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For a long, long while, Kendra thought maybe they had died, after all. There was no other explanation for how she felt, floating and perfect and beautiful. Or the rawness of her despair when he moved, withdrawing from her body and rolling over to his back.
It took her some time to realize that her heart was still beating like a drum, but her breath was starting to even out.
And that he had moved to sit with his back to her, there on the edge of the wide bed.
Kendra thought she ought to do something about that, but found when she tried that she lacked the strength. Her whole body appeared to be made of wet clay.
“I will need you to explain yourself,” Balthazar said, his voice grim. “Now.”
It was a lot like a bucket of ice water in the face, if she was honest.
But even that felt like a pageant of sensation, mixed in with all the rest, so all Kendra did was turn over to her side. She propped herself up on her elbow and wished, with a passionate sort of fervency that might have alarmed her in any other circumstances, that she dared reach out and trace her fingers over the proud line of his strong back.
She hated that she did not dare. That she had married him, was having his baby, and had discovered that they could do these marvelous things to each other...but she did not quite dare a touch.
But he had married her. He had promised her many things at that altar above the sea, but he had not told her it would be easy. “What must I explain?”
Balthazar did not look at her, and still she could sense his scowl. She could feel it. He wasn’t the thundercloud, Kendra realized. He was the storm.
And what did it say about her that she wanted nothing more than to dance in it?
She saw him tense. “You came to my office. Your bargaining chip was your body. You stripped down immediately... There’s no possible way you could have been innocent that night. None.”
“If you say so.”
He turned then, twisting around so that she could see a kind of anguish in his face. And worse, a different, searing condemnation in his thunderclap gaze. “You had already tried the game once before, in that gazebo. We both knew the truth of it.”
“In the gazebo?” Kendra’s heart beat as if she ought to be upset by this, but she was still having trouble following what was happening. How could he be so grim and growly when she wanted nothing more than to start all over again? “I had no idea you were there. I was trying to take a breather in the middle of one of my parents’ tedious parties, that was all. And then you were there and your mouth was on me, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“No.No.This is impossible.”
A laugh escaped before she could stop it. “Would you prefer that I was the tramp you’ve always thought I was?”
But then something in her turned over. Because she recognized the expression that moved over his face. He did wish that.
And in the next moment, she understood.
“I thought this was simply how you treat women,” she breathed.
Suddenly Kendra felt exposed. Ugly. She sat up and looked around in a bit of a panic for something to cover herself with, but there was only the frothy heap of her wedding gown at the foot of the bed. She pulled it to her, holding it against her like a shield.
Waiting, she knew, for him to say something. To deny it.
But he didn’t.
“This isn’t how you treatmost women, is it?” she asked softly, though she wanted to scream. “This is how you treat me. It’s not that you think women are whores. It’s that you thinkIam. That I always have been.”
“Why would your father or your brother send me a virgin sacrifice?” Balthazar thundered. “Don’t they know—”
But he cut himself off. Kendra pulled the dress tighter against her chest.
“And, of course, a whore deserves to be stripped naked and humiliated,” she said quietly, because she understood too many things now. His fury. His coldness. He’d used the word—maybe it was her fault for thinking he didn’t mean it. Maybe if she’d had more experience, she would have. “Dispatched by her equally repellent family to do their calculated work, she deserves zero consideration. A quick tumble on a desktop and nothing but cruel words. What I don’t understand is why, if that is what you think of me, you didn’t wrap your entire body in latex to avoid the situation we find ourselves in now. To say nothing of other...contaminants.”
“I lost my head,” he growled at her. “I could not understand why I kept imagining your innocence when it was so plainly long gone. Now I know.”
And she could have sworn that sounded like...grief.
“Which is it, husband?” she asked. “Are you angry that I’m not as free with my favors as you thought I was? Are you angry that I didn’t tell you when I think we both know you wouldn’t have believed me? Or is it the uncomfortable notion that if I’m not who you thought I was...neither are you?”
