“Here’s how this goes. No Guardians. I don’t trust any of them, including you. You can have as much ice cream as you want. I doubt I’ll stop ordering you around.” He turned his face away and put his lips to her ear. “And you don’t get your own bedroom. You sleep here. With me.”

“I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to want you,” he added fiercely, taking one measured step toward her, then another. “And I sure as hell don’t want to love you. But, God help me, I just can’t stop myself.” Closing the rest of the distance between them in a single stride, he snatched her up by the shoulders, his burning gaze searching her face as if to sear her features into his memory. “I don’t want to marry you because I love you too much to ask you to spend the rest of your life hiding in the shadows.”

“Want some ice cream?"His head bumped the frame. "Ouch! What?" His voice was back to normal. He turned around. "Don't offer me ice cream. I just broke into your room and threatened you.”

“Gwenvael looked down at his body. Horrified, he sat up. “What is this? What’s happened to me?”“Calm down. It’ll heal quick enough, I’m sure.”“Heal? I’m hideous!”“You’re alive.”“Hideously alive!” He covered her face with his hands. “Don’t look at me! Look away!”“Stop it!” She pulled at his hands. “Have you lost your mind?”Gwenvael dropped back to the bed, turned his face toward the wall. “You know what this means, don’t you?”“Gwenvael—”“I’ll have to live alone, at the top of a castle somewhere. I’ll hide from the daylight and only come out at night.”“Please stop this.”“I’ll be alone but not for long because you’ll all want me more. You’ll lust for the beautiful warrior I once was and pity the hideous creature I’ve become. Most importantly, you’ll want to soothe my pain.” He looked at her again. “Don’t you want to soothe my pain? Right now? Without that dress on?”“No. I do not.”Dagmar tried to stand, and Gwenvael caught her hand, pulling her back down. “You can’t leave me. I’m tortured and brooding. You need to show me how much you adore me so I can learn to love myself again.”“You’ve never stopped loving yourself.”“Because I’m amazing.”

“You don’t love me,” she said slowly. “You’ve looked at me the same way from the instant we met.”His grip tightened on her waist. He leaned into her on a hiss. “Don’t tell me I don’t love you. Don’t you dare tell me that, Margaret. I have loved you since the moment you read my brother’s book to me. I love that you are the one woman I can trust with my weakness, that you know all the dark parts of me and do not turn away. I love the fierceness with which you protect the ones you love, even when they don’t deserve it. I love every last inch of you, and I want you for my own.” His words were hot, fiercely possessive, and yet he leaned his forehead against hers gently. “Although God knows, I don’t deserve you.”

“But you don’t get social with your employees,” I remind him quietly. “I’d made an exception for you.” His face is getting close and closer. Slowly. A centimetre at a time.“But it’s your rule.”“I’ll break it for you,” he whispers.“No, don’t do that,” I say breathlessly. “Fine, then you’re fired,” he says just as his lips meet mine.”