showing you how I feel? Was that what put you off?” And there they were. The tears she’d been holding at bay, soaking her voice as she entreated him one last time. “Leonid?”