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Mara came back to consciousness slowly, fighting it every step of the way. Someone was calling her, but not by name. Trace, she thought, smiling. Only Trace called her Princess in just that way, like a loving caress. Only Trace...
Then she remembered...and whimpered. “No...” Trace didn’t love her. He didn’t need her. He didn’t even want her. He had just been doing his job. When he had touched her body, made her feel those incredible, indescribable things, he had just been doing his job. When he had made her believe in him, when he had made her believe herself loved, he had just been doing his job.
Mara opened her eyes. Trace was there, bending over her, his bluer-than-blue eyes dark with concern. One hand was holding her wrist, feeling for the pulse there. The other hand was caressing her cheek with the exquisite gentleness that had once convinced her she was loved...but not anymore.
“Do not touch me—I do not need your help,” she told him coldly, struggling to sit up, to escape those lying hands. Although she’d just decided she had to return to the US to finish out the school year, she would never have sought Trace out, and would have done everything she could to avoid seeing him again. Courage was one thing. Masochism was another. Humiliation coiled inside her now as she remembered how she’d trusted herself to this man. How he’d seduced her into wanting him, loving him, all the while he was just doing his job.
And somewhere there were explicit photographs of the two of them.
Mara went hot and cold now just thinking about it. She had not been ashamed to let Trace touch her intimately when she thought he loved her. She had not been ashamed to touch him in ways she had never imagined she would want to touch any man, because she had loved him. Loving him, being loved by him, had made her feel blessed. Until he had told her there were photographs...
She closed her eyes as if she could blot out the memories by refusing to look at him, but she knew that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t escape her memories any more than she could escape this moment. When she had viciously hacked off her hair she had sworn no man would ever make her weep again. No man would ever make her ashamed again. And yet that was exactly what she was feeling now—scorching shame that made her want to weep and weep, until the shame was washed away. “Do not,” she said again, pulling away sharply from his hands.
Trace let her go and sat back on his heels. This close to her he could see the visible signs of her suffering, the ones her brother had also seen. Her green eyes could never be anything but lovely to him, but there was a bruised look around the skin there that told its own tale. And her face was somehow thinner than he remembered, little hollows beneath her delicate cheekbones. But it was her mouth that hurt him the most. Those lips that had once smiled lovingly at him were tightly compressed, as if guarding her from further pain. Guarding her from him.
My God, he thought, dismayed. What have I done? “Princess—”
“My name is Mara,” she said in a voice like ice, cutting him off. “Mara Theodora.”
Her words clanged in his heart like a death knell. Bitter divine gift, she’d told him once, believing that assessment of her worth. Then he’d made her believe differently, only to cast her back into that bottomless well of despair, thinking herself unloved and unlovable. The way he’d once thought of himself.
“No,” he said, his voice deep with emotion. “Not to me. You will always be my princess. The sweetest gift God ever gave a man.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively. “Do not,” she whispered, shaking. “Please do not.”
Her tortured plea to be left with the tattered shreds of her dignity intact ripped through him. “I know I hurt you, Princess,” he said softly, keeping his hands from her with an effort. “I didn’t mean to. I told myself I was protecting you...from me. I thought, ‘She’ll forget me in time. She’ll forget...and thank me for letting her go before it was too late.’” She made a small sound of pain, but he went on.
“I wanted to keep you. I wanted to lock you away and keep you forever—you have no idea how much I wanted that. But I couldn’t believe a woman like you even existed for me. Couldn’t believe there was a chance in hell of overcoming who you are, who I am.” He took a deep breath, but he knew it had to be faced. “And then there was the job I was sworn to do.”
She buried her face in her hands but she didn’t cry. It would have been easier for him if she had. “My job is as much a part of me as you are,” he said. “Guarding you...even spying on you...those were things my country asked me to do, and I did them. I’m not proud of spying on you, but I won’t apologize.” He hesitated, but he had to be honest. “I would do it again if I had to.”
