Once And Always

Chapter 30

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Enjoy this new chapter.

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Tee awoke with a heavy, aching heart and body, feeling as if he hadn't slept at all. A lump of harsh despair grew in his throat when he remembered Tae's humiliating, unprovoked revenge on him last night. Shoving his hair off his face, he leaned up on an elbow, his gaze drifting with numb abstractedness about the room. And then his eyes fell on the leather jewelry case beside the bed.

A rage unlike any he had ever experienced exploded in his brain, obliterating every other emotion within him. Tee hurtled out of bed disregarding his lower back pain, pulled on a dressing robe, and snatched up the box.

In a furious swirl of pale blue satin, he flung open the door to Tae's room and stalked in. "Don't you ever give me another piece of jewelry!" he hissed angrily.

Tae was standing beside his bed, his long legs encased in biscuit-colored trousers, his chest and feet bare. He glanced up just in time to see Tee hurl the box at his head, but he didn't flinch, didn't move a muscle to avoid the heavy leather box that sailed by, hitting him squarely in his forehead.

It slip and hit the polished floor with a loud thud and skidding beneath his bed. "I'd never forgive you for last night," Tee blazed, his nails digging into his palms, his chest rising and falling with each furious breath. "Never!"

"I'm sure you won't," Tae said in a flat, expressionless voice and reached for his shirt, not minding the reddening circle blooming in his forehead.

"I hate your jewelry, I hate the way you treat me, and I hate you! You don't know how to love anyone—you're a cynical heartless bastard!"

The word flew out of his mouth before Tee realized what he had said, but whatever reaction he expected, it was not the one he received.

"You're right," Tae agreed tightly. "That's exactly what I am. I'm sorry to have to shatter any illusions you may still have about me, but the truth is, I'm the by-product of a brief, meaningless liaison between Prama Kreepolrerk and some long forgotten dancer he kept in his youth."

Tae pulled a shirt on over his muscular shoulders and shoved his arms into it, while it slowly began to register on Tee that Tae thought he was confessing something ugly and repugnant to Tee, recalling too about Tae's first wife's reaction upon learning of Tae roots.

"I grew up in squalor, raised by Prama's sister-in-law. Later, I slept in a warehouse. I taught myself to read and write; I didn't go to a university or do any of the things your other refined, aristocratic suitors have done. In short, I am none of the things you think I am—none of the good things or the nice things."

Tae began buttoning his shirt, his hooded gaze carefully lowered to his hands. "I'm not a fit husband for you. I'm not fit to touch you. I've done things that would make you sick."

Captain Mew's words sliced through Tee's mind: The hag made him kneel and beg for forgiveness in front of those dirty locals.

Tee looked at Tae's proud, lean face, and he felt as if his heart would break. Now Tee understood why the khun luang wouldn't, couldn't, accept his love.

"I'm a bastard," Tae finished grimly, "in the truest meaning of the word."

"So were three sons of Kings before, and they made them all Mom Luangs." Tee said, his voice shaking with emotion. "What should I do about it?"