A knife ripped through his heart for her. His eyes widened in shock, his mouth jammed shut in the next heartbeat, to prevent pointless words from refuting her statement. This woman—Freya—she had been made to be a mother. Everything in her nurtured, cherished, encouraged. She... He clenched his teeth together. Words of comfort streamed through his mind and he knew that none of them would help her in that moment.
‘Okay,’ he said.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ she demanded.
He nodded, the act ripping through the tension cording his neck muscles and shoulders. ‘Okay,’ he said again. There were so many words pressing against his heart and lips, but he wouldn’t let them out. Couldn’t. It wasn’t about him, words that would makehimfeel better by appeasingherhurt.
‘I said I can’t have children, Kjell. I can’t produce the heirs to the throne. The family’s future is uncertain until Aleksander has children. And Marit—’
‘Stop it,’ he ordered, hating the excuses and distractions she was covering her pain with. Her pretty mouth snapped shut and his heart broke a little more.
‘Try again,’ he growled, angry with her but most definitely angry with himself. He should never have pushed her. He didn’t have that right. He should have known better.
‘Try what, Kjell? You want me to parade my hurtabout for your amusement?’
‘Freya, you know me. You know that’s not what this is. You knowme.So don’t you dare give me the party line. Tell me where it hurts. Where itreallyhurts,’ he said with a desperation in his eyes he knew she could see. He would never be able to take that pain away from her, but he would damn well die trying.
The confusion in her haunted amber eyes made him curse. Had no one asked her?
‘Everywhere,’ she whispered helplessly as tears brimmed in her eyes.
He couldn’t protect her from this. It was a horrifying, stark realisation that gutted him to his core. He might have been a soldier for most of his life, but he never had and never would stop guarding her.
He reached up to cup her face, his thumb delicately sweeping to catch the tear that had tumbled over the edge. She leaned into his palm, her closing eyes sending more tears, too many for him to catch, down her cheeks.
He shut off the part of his mind that fixed, that planned, that created counter-moves and attacks. It wasn’t time for thoughts of surrogacy, adoption, insisting that she didn’t need to renounce her royal title or duties. If Kjell was right, then he’d imagine her brother would have tried that. No. This moment, right now, was about Freya.
He brought her to his chest, his hand gently tangling in her hair, his body absorbing shudder after shudder, but sending out heat to warm the chill of her skin, of her body—not from her clothes. It was a cold that went bone-deep. It was one he knew well. Shock. Mindless shock.
‘Tell me,’ he commanded, his voice barely a whisper. But he knew that she’d heard, that she’d understood.
‘I fear that...that I’m not a woman any more.’
If he’d thought his heart had hurt before, it was decimated by the pain and devastation in that confession. A curse ripped through him and he drew her away from him gently, just so that he could see her eyes. Eyes that were full of evasion, shame and hurt. The torture he saw there would have broken even the strongest man and it had his soul raging.
Forcing his tone to gentle and his hold to soften, he pressed his forehead to hers. ‘Yes, you are.’ His words were low, soft and a promise he hoped she could feel the truth of.
‘I don’t know if I believe that any more.’
‘What do you need to believe again?’ he asked. ‘What do you need?’
I don’t know.
The unspoken answer ate at him, tearing him up. But as he searched her face for signs of what he could possibly give her, he saw the change in her eyes. Felt it like a primitive knowledge deep within him, an elemental reaction to her that had always been there.
As if for the first time, he realised how close they were. He could see the gold flecks in her amber eyes sparking and flashing, the blood began to rise through the paleness of her skin to slash her cheekbones in pink. Just the sight of it ignited his arousal and he tried to leash it, forcing it back nearly broke him but now wasn’t the time. Freya needed him to be more than the horny youth he was reverting to. His hands released their hold on her and he stepped back to try to get himself back under control. She deserved better.
Her amber eyes turned molten and he fisted his hands to stop himself from reaching for her.
‘Ask me again.’ Her words fell between them—his heart balanced on a knife-edge. He wasn’t a fool. He knew her want as well as he knew his own.
Don’t do it.She deserved better. So much better than him.
‘Kjell?’
He couldn’t deny her. He had never been able to and he never would.
‘What do you need?’ His voice ragged with a desire unquenched in eight years.