Love Me Again by Wendy M. Burge

aside, waiting for him to enter. Without hesitating, Varek stepped over the threshold, noted the dark room, then heard the door click shut behind him.
    He stood there in the dark, wondering if he was alone, then he heard the faint whisper of a lady's skirts and blindly he turned toward the sound. Breathing deep, he caught the subtle fragrance of Christina, and instead of relaxing, he tensed even more.
    “Well, I'm here, lark. You call and I come running. Rather pathetic, wouldn't you say?” He couldn't seem to keep the self-derision from his voice as he cautiously stepped closer to where he sensed she was. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and finally he caught sight of her as she moved into a ghostly beam of moonlight filtering through the darkness. As usual, his heart stopped at the sight of her. He closed his eyes, almost in despair. Would to God he didn't love this woman so much.
    “What do you want?” he asked with weary impatience, though he already knew what she wanted. She was here to protect her beloved Robert.
    “What do you want from me, Varek? We can never marry again. So what? You want me to come to you as a lover?” Her words were a seductive whisper in the dark distance between them. Varek stood rigid where he was, for if he moved he was afraid of what he might do to her. The pounding in his head increased with his disillusionment and shattered dreams. For a moment he couldn't even think straight, so fearsome was the ache. Taking a deep breath, he inquired of her in return, his voice cold and distant, “Is that what you want?”
    Her answer was immediate, “No. What I want is for you to leave me alone. I want you to leave Vienna. But you don't really care what I want, do you, Varek?”
    This time she spoke with such sadness, Varek's anger melted from him in rivulets of confusion. All his life he had wanted what was best for Christina. Now he was tearing her world apart again, and the terrible thing about it was he couldn't seem to dredge up any sympathy for her. All he could think of was his own loss, his own pain, and if it was suffocating him, he could only imagine what it was doing to her. With a guilty start, he remembered the smudges he had seen earlier under her lovely eyes, and he could only blame himself. This somber stranger who stood before him was beginning to erase his precious memories of his vibrant lark, and even knowing of the melancholy and pain he was causing her, he still couldn't make himself walk away. Just being able to look across a crowded room and meet her eyes was worth everything in the world to him. If only she could feel this same sense of connection...
    Swallowing, he walked over to a chair and sank into it. He dropped his head back in exhaustion and looked up at the vague shadows shifting overhead. He swallowed again and tried to blink back the sting of tears. “Why did this happen to us, lark? What did we ever do to deserve this? Every day of my life since you disappeared I've pondered this. Do you know, for I certainly have never been able to figure it out?”
    The silence hung heavy between them until her voice came so softly that he had to strain to hear her, “We were born into royalty. Ours lives were never our own.”
    He shook his head. “No, I've thought of that. It's too simple. You know what I think? I think that God envied us our happiness.”
    Christina stepped forward, her hand reaching out to him. “Varek, you mustn't think that.”
    “Why not? Could He punish me anymore for my heresy? God never listened to me when I begged for His mercy on my knees. He never listened to me then, so why would He bother now?” The irony in his voice was unmistakable. “Now you come back into my life and I am just suppose to look the other way? How can you even ask that of me, Christina?”
    He heard her draw in a shuddering breath. “Varek, I can't divorce Robert. Even if I wanted to, I can't.” He felt her fingers feather through his hair. It was the frightened