The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

was no doubt that Zara’s feathers were thoroughly ruffled. Though he had a feeling there was nothing he could do at this point to unruffle them. In truth, she had been rather ruffled from the first moment he saw her. It was the effect he seemed to have on her.

      That didn’t bother him. What disturbed him was the effect she seemed to have on him.

      “Did you want me to stay and initiate another round? We were standing in the hallway. Anyone could have walked by,” he said, throwing the same accusations at her that he had just thrown at himself.

      “That didn’t bother you before.”

      No, it didn’t. Because he hadn’t been thinking. He hadn’t been in control.

      He ground his teeth together, his heart thundering hard. He was...angry. At his body, for betraying him as it always did. At himself, for his weakness.

      At her, for making him vulnerable.

      Before he knew what he was doing, he growled, crossing the room toward her. Her eyes widened, and she shrank back from him, her back hitting the wall.

      “You think the wall will save you? I think we’ve proven that it won’t,” he said, rage making him reckless. Making him cruel.

      He wanted to use his words to drive a wedge between them. To push her away. He didn’t want her to look at him with desire.

      “You are not touching me again until you explain yourself.”

      “What’s to explain? I wanted you. I had you.” With no control, no finesse, no care for anything at all. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted it. Yes, her body language had given every indication that she did, but he hadn’t even known how innocent Zara was. He still wasn’t entirely certain. She had acted boldly back there, but that meant nothing. He was afraid to ask. Now that it was too late, he was very afraid indeed.

      “And then you left.”

      “Again, Princess, what did you want from me?”

      “I thought we might go back in for dessert,” she said, her voice wobbling.

      That innocence, the insecurity, tore at him like claws and yet he could not stop himself from putting more distance between them.

      He laughed, the sound carrying no humor. “So you thought I would go back in there with no buttons on my shirt? After all, a little creature pulled them off.”

       She is not the creature. You are the monster.

      Her expression turned all the more stormy. “I am not a creature. I am a woman. As I think I just proved.” She was as haughty as ever. As prideful. Her chin tilted upward, her eyes full of determination.

      But she was also vulnerable. He could see it there, written on her face plainly. And there was nothing he could do about it. He was not the man to handle vulnerable women.

      If his history was any indicator, he was the man who chased vulnerable women away.

      “And I am a man,” he said, keeping his tone dry. “So there is nothing all that exceptional about attraction exploding between us.”

      She frowned. “Even though we were fighting?”

      “Especially because we were fighting,” he said, his voice rough.

      “That makes no sense to me.”

      “Then I question the sort of lovers you’ve had in the past.”

      It was her turn to laugh. “I’ve had no other lovers.”

      It was the answer he had been afraid of. The rage in his blood turned to ice, settling in the pit of his stomach. “Is that so?”

      “Of course I haven’t. I had never even kissed a man before you.”

      Mother of God. Had she even known what was exploding between them out there in the hall? Had she even realized where it might go? What had he done?

      In that moment he despised himself. He hadn’t thought it was possible for him to reach a new depth of hating his own lack of self-control. The loss of his mother, what happened with Francesca, he had imagined that was the worst of it. Right now, looking at this angry, confused woman who had been a virgin only minutes earlier, he realized there were entirely new depths he hadn’t even known about.

      “How is it you have survived this long?” he growled, aware that he was allowing his anger at himself to spill out and hit the wrong target. “You are so naive it is painful. By rights you should have been devoured by a wolf in the forest.”

      Her eyes were filled with righteous indignation. “I feel as though I was just devoured by a wolf.”

      “If I had devoured you, little one, you would hardly be standing here radiating rage.”

      “Perhaps, had you not run away from me like a scared little boy, I would not be standing here radiating rage.”

      For a moment, he saw himself as exactly that. A scared little boy failing at his duty yet again. Going off into isolation.

      No.

      He slammed his hand against the wall, right by her head. “Were I a little boy you would not behave so satisfied as you apparently were.”

      “You can’t minimize and maximize the impact of what happened in the same argument,” she said, her eyes never wavering from his.

      “I can do whatever I like.” He pushed away from her, his heart raging. “I am the prince here.”

      She rolled her eyes, having the gall to look bored. “And I am a princess.”

      “Princess of the caravans,” he said. “Very compelling. You would be nothing here in my country were it not for your engagement to me. An engagement that you seem intent on preventing when you know it’s the only way you’ll ever make anything of yourself. You want to know who you really are? Apart from me? Impoverished. Would you like to explore the meaning of that? Being cold, being hungry, being truly alone.”

      The color drained from her face and he felt an answering ache expanding in his stomach. He didn’t think it was possible to be any more of a bastard than he already was. Yet again, he was proved wrong.

      “Whatever freedom you imagine you might find in that,” he continued, “I guarantee it will not be there. Here? With me? I will give you money, power, access to education, a chance to make a difference. Not sleeping in the street, which I feel you may also think an advantage.”

      She was now completely white-faced and still, like a small marble statue, turned to stone by his words.

      “My mistake,” he said. “You were imagining that you might have a life if you left me, and I have just stolen your illusion. What were you thinking? That I might finance your life without the benefit of having you in my bed?”

      “No.” Furious color rose in her cheeks. “Of course I didn’t think that. I thought that I could...perhaps find out what I wanted to do...”

      “For work? You have no job experience. You have no life experience. Forgive me, Princess, but you need to understand that growing up in the wilderness, surrounded by a band of people lost somewhere in the last century, does not give you the necessary tools to exist inside an urban society.”

      “I am not naive, nor am I stupid. The screaming in the palace... Andres, you would pray to God to have those memories removed from your head. However, it doesn’t work that way. If I had any innocence left, it all was lost then. So do not treat me as though I am some kind of wide-eyed child. I stopped being a child when I was six years old.” She took a deep breath. “I am the only survivor of a terrible attack on the royal family. I was whisked out of my bedroom in the dead of night by my mother’s maid, screams filling the air behind us, screams that echo in my head even now. Screams that most certainly belonged to my mother, my father. My brother. I am left with nothing but the sounds and my imagination to weave every dark