A Christmas Vow of Seduction

by Maisey Yates

  “You have known me for a matter of mere weeks, agape. Sadly your opinion of me, formed while I was on my best behavior, carries very little weight.”

  “So this was your best behavior, then? Not your regular behavior?”

  “Yes,” he said, his teeth grinding together.

  “Fine. Then make it your behavior. If you can do it, then continue to do it.”

  “It will come to an end. It always does.”

  “It doesn’t have to. We are getting married tomorrow. We’re starting the first day of the rest of our lives. It’s new for both of us. Make it new. Start again. With me.”

  “I need a drink.” He released his hold on her, pushing himself backward and stalking off the dance floor, leaving her standing there alone, her heart pounding sickly in her chest.

  She had ruined it. She couldn’t figure out why, or how. She only knew that she had. She would have died to hear him say that he loved her. She had assumed he must feel the same.

  Perhaps being alone was better in many ways. If she were still alone she wouldn’t have to deal with this pain. Deal with this hurt. As it was, she felt as if she was crumbling apart from the inside out.

  She saw the dessert was being served at the table she and Andres had abandoned, and made the decision to go and sit back down.

  She would give him a while, and then, once he had cooled off, she would go after him.

  * * *

  Andres couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. She couldn’t love him. It was impossible. Oh, for one, heady second, he had let himself imagine that it might be true. And let himself imagine it would be something that he could take full advantage of. A wife who would adore him. Who thought he was good. What an incredible thing that would be. Sadly it was something he would only lose in the end. Because that was what happened. It was who he was. It was what he did. He drove people away. His mother. He’d made the best attempt he could with Kairos. And starting tomorrow, and on into eternity, he would be waiting. Waiting for that dangling sword to fall, to tear asunder all that he and Zara had built.

  Perhaps it wouldn’t be this year, or the next year. Perhaps it would not be until they’d had children. Children who would also look up to him, idolize him. Love him. Depend on him as he had done with his parents.

  Children he wouldn’t deserve. A wife he could never hope to deserve.

  He would ruin things. For all of them. And in the years while he waited for the killing blow, he would drive himself crazy. Knowing it would come eventually, but never knowing when.

  He was feeble. His spirit so corrupt he knew that he could never be the kind of man that she needed.

  He wasn’t Kairos. Who would lay down everything, personal happiness, individual goals, everything, to serve his country. To serve a wife he didn’t even love. Andres could never be that noble. He had never managed to keep the love of another person. Not even his parents. His behavior always ruined it in the end. He had no control. He never had.

  The past few weeks had been a game. And he had been indulging himself. But it had to end.

  He had to show her now. Because it would be better to destroy everything before the wedding. Better now than years from now. So she knew where things would end. So she knew what to expect.

  They had to marry; there was no question of that. But...he could not have her loving him.

  He stopped at the edge of the ballroom, scanning the crowd. And then he saw her. A blonde woman in a red dress, her curves barely contained by the tight, silken material. She was exactly the kind of woman he would have put the moves on in the past. Exactly the kind of woman he would choose to spend a few hedonistic hours with once boredom set in at a party like this.

  And for the first time in years he let himself remember that last Christmas party. His mother had given him another chance. Had allowed him to come down from his room.

  This time as they’d sat at the table, a family, pretending to have unity for all the world to see, his actions had not been beyond his control.

  He had been angry. Angry for the years he’d spent locked away. Angry at how long and hard he’d tried only to fail time and time again. To get lost in the endless cycle of trying to please someone who professed to love him and failing at every turn.

  So he’d chosen to fail that day. Had thrown his dinner plate on the floor and smashed it to pieces. Had made his mother cry again. It had felt good to accomplish what he’d set out to do. To fail spectacularly on purpose, rather than to try and fall short.

  And then she’d left after that. God help him, he’d been relieved. Because after that he’d never had to try again.

  He looked up, saw his fiancée sitting at the table, her posture stiff, taking tiny bites of her dessert, trying to enjoy it, trying to listen to the conversation around her. She did not fit in, his Zara. She did not have that cultured manner of those raised in nobility. Did not have the social graces she would have learned had she been raised in the palace life.

  She was utterly unique. Utterly her.

  He drank in the sight of her. Pale skin, dark hair, in that pink and gold dress that made her look like something out of a fairy tale.

  But he wasn’t the sort of man who deserved a fairy tale.

  He took a step forward. Then another. Then, he began to make his way toward the blonde. Toward temptation.

  He was not going to wait for hell to come up and grab him. He would walk and willingly. And he would do it now.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ZARA HADN’T SEEN Andres for at least fifteen minutes. He had slipped out of the ballroom at some point when she wasn’t looking, and she hadn’t seen him anywhere since. She knew he wasn’t in the room, because she felt the change.

  Perhaps that sounded ridiculous, but she could feel his presence. Because it carried such weight. That connection they shared. Years of being alone had made it stronger, she was convinced. Or maybe it was so for everyone in love.

  Though when you were the only one in love, perhaps it wasn’t.

  She had been sitting at the table in utter silence, trying not to look as distressed as she felt, and probably failing miserably. She took a deep breath, standing, deciding that she was going to go find him now. She wasn’t one to wait. She wasn’t one to play games. And just because he seemed to prefer to operate with a thin veil of deceit between his words and his feelings did not mean she had to do it. She was going to force him to confront this. To discuss it. Because he was telling her lies, she was certain.

  He felt more for her, for what they shared, than he claimed. She knew he did.

  She strode through the ballroom, quite amazed that the crowd of people parted for her as they seemed to do for Andres. She really was a part of this place now. She was one of them.

  Her happiness was dented by the situation she was in. It was very difficult to feel happy when your heart was ground to dust. Another new discovery. Though a rather logical one.

  She left the ballroom, exiting the main double doors out the back, and finding herself in the corridor where she and Andres had first made love. She didn’t know what had led her here, but now that she was here, she knew it had been for a reason. This would be where he’d go. She was certain of it.

  She rounded the corner from the ballroom, headed toward that alcove where they had first found their passion. And then she heard voices, rustling.

  She stopped. Listening for a moment.

  Her stomach twisted, sank deep down, terror gnawing at her insides, and still, she walked forward. Because she had to. Because he was there. She knew it.

  She took one step, then another, headed toward the alcove. And when she rounded the corner, everything stopped.

  It was Andres. And a woman. The woman was wearing a bright red dress, a crimson stain against Andres’s black suit. She was crushed hard against his body. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, his lips pressed hard to hers. He shifted, angling his head, and she saw his tongue slide against hers.

  A cry escaped Zara’s lip
s and she clasped her hand over her mouth. The blonde jumped as though she’d been scalded, but Andres moved slowly, fluidly, raising his head in a lazy, laconic fashion, one eyebrow lifted.

  “Zara.” He said her name so blandly. As though he wasn’t surprised. As though he wasn’t sorry. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Clearly,” she said, her tone vibrating with rage.

  “I was a bit bored of the party.”

  “Is that what you do when you’re bored at parties? Come out here and have women up against walls?”

  “Don’t be dramatic. Obviously I wasn’t having her. Yet.”

  The blonde made a coughing sound, her expression irritated. “I didn’t sign on for drama,” she said. “Just a little bit of fun with the prince.”

  “Sorry,” Zara said, not feeling sorry at all. “This prince comes with drama. A rather large amount of it. In the form of me.”

  “I shall leave you to it.” The woman moved away from Andres, walking closer to Zara. The light fell across her beautiful face, and Zara could see her red lipstick, smudged over to her cheek. That was how passionately he had been kissing her.

  She had been wrong earlier. She thought her heart had been broken already. Damage done. But no, there were apparently some pieces left to shatter. To be ground beneath the stiletto of another woman.

  It was his fault. Not hers.

  That made it even worse.

  She waited until the blonde was out of sight before trying to formulate a sentence. She would not give the other woman the satisfaction of hearing how upset she was.

  “You lied to me.” The words were low, shaky. She felt as if they had cost her the very last bit of air in her lungs. As if she would pass out from the force it had taken to speak them.

  “That’s what I do. I told you. I’m just a selfish playboy. And I’m sorry, but in situations like this I revert to type. I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

  “Lies!” The word exploded from her with deadly force. She had suddenly found her strength. As he stood there, looking at her, his expression bland as though he had not just reached inside her chest and reordered all the new, beautiful things she had just discovered, she had found her strength. Her will to stand up to him. Her will to fight.

  “You did it to hurt me.”

  “Why would I? It’s just that I leave casualties in my wake. It’s what I do.”

  “No! It’s what you choose to do!”

  “Is there a difference?”

  She took a step toward him, feeling fierce. Unafraid. She had nothing to lose. If Andres had been everything, then there was nothing to protect anymore. Because it was all gone.

  “It is every difference. You are not at the mercy of this. You have made yourself this. You can blame no one but yourself.”

  “I can’t blame the mother who walked out on me and the father who gave up on me?” he asked, his tone even. Far too smooth.

  She wanted him broken.

  “No. They did not fashion you. You fashioned yourself. You talk of it as though it is part of your legend. An amusing anecdote for you to throw out when it suits you, to put distance between yourself and your accuser. As if I will back away from you if I understand that you’re nothing more than a little boy wishing his mommy would come back and hug him. But I will not,” she said, her voice shaking. “I do not feel sorry for you. Because while your mother left you years ago, and while that certainly hurt you, you have been inflicting wounds upon yourself every day thereafter. That is not her fault. You cannot blame her anymore.”

  “The hell I can’t.”

  “You are in a hell of your own making! You cannot accept the fact that anyone might stay with you and so you’re intent on pushing everyone who loves you away. Why? Because one woman didn’t love you?”

  “The only woman who should have loved me, simply because I was drawing breath, didn’t. That is an entirely different thing. And not only her. My father.”

  “So that means you must not be worthy of love? That means that you have to set out to prove that those of us who are foolish enough to care for you are in fact fools? Why do you insist on putting a gun to your own head?”

  “I know what I am, that’s all. There is no point in trying to refashion myself in a manner that I am unsuited to.”

  “Who says you are unsuited? I have been with you these past weeks and you are suited to me. Until now. Until you dared touch another woman when you swore to me you would not.” Her throat tightened, pain lancing her. “You said that I would be the only one.”

  “Yes. And I meant it then. I did. But things change. And that’s the way it is with me. I do not keep my word. I never have.”

  “You are a liar.”

  “No!” he roared back at her. “It is more than that. I have never kept my word. And in the end? I didn’t even try.”

  “What?” The question came out small, weak.

  “I told my mother that at the Christmas Eve dinner I would behave myself. That she could allow me out of my room this time. I had made mistakes, so many in years past that my mother had issued a decree I could no longer partake in public events. I could never sit still. I could never listen to instructions. I was a very bad boy. Always. I ruined everything that she did. Every appearance we had to make with the family. She mourned my existence, Zara. My very birth. They should have stopped with Kairos. She knew it. She told me. But that last time...that last time I didn’t even try. I broke my plate on purpose, made a mess of the table setting because I was so angry with her. And when she left I was glad because I would never have to try for her again.”

  “Andres...”

  “No. Do not look at me with those pitying eyes, Zara. What can you possibly know about it? For years I tried my damnedest. But it was never good enough. So when I stopped trying, I didn’t just stop trying. I did my best to be bad. To move so far past the point of redemption I could never be retrieved from beyond it. That’s the man I am now. I give in freely to my vices. I rejoiced at the loss of my mother because it meant there was no one left to try and control me and I could happily sink into the depths of debauchery. Marry me tomorrow if you want, Zara. But I will never love you. And you will never be able to be certain of my fidelity. How can you be when I will never be certain of it? When I will never do a damn thing to resist my own desires. I spent too many years trying and failing. I would not do it for my mother and I sure as hell won’t do it for you.”

  “You bastard. You utter bastard. I am trapped here with you. You made me love you. You presented to me the stark truth that I have no other options beyond marrying you, and now, now that you have forced me to care, you tell me that I cannot have you.”

  “Don’t be silly. You can have me. You just can’t have exclusive rights on me.”

  “Then I don’t want you at all.”

  “You can have your distance, Zara. I will ensure that you are taken care of. I will ensure that everything you need is handled. We will keep up appearances...”

  “No.”

  “Yes. And make no mistake, you will still be my wife. But you do not have to live with me. You do not have to love me.”

  “No. I will not be your wife. I cannot.”

  Andres ground his teeth together, his expression fierce. “I promised Kairos.”

  “You break every promise. You said you enjoy being beyond redemption. So you should very much like this. You should’ve known that you could not cross me without retribution. I will not be made a fool of.”

  “So you would not leave when you were given to me as a gift, a thing, but you will leave now for your pride?”

  “Yes.” The word fell from her lips softly, confidently. “Because I’m a different woman now than I was when I first came to you. I was afraid then. Afraid that if I left the palace, if I left your care, I would simply die out in a snowbank somewhere. Afraid to let anyone close because the loss might kill me. But I know that isn’t true now. I’m stronger than that. I will leave here, and I will make a life for myself. Bec
ause I can. I can change. I can learn. I have shown myself that. But one thing I will not do is stay for this. This humiliation. This pain.”

  She turned away, her hand shaking. She swallowed hard. “I loved leaning on your strength, Andres. But I am capable of standing on my own.”

  “We are getting married tomorrow,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “My brother is announcing it tonight.”

  “You should have thought of that before you betrayed me. I am not forgiving, Andres.” She hadn’t known that about herself. But now she did. She’d never had her heart broken before, not quite in this manner.

  It turned out she was slightly vindictive. “I will not forgive you for this. Kairos and the fallout are your problem. The wedding, and what happens when I fail to appear, is your problem.”

  She strode away from him, down the empty corridor, her high heels clicking on the marble, echoing in the space.

  She rounded the corner, saw the two double doors that led outside and flung them open, bracing herself against the biting chill of the wind. It was snowing outside, a thick blanket of it covering the ground. She walked forward, wrapping her arms around herself, rubbing her bare skin with her hands. She could see her breath, and she became aware of a chill on her cheek.

  She was crying. Tears falling down, leaving icy tracks behind. She looked back at the palace, and ahead at the blank canvas of white. She lifted up her full pink skirt and began to run through the snow as quickly as she could, her feet sinking deep into the icy cold, but she didn’t care. She slipped, falling down onto her knee, and forward, her gown billowing out around her. She stopped, letting the cold seep through. Down her skin, down to her bones.