The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

I was quite adequately taken care of.”

      “No. That isn’t what I meant. Who cared for you? Did anyone do anything beyond simply ensuring that you would not die?”

      “What else is there?”

      He continued working the shampoo through her hair. “There is this.”

      “Clean hair won’t keep me alive.” She sounded subdued now, even though she was still challenging him.

      “Is being kept alive enough?” He did not let the question go deep enough that he might be tempted to answer it himself. For himself.

      “It has served me well so far.”

      “But you want more. Which is why you are pushing back so hard on the engagement.”

      “Or perhaps I simply don’t like you. Maybe it isn’t the marriage. Maybe it’s you.”

      He leaned in, scraping his teeth over the top of her shoulder. “You like me well enough. At least, in the most important way I can think of where marriage is concerned.”

      He felt her shiver beneath his touch. “Sex isn’t everything.”

      “Says the near virgin. Sex is quite a few things. Sex is a wonderful source of release. A way to make yourself feel close with someone when you aren’t truly close with anyone. And a wonderful way to destroy relationships and family ties.” This last part came out more bitter than he’d intended.

      “You speak from experience.”

      “Far too much experience.”

      “I am curious, Andres.” She slithered out of his hold, turning and backing up against the opposite side of the tub. “Why did you do it? Why did you sleep with Kairos’s fiancée when you could have had any woman you wanted?” She tilted her head to the side. “Did you love her?”

      “No,” he said, “I did not love her. I did not even know her, or like her especially.”

      “Then why would you do it?”

      His throat grew tighter, and he couldn’t possibly say why. He didn’t think he could answer her question either, since it was one he had asked himself many times over the past five years. Except now, for some reason, when the question came from her instead of from himself, he felt an answer rising to the surface. “Alcohol, mainly. As I told you, I didn’t even remember what had happened the next morning.”

      “That isn’t all.”

      It wasn’t.

      He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Kairos was the only relationship I had yet to damage. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kept waiting for him to disown me for some antic or another. And he never did. It was hell waiting. Like the blade to the guillotine was hovering above my neck and I knew it would drop, just not when. I decided to drop it myself.”

      “But... It didn’t work. He didn’t disown you.”

      His throat grew even tighter. “No.” He had tested Kairos, badly, and Kairos had proved to be the stronger man, the superior man as always. He had proved that Andres was weak. “No, he did not. Just another reason I am honor-bound to comply with him now. Why I must do this for him. I faltered. He did not.”

      Suddenly, Zara sank beneath the surface of the water, submerging her head completely. When she rose again, she came up slowly out of the water, lifting her arms and sluicing the water droplets from her face, brushing her hair back. The action revealed her breasts. Plump, round, dark, rosy nipples that were more beautiful than he could ever have imagined. She settled again, hiding her body from his view. Then she began to move toward him.

      Her dark eyes were locked with his, her expression questioning. She reached out, touching his cheek with her palm. She said nothing; she only leaned forward, pressing her lips firmly against his. When they parted, she was still looking at him. Looking far too deeply for his liking, as though she could see down deep inside him. Down to places not even he ever looked.

      “Did it make you less lonely? Being with her?” she asked, her tone serious.

      “No,” he said. “I felt nothing after being with her.”

      “You said...it was about control, but... Is that another reason why you left me out there? Because you felt nothing after?”

      How could he explain he left her for the opposite reason? That he left her because he felt too much. Because it felt as though she had reached into his chest and ground broken glass into his heart?

      “No, that isn’t why,” he answered, his voice rough.

      “I only ask a lot of questions because you make me.” She arched a dark eyebrow, letting her fingertips trail down the line of his jaw, down his neck, where she pressed her palm flat against his chest. “Just think how much faster all this would go if you were direct with me. That’s how we do things in the forest.”

      “Do you also collect berries, live in burrows and bunk with squirrels?”

      “Don’t be mean.” She leaned in and bit him on the chin. “I did not live with squirrels.”

      He gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I feel quite a lot when I’m with you. I left because I lost control. That never should have happened. You were a virgin. You could not have known how far I was going to take it. It was wrong of me.”

      “I knew. I’m not completely ignorant. That’s one thing about living in such close quarters with other people. You are forced to share some intimacies. You simply accept that certain things will happen around you and you are obliged to look the other way. As a result, I have been well exposed to certain facts of human life.”

      “Being exposed to and experiencing are two different things.”

      “Stop treating me like I’m a child. Or a creature. I am a woman. And though I have been able to make few decisions about my own life, I do know my mind.”

      “I know that.”

      She tilted her head to the side. “Do you feel guilty?”

      “I just said that I did.”

      “No, I mean about the engagement. Our marriage.”

      “There is no other option. There is no point entertaining guilt over it.”

      She moved her hand farther down his chest, her eyes never leaving his. “I have a feeling you don’t have any room inside you for more guilt.”

      Cursed woman. Why did she have to see things so clearly? “Are you charging for this session?”

      “What does that mean?”

      “Like a therapist. They charge per hour to listen to you talk about your feelings.”

      “That seems like a waste of money to me. You could go out into the woods and just scream until you feel better.”

      He looked down at her bland expression. “Is that what you do?”

      “I have.”

      He cupped her face with his hands. “What makes you scream, Zara?”

      “The first time I did it,” she said, looking down for a moment, “it was after my parents died. I ran into the woods. And I knew I was alone. Really, really alone. So it didn’t matter if I screamed. I had to behave myself at the palace. I had to be a princess. But out there, I didn’t have to be anything. Nothing but sad. Nothing but lonely. So I howled like a wolf. I don’t know for how long. No one heard me, or if they did no one came for me. When I went back...”

      “Did you feel better?”

      “Not really. But I could breathe.” She traced the path of a water droplet over his chest. “So whenever I had trouble breathing, that’s what I would do. I was alone a lot. I found ways to make it bearable. Ways that it was an advantage.”

      He