Theron looked at her, genuinely stunned for the first time in a long while.
Beneath the confusion, beneath the irritation, beneath the dull pain still knotting his thoughts together, something sharper began to stir. A vague unease. A sense that this had gone from ridiculous to dangerous far too quickly.
He reached for her shoulders and held her there, stopping her before she could crowd him any further.
Rosalyn looked at his face, and what she saw there made something in her chest crack. It was not even close to desire; his face was stiff, but it was not anger or even annoyance.
It was pity.
Pity.
And somehow that hurt her more than everything that had happened before it. The humiliation, the laughter, the glances, the fireball that had gone wildly astray, all of it suddenly seemed small compared to the quiet insult of being looked at as though she were pathetic.
"So Your Highness does know how to stop a woman from getting close you," she said, her voice tight with contempt.
