A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [86]
“Sonja, talk to me.”
She dragged in a breath. “Dreams don’t come true.” She tossed away the small thing she’d been holding and he realized it was a resort logo button.
“Are you all right?”
“What do you want me to say, Vidar?”
“Tell me what you thought of your father.”
“You were right. I look like him.” Her voice stayed level, almost unemotional, but the protective shield around her mind wavered and a flash of misery escaped. She felt unwanted, unloved. A pain stabbed the vicinity of his heart.
“Your father only stayed away from you for your own good.”
She cast him a disbelieving glance.
“It’s complicated, Sonja.”
“And I’m too stupid to understand, I suppose.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He couldn’t take her back to her room and leave her miserable. With a twitch of his wrist, he changed Gleda’s direction.
Sonja’s head tilted. “Where’re we going now?”
“I want to show you my favorite view.”
He slowed the sleigh as they approached the flat icy rock. The sleigh’s metal runners scraped onto solid ground.
Despite Sonja’s melancholy, her curiosity picked up when Vidar stopped the sleigh. An occasional snowflake spiraled out of the dark sky toward the endless expanse of glittering frost-glazed landscape below.
Vidar slid close and curved a supportive arm around her shoulders. She resisted the temptation to lean back against the reassurance of his body. She had a sick sense that she was the butt of a joke. Everyone at the Yule Fest obviously knew who she was, and had enjoyed the spectacle of her father rejecting her.
Green light flashed across the dark sky. “There.” Vidar pointed as the colored lights pulsed around them. “Humans call it the aurora borealis. It’s really the light elves showing off.”
She sensed Vidar looking at her and couldn’t resist a quick glance his way. He grinned and her stomach did a strange flip. She’d never experienced such a strong connection with a man before. It was as though on some level she’d known him all her life. She had started to trust him by the time they reached the Yule Fest, despite the fact he’d sprung his strange world on her with no warning. But after what happened at the party . . .
“Explain what went on at the Yule Fest tonight, Vidar.”
He pulled her tightly to his side and the heat from his body seeped through the fur, warming her. Streaks of green, blue, and pink shimmered across the sky.
After long minutes when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he leaned close to her ear. “Tonight you got caught up in a family feud. Just forget about it, elskan mín.”
She wished she could rewind tonight and delete what had happened. But she’d met her father. “Forgetting’s not an option.”
Vidar’s breath hissed out and he tightened his arm around her. “I know you feel that Troy abandoned you, but he did it to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?” She swiveled around to see Vidar’s expression. The golden glow of his eyes took her breath away each time she looked into them. His face was so close to hers she felt his breath on her skin. Her world narrowed to the man in front of her. Her fingers flexed against his chest. “Didn’t Troy want me in his world?”
“It’s not that simple,” Vidar whispered. His hand slid up her back to pull off her hood. His warm palm cupped the back of her head. “Sonja . . .”
He was going to kiss her. She should stop him. She had so many questions he hadn’t answered. Yet her gaze dropped to his lips. He closed the gap between them, his mouth finding hers, hot and smooth, dangerously seductive. Her aunt always said not to mix business with pleasure. But this was way past business into uncharted territory.
The hot tip of his tongue touched her lips, and her mind blanked as he deepened the kiss. Her hand tingled, longed to burrow beneath his coat in