A Christmas Vow of Seduction

by Maisey Yates

  She shivered. The physical discomfort she felt did not compare to the pain that was rioting through her chest. To the unending darkness that was threatening to destroy her.

  She leaned forward, the snow freezing her exposed skin. And she didn’t care.

  She knew she needed to get up. She knew she needed to run, as she had told him she would. She couldn’t just lie here and die in a snowbank; that was an old fear. But, for a moment it was tempting.

  And when she felt that flicker of temptation, she stood. No, she would not fade away. She would not hide herself from pain. She would not allow for herself to be alone. Not to protect herself, not for any reason at all. She would have what she wanted. No, she couldn’t have Andres. But whether she stayed or left, that would be the case. She would not subject herself to that. And she was strong enough now to claim that for herself. To understand that she deserved it.

  She had suffered far too much loss in her life. The loss of her parents hurt still, but if there was one thing she knew it was that you could survive grief. She could survive pain.

  She could survive being alone.

  She stood, walking to the garage, where she knew she would find the driver whom Andres had been using the past few weeks.

  She saw him standing in there, by the car, obviously waiting for anyone who might need a ride.

  He pushed away from the car, lifted his head. “Princess?”

  “I need you to take me into town. I need to see Julia Shuler. Can you help me find her?”

  * * *

  It was not the best thing to be drunk on your wedding day. Hell, it probably wasn’t the best thing to be drunk on Christmas Day. Christmas morning, if he were being completely precise. But he had not been able to find Zara after their confrontation last night, and so he had gone into his brother’s library and made liberal use of the Scotch.

  He was waiting for the pain, the headache to hit. Right now the buzz was all that lingered.

  She would come today, he was confident in that. He had made a mistake last night, he knew that. He had gone one too far in using that woman to hurt Zara.

  He had put off touching her for as long as possible, and when he had heard footsteps in the hallway he had grabbed her and pulled her into his embrace, kissing her. Deeply. Passionately. So that no one who bore witness could miss it.

  He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but he had not expected the repulsion that had crawled over his skin. He didn’t want this other woman. She was beautiful, and yet he didn’t want her. Did not want to taste her lips, did not want her lipstick lingering on his flesh.

  And when Zara had seen him...

  He had never known such regret. Not even when he had been confronted with the pictures of himself and Francesca.

  But it had been too late, and he had done what he always did. He had lashed out and hurt her. He had doubled down on the reasoning behind his actions. His brain justifying himself all while his mouth issued the vilest insults to the person he should be prostrating himself before, begging for forgiveness.

  He had felt so desperate to disappoint her now instead of later. Had felt so compelled to make her hate him early so that he had nothing to try and live up to. So that he wasn’t surprised when she left.

  What he hadn’t counted on was the hurt in her eyes. His mother had never faced him after that final day. She had simply left. His father had met him with rage only. Kairos had had kind of a quiet acceptance about him, but had stood firm in the stance that they were brothers and nothing would break their bond.

  Zara had made it very clear that their bond was broken. She had faced him down with anger, as his father had done. But there was more to it than that. It was a righteous anger, and not for herself...for him. Because she had expected that he was better. Truly.

  He realized right then that his parents never had expected more from him.

  He had willingly disappointed them, because that was living down to their expectations. Zara was the only one who had truly expected better.

  She wants things from you that you can’t give. You’re better off without her. Better off without all this.

  His heart burned, calling him a liar.

  Kairos came down the steps of the church, dressed in a tux. “Where is your bride? The wedding starts soon.”

  “I expect she’ll be here.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “So,” Kairos said, “something terrible.”

  Andres let out a derisive laugh. “It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. She’ll be here. She has no other choice.”

  “You are a fool,” his brother said, the venom injected into his words a shock. “I have watched you squander yourself for years but I thought that you would learn. I thought you would not waste this.”

  “Waste what?” Andres asked, the words coming out in a roll of fog in the cold, snowy air. “My forced marriage?”

  “She loves you,” Kairos said, his voice low, vibrating with rage. “It is so clear to anyone who takes the time to look. Have you not?”

  Andres’s stomach tightened, regret lancing him like a sword. “I know.” She would not love him now though. Not anymore. Of that he was certain.

  “And still you betray her?” Kairos looked bleak. “You had the chance to have a woman look at you as she does...and you threw it away?”

  “Attend to your own marriage and the lack of love in it and leave mine alone.”

  Kairos stepped forward, gripped the lapels on Andres’s jacket and backed him against the church wall. “Do not speak of my marriage. You do not know what you’re treading on.”

  “But you feel free to speak to me?”

  “Yes. Because if I had a wife who looked at me the way she looks at you...”

  “What? You’d do your very best to make sure she stopped?”

  “Tabitha and I are not in love. We never have been.”

  “Perhaps you could have been.”

  “This,” Kairos said, “is not about me. I am not the one who is supposed to be married in five minutes, has hundreds of guests in attendance and yet has no bride.”

  “She will be here.”

  “You had better hope so.” Kairos turned and walked back into the church, closing the sanctuary doors behind him and leaving Andres outside in the snow.

  But she didn’t show. The snow began to fall harder, the temperature dropping as the day wore on. He imagined that people had left the church by now, spilling out the other entrance, leaving him alone here at the back, in the yard that bordered the cemetery and the woods.

  He took a deep breath, but rather than making him feel refreshed, the frigid air let a burning, searing ache into his chest that he could scarcely breathe around. It was unendurable, unending.

  And still, he stood and waited, even though he knew she would never appear. Even though he knew she wasn’t going to come. He had done it. He had tested her feelings for him, and he had broken them.

  Isn’t it what you wanted?

  He’d thought so. Had thought he would feel blessed relief at being released from her. From her expectations, if not her presence.

  But he felt nothing like relief. He felt ruined.

  Wasn’t that the sick, sad thing about a man intent on self-destruction? He was bleeding out, and desperately wishing he could stop it. Even though he’d inflicted the wound. It was too late. All he could do was stand here, dealing with the consequences that he had earned. Consequences he had been aiming for. Consequences he didn’t want.

  You’re in a hell of your own making.

  Zara had told him that. Zara had been right.

  But he was just so tired. So tired of wanting things and being denied. It was easier not to want them. Easier not to try. But Zara... Zara made him want. She made him think that it might be possible to have a life. To have love. A marriage.

  There had been little windows of time where he’d been able to imagine forever with her. Whe
re he had let himself dream of children, of her looking at him with love in her eyes every single day. But the more he wanted it, the more terrifying it became. The most beautiful dreams had a tendency to morph into the foulest of demons.

  So he’d attempted to exorcise this demon before it had gotten him. But now he regretted it. And it was too late.

  With that exorcism should have come freedom, but he felt that he’d only bound himself up tighter, pushed himself deeper into perdition.

  The ache in his chest was overwhelming now. He couldn’t speak past it, couldn’t breathe past it. Before, he had tamped it down, medicated it with alcohol, with women. Surrounded himself with people so he could pretend that he wasn’t desperately, terrifyingly alone.

  So he could pretend he was somehow different than the boy locked away in his room.

  For the first time he allowed himself to feel it. Really feel it. It was the monster under his bed, the one he had pretended wasn’t there. He had buried it, drunk it away, ignored it, mocked it. But now it was going to consume him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to stop it.

  He realized for the first time he’d left part of himself locked away. So that he couldn’t be hurt. Couldn’t be rejected.

  He loosened his tie, taking a step away from the church, toward the woods. He couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the tie. Maybe it was the collar on his shirt. He undid a button. Then the next. He still couldn’t breathe. The constricting feeling was inside his throat, tightening, like a noose around his neck he couldn’t reach or control.

  He took another step away from the church, then another. And he refused to look back. He headed toward the trees, toward isolation. He felt driven to embrace it, driven to experience this moment of honesty. The first moment of honesty in his entire life.

  He kept walking, the air around him darkening as the trees thickened.

  He had always run into the crowd in moments like this. When the howling emptiness inside him became too much, he let it get swallowed up by people, things. But here he could do nothing but let it expand. Admit that Zara was right.

  He’d been happy when his mother was gone because it meant no more trying. No more pain. No more failure in any way that mattered.

  But Kairos had still demanded of him, and so he’d tried to rid himself of his brother too, though it hadn’t worked. And all the while he’d told himself it was because he was every bit as evil as his mother had said.

  Debauched. A mistake.

  He was still just a boy locked in his room. Away from everything. No matter how many women he touched, no matter how many parties he went to...no one ever really reached him.

  Until Zara.

  And he’d betrayed her. Now he was alone again and there was no denying it. No covering it up.

  Every year of isolation was catching up to him now, rolling over him in great, crashing waves. Years of it, threatening to suffocate him if he didn’t relieve some of the pressure.

  You could just go out into the woods and scream to make yourself feel better.

  Another bit of wisdom from Zara. Feral wisdom. She was filled with it. She was nothing more than a tiny woman who had been raised just this side of civilized. And yet she had taught him everything.

  Now he was in the exact place she had found herself years ago. Hurting. Lonely. Dying inside with no way to heal himself.

  He had nothing to lose. No image to maintain. He had just been jilted in front of his entire country. He had been left by the only woman who had ever loved him. The only woman he had ever loved in return. And he was responsible. It was his fault. His fear had destroyed everything.

  Because he had let it grow inside him, unidentified, ignored. He had pretended it wasn’t there and like a malignant disease it had grown, thrived, as he had allowed it to. He had told himself his relief at his mother being gone made him terrible. Wrong.

  He had simply been afraid. Admitting that was the hardest thing, admitting he was weak.

  He’d imagined himself invulnerable. As long as he believed he feared nothing, as long as he believed he didn’t care, it must be true. But it was a lie. It had always been a lie. It was his caring for his mother, her disdain for him that had made it a burden. If he’d never cared, it would not have felt so heavy.

  He did care. And he had failed. Now it all rested on him.

  He wanted to rail against it. He wanted to scream as Zara said she did when she came to the woods alone.

  “Did you feel better?”

  “Not really. But I could breathe.”

  The thought of doing that would have been impossible only a few hours ago. Because he was buried so deep inside himself, and screaming into the emptiness was letting it free. Letting that uncontrolled boy who had cared, but had failed, out to try again. He had buried that boy. That boy who had been wrong, perpetually, to those who should have loved him simply for breathing.

  He had grown into a man who had felt nothing for far too long. Who had been paralyzed in the end when he was offered the world.

  A man who couldn’t breathe.

  He did his best to take a gasp of air, something, anything to fill his lungs. And then he shouted into the emptiness. Not words, just pain. Forcing it out of his body the best he could, clearing room so that he could breathe again. He wanted to be rid of the fear. Of everything he had allowed to stand in his way.

  He had broken his own life. He could no longer blame anyone else. The one who held everyone at a distance. Who tried to prove to himself that the love he was offered was false. He had tested his mother. She had failed. She had failed and he had been glad because her love was so heavy.

  He shouted again, the sound rough and raw in the silence. But when he was finished, he found that he could breathe again. Just for a moment it felt as if Zara was with him.

  He wanted her to be. He realized that with blinding clarity as the sound of his voice faded into a distant echo. He wanted her to be with him so that neither of them would be alone again. But she could have anyone. Any future she wanted. She didn’t have to make a life with him.

  But he would ask. He would beg if he had to.

  He had closed himself off to caring, to needing anyone else for fear that he might fail. He might very well fail at this. He didn’t care. He wanted her, he wanted her forever, and that was worth the risk.

  He would lay himself bare, open, without his heart and show it to her if need be.

  But he would not let her walk away without a fight.

  He was broken already. There was nothing to protect. And without her, he could never be put back together.

  He did not know if he could be saved. But he knew one thing for certain: Her love was not heavy. It was light.

  The only thing powerful enough to raise him back up from hell.

  * * *

  Everything inside Zara hurt. Everything on the outside of Zara hurt. She was pain wrapped in misery, rolled in regret and stuffed beneath the blanket she never wanted to emerge from. Of course, she couldn’t take up permanent residence underneath a blanket in the guest room at Julia’s. Convenient though it might be.

  Today was her wedding day. She hadn’t shown up. It was also her first real Christmas in years. She hadn’t shown up for that either.

  At least Christmas would keep coming. It always did. Every year, whether she was in a position to celebrate it or not.

  Her wedding to Andres could only have happened today. The offer would never present itself again.

  He betrayed you.

  Yes, he had betrayed her.

  She fought against the voice inside her that was shouting about the fact that he had betrayed her out of fear. That he had tried to push her away because things had gotten too intense between them. That he was doing to her the same thing he had done to Kairos. Testing her. Testing their love.

  Well, even if it was true, she couldn’t allow him to get away with it. He couldn’t keep doing that to her. He was going to have to accept the fact that she lo
ved him, and love her back, or they could have nothing.

  She was tired of being alone, and she had realized that she could be alone even while sleeping in the same bed with him. If he kept her cut off emotionally, then they would never really be together. He had perfected the art of being alone in a crowded room, and she would not allow him to do the same thing with her.

  She wanted to be different. She wanted to be loved. She wanted to feel close to him, not just skin to skin, but soul to soul. After a lifetime of being set apart, she didn’t think it was too much to want. Too much to ask.

  She would never be whole, not without him. But she would find something. She was determined. She’d found...a fullness in her life at the palace. During her time with him.

  She would not allow him to drain it all away just because he was scared.

  It was well past noon. She should be getting out of bed. Julia had gone away to visit family for the day, and had told Zara that she could have the run of the house. Her response was to get back into bed as soon as Julia had left.

  On the upside, Zara felt that she might finally have a friend. There were positions open within the school system for helping children learn to read that didn’t require special degrees. She could get on-the-job training. She was excited about that.

  She’d been prepared to take her place as princess. To take her place at Andres’s side. But without him, she was back to being where she was before. Just Zara.

  No, not just Zara. She was Zara Stoica, and she was no longer in hiding. She would do what she could, all that she could, with what resources she could acquire. She would start at the school, but maybe someday there would be more.

  Something she could do to benefit children like her. Children without mothers. Without a real home.

  Thinking about children made her stomach cramp. It was still entirely possible that she could be having Andres’s child. But of course, neither of them had talked about that when she stormed out last night. She hadn’t even let herself think about it.

  But, even if she was having his baby, they didn’t need to be together. They would work something out.