Or worse, for her to think that he blamed her for it when he was more than aware of who the moron was.

Pulling his palm away from his eyes, Darling laid his hand against her cheek. “Baby, you didn’t do anything wrong. I was the dumbass who let his temper get the better of him when I knew better. The only thing I regret was that you had to hear them insult you.”

And he hated the fact that she’d heard the ugliness about his past. Why couldn’t people just let it go? Why did they have to use a past mistake as a weapon against him to…

Is that not what you’ve done to Zarya?

He froze as that realization slapped him hard across the face. Zarya had made one mistake in their relationship—granted it was a doozy, but… he was still judging her for it and occasionally, holding it against her.

For the first time, he saw things through her eyes. What would he have done had he been their leader, and she the one who was missing-in-action while he had no idea where to search for her? Right now, his soldiers could be torturing someone and he’d have no knowledge of it whatsoever.

My office isn’t across the room from them.

Still…

Even if it was, he wouldn’t know. He got that now. Fully.

I’m such a krikken idiot…

“Z?” He pulled the cloth away from his nose to make sure it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

Zarya sat next to him with his computer on her lap. “What, baby?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Zarya looked up immediately at his change of tone. There was a note of such seriousness, that it made her heart pound. Had she done something to hurt or offend him? “Sure,” she said while every part of her dreaded whatever was on his mind.

“Why didn’t you ever check on me while your men held me?”

Not that again… Her anger snapped to the forefront that he wouldn’t let this go, but she forced it down. He wasn’t accusing her this time. In fact, there had been a note of pain in his voice and it was the first time he’d asked this question.

Biting her lip, she searched for the best words possible. Please, God, help me find a way to make him understand that I hadn’t meant to hurt him. Ever.

She knew he couldn’t see her or her reaction, not while his eyes were jerking. So she set the computer aside and took the cloth from his hand so that she could clean the remnants of blood from his face.

As she did so, her gaze dropped down to his chest where the scars from his torture screamed their own form of accusation at her. The worst ones were the burn scars on his nipples and groin. It was inhuman what they’d done to him. Who could blame him for holding it against her?

Tears blurred her vision.“Honestly Darling, I was so consumed with looking for Kere, that you as the prince never entered my mind. Not even as a passing thought. Every day I didn’t hear from Kere, I panicked more because it wasn’t like you to not have any contact with me for days on end. All my attention was spent trying to get the Sentella to tell me something about Kere’s whereabouts. I left hundreds of voicemails on your mobile and with the Sentella. Did you never get them?”