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Yet some instinct told her that he wouldn’t welcome it, so she stayed where she was.
‘What’s the issue?’ she asked, keeping her voice carefully neutral.
‘He’s very concerned with appearances and didn’t want to condone the story I gave him about us having a love affair.’
‘Oh,’ she murmured, not sure what else to say.
‘He thinks no one will believe it.’ Bitterness had crept into his voice. ‘Apparently the idea that I might genuinely care about someone is utterly preposterous.’
She scanned his face, noting the anger glittering still in his eyes. ‘And do you care?’
His gaze focused on her, his expression sharp and edged. Then he turned away, striding over to the windows and pausing in front of them, looking out over the sea beyond. ‘No, of course I don’t. Why would you think otherwise?’
But that bitterness in his voice gleamed bright as a blade and she knew suddenly what it meant.
He’d been so fierce when she’d told him about her parents, his gaze so concerned... Of course he cared.
She crossed the space between them, stopping behind him, staring at his strong, powerful back. There was so much tension in his posture. Was it just his brother’s refusal to lie? Or was it something else? Something to do with their father?
A sudden memory of the ferocity in his eyes as she’d touched that scar on his stomach flashed before her. He hadn’t stopped her since, but she hadn’t asked about it since.
It had something to do with that, she was sure.
‘Why are you so angry with him?’ she asked into the silence of the room, the urge to touch him, give him some comfort, almost overwhelming.
Xerxes gave a short laugh. ‘Who? My brother? It’s not him I’m angry with.’
‘Then who? Your father?’
He turned his head to the side, his perfect profile hard. ‘If you want me to give you something, you’d better get naked first.’
Calista didn’t move because she knew him better now and she knew when she’d touched a nerve. ‘Don’t snap at me,’ she said softly. ‘Not when it’s not me you’re angry with. Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? I already gave you something, remember? But you never reciprocated.’
For a second he remained silent, then he turned suddenly, the gold bright in his eyes. But it wasn’t warm. It was icy, hard. Frozen.
Threat radiated from him, danger charging the air around them, but she’d never been afraid of him before and she wasn’t now. He was the tiger forced into a corner, left with nowhere to go but to attack.
‘Is that so?’ He laughed, the sound cold. ‘Give me one reason why I should.’
She stared back, not giving ground. ‘Because you promised.’
He cursed, low and filthy. ‘What do you want to know? The details of my capture? How I put that pill in my mouth every day but couldn’t make myself swallow it? How I justified my own cowardice by thinking that perhaps my father wouldn’t want me to die? That he would come for me? Or perhaps you want something else?’ He stepped back from her and suddenly pulled his T-shirt up and off in one fluid movement, baring his magnificent chest. He flung the T-shirt onto the floor, fury suddenly stark on his face. ‘Perhaps you want to know about the interrogation games my father played. How one day, when I was thirteen, a man in a mask kidnapped me from my room. He blindfolded me, took me to a stone cell and tied me to a chair. Shone a light in my eyes. Told me that I had to give him the palace layout, details of guard movements, everything, or he would hurt me. I held out against the knife.’ His hand dropped to the slashes across his stomach. ‘I held out against the burns.’ His fingers brushed some shiny round scars. ‘He broke my finger and I held out against that, too. But then he told me he had Adonis in the next room and that if I didn’t tell him everything, he would kill him. I didn’t believe him, but then he played me the sound of Adonis shouting for help on his phone. So...’ Xerxes was breathing fast, his chest rising and falling as if he were running a race. ‘I told him. I told him everything.’
The look on Xerxes’ face drove all the air from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
‘But that wasn’t the worst part,’ he went on, his voice vibrating with rage. ‘The worst part was after, when I’d given up everything, when I thought I’d killed my family, destroyed my country, the man pulled his mask off and it turned out to be my father. None of it was real. It was a test. And I failed it.’ His mouth twisted. ‘He made no bones about how disappointed he was in me. He’d seen me being friends with the daughter of one of the palace staff and thought I needed a lesson in detachment. He expected me to fail it and I did. Because I was weak. I’d let my love for my brother overrule my love for my country. And I would have to prove myself to him if I wanted to claim my title of Defender of the Throne, because a defender was supposed to protect the throne, not betray it.’
Calista’s heart squeezed in her chest at the anguish and rage in his eyes, sympathy for him hitting her unexpectedly hard. As a soldier, torture was something that was always a possibility. But not for a teenager. And to be tortured by his own father, a parent who was supposed to protect him...
That was nothing short of a betrayal.
And you know what that feels like.
‘He threatened your brother,’ she said fiercely. ‘How were you to know it wasn’t real?’
‘That was the whole point, though.’ His voice was harsh. ‘I was supposed to think it was real. And I was supposed to hold out. It was a test of my strength and I failed it.’
‘You were thirteen!’ She took a step towards him, her own anger rising, but not at him. At the man who’d hurt him. Who’d given him a test as a teenage boy that even a battle-hardened soldier would have trouble passing. ‘How can you blame yourself for that?’
