The curtains were stil drawn around the bed, but if Aurora puled them back, she would find me naked in bed with a guy that was not her son. I heard her moving about the room, and I was too scared to speak or even breathe.

My mind raced to remember what had become of our clothes.

Were Loki’s pajamas pants on the bedroom floor? And what became of the panties he’d torn off me?

“Princess?” Aurora said again, and I could see her silhouette through the curtain. She was right outside. “Are you in here?”

“Yeah,” I said, afraid that she would open the curtain if I didn’t answer. I tried to quiet the panic in my voice. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I’m realy… out of it. Yesterday was… exhausting.”

“I understand,” Aurora said. “I’l take my whole bag so I can get ready and give you time to wake up.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Aurora’s footsteps went toward the door, then she stopped. “Tove feels terrible about what happened last night. He never meant to hurt you.”

“I know that.” I winced at the mention of Tove. The warm memories of last night turned into painful truths. I’d cheated on my husband.

“He’l want to apologize for himself, but I wanted to be sure you knew,” Aurora said. “He’d never hurt you on purpose.” That was like a knife to my heart, and it cut so deep I could barely breathe for a second. I knew that Tove didn’t love me, but I doubted he’d be happy about me having sex with another guy. And he deserved so much better than that.

“I wil see you downstairs for breakfast,” Aurora said.

“Yes,” I said, my voice tight to keep back tears.

The bedroom door shut behind her, and I let out a long shaky breath. I puled away from Loki and sat up. I’d never felt so conflicted in my life. I wanted nothing more than to lay with him forever, but being with him made me feel guilty and horrible.

“Hey.” Loki put his arm around my waist, trying to pul me back to him. “You don’t have to rush away. She left.”

“We have a lot of stuff to do today.” I pushed his arm off me, hating that I had to reject him, and grabbed my nightgown from where it lay crumpled at the end of the bed.

“I know,” Loki said, sounding a little hurt. He sat up as I puled the nightgown on. “I’d never try to keep you from you work, but can’t you spend five more minutes in bed with me?”