But there wasn’t.

And that hurt most of all.

Licking her lips, she kept coming back to the one thing she couldn’t deny no matter how hard she tried. “Gods spare me the agony, but I still love you.”

He raked her with a repugnant glare. “And I hate you in a way I’ve never hated anyone. Not even my uncle.”

The acrimony in his tone tore into her like knives and shredded her heart. “Why would you say something so mean?”

“Because it’s true. I always knew where I stood with him. He hated me from the moment I was born. But you…” His scarred voice carried the full weight of his disgust. “You made me believe a lie. And then you kicked me in my teeth and rammed it down my throat. When I needed you most, when I was being brutalized by the people I stupidly thought were my friends, I heard you laughing on the other side of the door every day with the same people who were torturing me. Every moment of that horror, I kept hoping and praying you would come in and help me. And every day you disappointed me until the only thing I could think about was ripping your callous heart out of your chest and eating it whole.”

Zarya wept at what he described.

But what hurt the most was what he hadn’t thrown in her face…

When she’d finally gone into that room, she’d slapped him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t you dare cry.”

“Fuck you, you sanctimonious bastard! At least I didn’t throw you away… twice!” She got up to leave again.

Once more, he cut her path off and stood between her and the door. “Aren’t you full of surprises? I’ve never heard you use profanity like that.”

He was lucky she wasn’t spewing even more at him. ’Cause right now, she wanted to verbally strike him as much as he’d struck her. And honestly, she wasn’t sure how she was keeping it all in. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know. I…”

Darling forgot what he was going to say as his gaze dropped to see the deep cleft between her breasts. She was so much shorter than him that he had a direct view all the way down to the fact that she didn’t have on any underwear.

His throat went dry.

He wanted to hate her. He needed to hate her and yet…

Memories of the past tortured him. In all of his life, she had been his only refuge. Her voice had guided him through hell and led him out the other side of it. No matter how bad things had been, she’d always made it better.

In her arms, he’d never known pain. Only comfort.

Pleasure…

She betrayed you.

He couldn’t allow himself to lose sight of that brutal fact. Yet right now, he felt himself slipping under her spell.

He was so confused. It was so easy to hate her when she wasn’t around.