Page 104 of Royal Affair

My eyes never left him, this man who'd once been my entire world and was now discussing my potential destruction with barely contained emotion. But I could see the cracks in his armor now—the way his breathing had quickened when he mentionedthe photographs, the possessive edge that crept into his voice when he spoke Dmitri's name.

"Have you seen them?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded. "The photographs?"

His composure cracked completely. "Yes."

"And?"

He was quiet for so long I didn't think he was going to answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with suppressed emotion.

"They show a woman who I trusted completely. Who gave herself without reservation to someone she loved." His eyes found mine across the room, burning with an intensity that stole my breath.

"They're beautiful, Evangeline. And anyone who sees them will know exactly how you felt about me."

The admission hung in the air between us, loaded with implications neither of us was ready to address. If the photographs did indeed exhibit how I felt about him, they also revealed how he'd looked at me—with the same desperate love, the same overwhelming tenderness.

Which made his subsequent rejection all the more devastating.

"But that doesn't matter now, does it?" I said, my voice brittle with pain. "Since what we had was just entertainment. Good sex. Nothing more."

James flinched as if I'd struck him, his professional facade crumbling completely. "Evangeline?—"

"Don't." I stood on shaking legs, six months of suppressed rage finally finding a target. "Don't you dare stand there and look at me like that when you're the one who walked away. You're the one who told me I meant nothing."

"I never—" He stopped, running a hand through his hair in the first unguarded gesture I'd seen from him.

"Christ, you have no idea what that day cost me."

"Cost you?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it again!.

“ Evan —”

“ SAY IT! GOD—DAMMIT ”

“You have no idea what that day cost me.”

Those words fell from the lips of a man that used to be my sanctuary, my protector, my sunrise and my moonlight. Now they fell from someone just as broken as myself, but I had to tell him exactly what he did to me.”

“Hmm let me paint you an exquisite — that's one of the words you used to describe me while we had ‘good sex’ you remember right?, I just thought I would jog your memory. A picture of unimaginable pain and not so delicious torture”

"You destroyed me, James. Completely and utterly destroyed me. And now you're standing here acting like you were the one who suffered?"

"I was protecting you?—"

"From what? From being happy? From having a choice in my own life?" I moved closer, close enough to see the exhaustion etched in every line of his face.

"Or were you protecting yourself from having to deal with the complications of loving someone like me?"

Something dark and wounded flashed in his eyes. "Do you really think so little of me? That I would use you and walk away without a second thought?"

“Well when what you just described happened—well thought does not come into it”

"I don't know what to think anymore." The words came out broken, raw with months of accumulated pain. "All I know is that you looked me in the eye and told me I was entertainment. That our relationship meant nothing. And then you disappeared so completely it was like, you never existed."

"Because staying would have destroyed your life." His voice cracked on the words.

"Your mother made it very clear what the consequences would be if I remained in your life. Scandal, public humiliation, the end of your ability to rule effectively."

"So you made that decision for me. Without giving me any choice in the matter."