Page 44 of A Vow of Embers

Perhaps at a time when he couldn’t walk in on me.

“You may use it first.” He left the room and closed the door behind him. We probably were supposed to use the pools together, given the flower petals that floated on the surface. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to create this romantic setup.

Too bad it was a complete waste.

I walked over to the tray with the bathing supplies and picked up a bar of soap to sniff it.

Irises.

The scent I had always smelled on Jason.

I had taken it as some kind of sign from the goddess that he bore her favorite scent, but it was because he was the prince of Ilion and had scented soaps.

Sighing at my own foolishness, I went to use the toilet as it had been hours. I washed my hands and dried them on a piece of soft linen. There was a mirror above the sinks, but the room was only lit by the pools and I couldn’t see myself clearly. I did try to pick all the white gardenias out of my hair.

When I was satisfied that I had gotten them all, I walked back into our bedroom just in time to see the prince pulling his tunic over his head.

He turned toward me without a stitch of clothing on.

Chapter Fifteen

That wasn’t entirely true—he still had his undergarment around his pelvis—but I could see nearly everything else. His chest, his arms, his legs. Why was my mouth dry?

He didn’t seem to be bothered by his near nudity, nor did he notice my reaction.

A reaction I shouldn’t be having.

I wondered if this would ever stop. If my brain would be able to convince my body that he was a liar and a monster and that the goddess was trying to ruin my life by putting that kind of dark soul into a beautiful package.

He had shut the balcony doors, and despite the fact that they had been open a few minutes ago, somehow there was no more oxygen left in this room.

There was a time when I would have sold my soul to see him this way.

I was trying not to ogle him and pointed my gaze up at the ceiling. “Don’t you have a nightshirt or something you wear to sleep in?” I sounded so flustered.

“No.” He reached up to grab one of the torches and I watched the way the light lovingly bathed his muscles, moving them in and out of shadows. He snuffed out the torch and put it back in the bracket.

But instead of moving on to the next one, he seemed to have realized that I was uncomfortable. He came closer to me and I immediately averted my eyes.

“Where is this shyness coming from? It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” He sounded slightly amused but I couldn’t tell because I was not going to look at his face.

Or any other part of him.

When I didn’t answer, he added, “As I recall, you’re the kind of woman who kisses strange men when you first meet them.”

My anger snapped back into place and I could look him in the eye again because of his insult. “I seem to remember the strange man kissing me first.”

“Some might say that running around kissing men, especially when you’re in love with another, speaks to a lack of integrity.”

For a few seconds I had no idea what he was talking about, until I remembered that I’d lied and said I loved a man in Locris. “A lack of integrity for you?”

“The standards are not the same for men and women.”

So that’s what this was about. It was fine for him to kiss whomever he wished, but I must have had some kind of moral deficiency since I had kissed him. “I suppose your true wife wouldn’t be allowed to have ever kissed any other men. You had no issues sailing on a boat that other men have sailed on. Or walking on roads other men have walked on. But women are different?”

Given the expression on his face, I realized that he had been baiting me. Trying to get me riled up. To what end? Why would he want to anger me further? He didn’t need to pick fights. I was angry just because he existed.

“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded. “It shouldn’t be different. My grandmother used to say ‘Deep drinketh the goose as the gander.’”

---