Zindaria was Nicky’s future, his heritage. What sort of a mother would she be if she traded her son’s glorious future for her own selfish happiness?
Gabriel’s whole family was in England: his brothers, his aunt, the many others who’d come to the wedding. His friends were here, too, and they were close, more so than many brothers.
Callie knew the importance of friends and family, she who had so few of either. She had a few distant cousins she’d never met scattered across Europe, and almost no friends in Zindaria. A princess lived a very isolated life. How could she ask him to exchange his full, exciting life for her lonely, routine existence in a foreign land.
He had family, friends, a home, land, and responsibilities. He belonged. What man would give all that up for her?
None. So she should face that and move on from there.
She scrubbed at her skin briskly and tried to count her blessings. She’d made Nicky a little bit safer by her marriage. And she had a wonderful husband, albeit for a limited time. She could mope around feeling sorry for herself, waiting for the day he would walk away, or she could make the most of what she had now. Seize the joy while it was hers to enjoy.
She soaped herself meditatively, aware of her body in a new way, soaping her breasts with their tender, aching tips, and recalling the way he’d suckled on them, lavishing her with pleasure. And the pleasurable soreness between her thighs, aching in places she’d never known could ache.
The last time she’d felt like this about her body was when she’d been carrying Nicky. She remembered being fascinated with its female power and its mystery—this seemingly ordinary body of hers that was actually creating a baby, a living miracle.
Last night her body had amazed her again. She’d never imagined the pleasure it was capable of feeling—that she could shatter in a thousand shards of ecstasy and afterward feel like she was floating in a bubble.
And she’d never in her life imagined it could bring a strong, disciplined man like Gabriel Renfrew to his knees with uncontrollable lust. And it had. Three times in the night. Four, if you counted this morning. She smiled to herself. Again.
She hadn’t been able to stop smiling all morning. She felt like her body: female, powerful, and mysterious.
She suddenly didn’t care that it was temporary, that one day they would live hundreds of miles apart, still legally married, but living separate lives. What good did it do to dwell on that dismal prospect? She’d made the marriage to save her son. That alone was worth any heartbreak to come.
She hadn’t understood Gabriel’s motives for marrying her, had wondered what he would get from the marriage, and now she knew:her. He desired her. Uncontrollably. Her body tingled and ached with the knowledge. And her heart exulted in it.
It was as though somehow, something inside her had burst in the night and drained away, and now she was…different.
She suddenly felt lighter, freer, as if the rain in the night had washed her as clean as it had washed the air. Like a clean slate. Her slate, to write and rewrite on as she wished.
She was going to take that man and love him while she could. And if—when he walked away, as they’d arranged to do, she would know that she had loved, and loved well. And that would be enough.
She dried herself and donned a fresh chemise, then rang for a maidservant to come and lace her stays. While she waited for the maid she brushed her hair.
She was no longer frightened of losing her heart to him. It was too late for that. Her heart had been lost some time in the hours before dawn. Perhaps when he’d put himself so entirely in her hands, so generously. He’d taken her to the top of the mountain and shown her how to fly…
Or perhaps it happened when he’d simply held her in her misery, wrapping her in warmth and wanting to fix it. Or when he’d kissed her tears away, making her feel like something precious and lovely and not at all foolish.
Or maybe it was when he’d carried her back to bed and made love to her for the third time, so tenderly it almost broke her heart, so that she fell asleep feeling utterly cherished.
Whenever it was, her heart was well and truly lost to him.
She would accept these moments of happiness, but she still had enough of her old defenses left to know it would be easier in the end if she kept her feelings to herself.
As Gabriel escorted her downstairs for breakfast the hall clock chimed four times.
“Four!” she exclaimed. “That cannot be right.”
He checked it against his fob watch. “It is.”
“But where did the time go? I told Nicky I’d see him in the morning.”
He gave her a slow, reminiscent smile. “Nicky will manage. It was time well spent, if you ask me.”
She blushed and smiled. She couldn’t stop looking at him. It felt like her whole body was smiling.
“I’m ravenous,” she said as they entered the breakfast parlor.
He stopped dead. “Me, too,” he said, his eyes devouring her. “Shall we go back upstairs?” His eyes were dancing, but he was also quite serious, she saw.
