Burning for Love by Evangeline Anderson

46

James had never known physical pain like the emotional agony he was experiencing now. Pretending that he had no feelings for Ka’rissa when, in fact, he was burning with love for her, had been incredibly difficult. And though he told himself over and over that this was for the best—that she needed to be with a male who was of her own race and who had Royal blood, he still couldn’t forget the tears of pain and betrayal in her lovely eyes as he had turned away from her.

Also, despite his firm conviction that he was doing the right thing—not just for Ka’rissa but for the whole of Regalia Five and for his own people as well—James still had that nagging guilt feeling that he had done something dreadfully wrong.

You never should have allowed yourself to fall in love with her in the first place, he told himself sternly. That’s what you did wrong. Never should have gone on this mission when you knew your emotion damper was malfunctioning.

But he had done those things and now he had to live with the consequences. His deepest regret was that he had hurt not only himself, but Ka’rissa as well. He wished desperately that he could take back his actions of the past solar month, but that was, of course, impossible.

The only thing he could do now was to witness the wedding ceremony tomorrow morning and then leave the planet as quickly as possible. Then, once he was back aboard the Mother Ship, he could get his emotion damper fixed and try to forget about Ka’rissa.

He only hoped that in time, she could forget about him as well.