The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

felt that he’d only bound himself up tighter, pushed himself deeper into perdition.

      The ache in his chest was overwhelming now. He couldn’t speak past it, couldn’t breathe past it. Before, he had tamped it down, medicated it with alcohol, with women. Surrounded himself with people so he could pretend that he wasn’t desperately, terrifyingly alone.

      So he could pretend he was somehow different than the boy locked away in his room.

      For the first time he allowed himself to feel it. Really feel it. It was the monster under his bed, the one he had pretended wasn’t there. He had buried it, drunk it away, ignored it, mocked it. But now it was going to consume him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to stop it.

      He realized for the first time he’d left part of himself locked away. So that he couldn’t be hurt. Couldn’t be rejected.

      He loosened his tie, taking a step away from the church, toward the woods. He couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the tie. Maybe it was the collar on his shirt. He undid a button. Then the next. He still couldn’t breathe. The constricting feeling was inside his throat, tightening, like a noose around his neck he couldn’t reach or control.

      He took another step away from the church, then another. And he refused to look back. He headed toward the trees, toward isolation. He felt driven to embrace it, driven to experience this moment of honesty. The first moment of honesty in his entire life.

      He kept walking, the air around him darkening as the trees thickened.

      He had always run into the crowd in moments like this. When the howling emptiness inside him became too much, he let it get swallowed up by people, things. But here he could do nothing but let it expand. Admit that Zara was right.

      He’d been happy when his mother was gone because it meant no more trying. No more pain. No more failure in any way that mattered.

      But Kairos had still demanded of him, and so he’d tried to rid himself of his brother too, though it hadn’t worked. And all the while he’d told himself it was because he was every bit as evil as his mother had said.

      Debauched. A mistake.

      He was still just a boy locked in his room. Away from everything. No matter how many women he touched, no matter how many parties he went to...no one ever really reached him.

      Until Zara.

      And he’d betrayed her. Now he was alone again and there was no denying it. No covering it up.

      Every year of isolation was catching up to him now, rolling over him in great, crashing waves. Years of it, threatening to suffocate him if he didn’t relieve some of the pressure.

       You could just go out into the woods and scream to make yourself feel better.

      Another bit of wisdom from Zara. Feral wisdom. She was filled with it. She was nothing more than a tiny woman who had been raised just this side of civilized. And yet she had taught him everything.

      Now he was in the exact place she had found herself years ago. Hurting. Lonely. Dying inside with no way to heal himself.

      He had nothing to lose. No image to maintain. He had just been jilted in front of his entire country. He had been left by the only woman who had ever loved him. The only woman he had ever loved in return. And he was responsible. It was his fault. His fear had destroyed everything.

      Because he had let it grow inside him, unidentified, ignored. He had pretended it wasn’t there and like a malignant disease it had grown, thrived, as he had allowed it to. He had told himself his relief at his mother being gone made him terrible. Wrong.

      He had simply been afraid. Admitting that was the hardest thing, admitting he was weak.

      He’d imagined himself invulnerable. As long as he believed he feared nothing, as long as he believed he didn’t care, it must be true. But it was a lie. It had always been a lie. It was his caring for his mother, her disdain for him that had made it a burden. If he’d never cared, it would not have felt so heavy.

      He did care. And he had failed. Now it all rested on him.

      He wanted to rail against it. He wanted to scream as Zara said she did when she came to the woods alone.

       “Did you feel better?”

       “Not really. But I could breathe.”

      The thought of doing that would have been impossible only a few hours ago. Because he was buried so deep inside himself, and screaming into the emptiness was letting it free. Letting that uncontrolled boy who had cared, but had failed, out to try again. He had buried that boy. That boy who had been wrong, perpetually, to those who should have loved him simply for breathing.

      He had grown into a man who had felt nothing for far too long. Who had been paralyzed in the end when he was offered the world.

      A man who couldn’t breathe.

      He did his best to take a gasp of air, something, anything to fill his lungs. And then he shouted into the emptiness. Not words, just pain. Forcing it out of his body the best he could, clearing room so that he could breathe again. He wanted to be rid of the fear. Of everything he had allowed to stand in his way.

      He had broken his own life. He could no longer blame anyone else. The one who held everyone at a distance. Who tried to prove to himself that the love he was offered was false. He had tested his mother. She had failed. She had failed and he had been glad because her love was so heavy.

      He shouted again, the sound rough and raw in the silence. But when he was finished, he found that he could breathe again. Just for a moment it felt as if Zara was with him.

      He wanted her to be. He realized that with blinding clarity as the sound of his voice faded into a distant echo. He wanted her to be with him so that neither of them would be alone again. But she could have anyone. Any future she wanted. She didn’t have to make a life with him.

      But he would ask. He would beg if he had to.

      He had closed himself off to caring, to needing anyone else for fear that he might fail. He might very well fail at this. He didn’t care. He wanted her, he wanted her forever, and that was worth the risk.

      He would lay himself bare, open, without his heart and show it to her if need be.

      But he would not let her walk away without a fight.

      He was broken already. There was nothing to protect. And without her, he could never be put back together.

      He did not know if he could be saved. But he knew one thing for certain: Her love was not heavy. It was light.

      The only thing powerful enough to raise him back up from hell.

      * * *

      Everything inside Zara hurt. Everything on the outside of Zara hurt. She was pain wrapped in misery, rolled in regret and stuffed beneath the blanket she never wanted to emerge from. Of course, she couldn’t take up permanent residence underneath a blanket in the guest room at Julia’s. Convenient though it might be.

      Today was her wedding day. She hadn’t shown up. It was also her first real Christmas in years. She hadn’t shown up for that either.

      At least Christmas would keep coming. It always did. Every year, whether she was in a position to celebrate it or not.

      Her wedding to Andres could only have happened today. The offer would never present itself again.

       He betrayed you.

      Yes, he had betrayed her.

      She fought against the voice inside her that was shouting about the fact that he had betrayed her out of fear. That he had tried to push her away because things had gotten too intense between them. That he was doing to her the same thing he had done to Kairos. Testing her. Testing their love.

      Well, even if it was true, she couldn’t allow him to get away with it. He couldn’t