had her. Naked and ripe for the taking. He’d seen it in her body’s reaction to his touch, in the quiver of her neck and shoulders beneath the stroke of his fingers, in the flush of heat on her skin.
He’d had her. Getting her to release him from his promise, luring her into just gasping out the words kiss me would have been the easiest thing in the world.
It had taken slightly longer than he’d thought it would, but he’d finally succeeded in getting her where he wanted her. Bedding Rose last night would have been at once his revenge—and his reward.
And yet he’d let her go. He’d stumbled away from the bathtub, and her body covered with bubbles, without a word. Once outside, he’d stripped off his dusty clothes and dived naked into the sea to clear his body of dust. To clear his soul of desire.
You deserve better than a man like me.
Now, raking his hand through his hair, he twisted his aching neck to crack the aching vertebrae. After sleeping outside all night, he cursed himself silently. Why had he let her go last night? Why had he shown such foolish mercy?
“I’ll have faith…” He heard her voice like music, and remembered the way she’d looked at him with eyes of endless blue. “A life without faith, without being brave enough to risk loving someone and be loved in return, is no life at all.”
Xerxes’s lip curled. His frustration and lack of sleep were clearly melting his brain!
He’d come to the Maldives yesterday filled with optimism, after his chief bodyguard had told him Laetitia had been sighted here. He’d known if he could find her on his own and get her safely to good medical care, he would have no need to deal with Växborg. Once Laetitia was well, she could divorce him herself. And Xerxes—he could keep Rose for himself.
But after almost a year of repeated sightings that proved false, Xerxes should have known better than to hope. The small hut at the end of the dusty road on the other side of the island had been deserted. Talking to the neighbors, they discovered that someone who looked like Laetitia had indeed been there. But she’d been moved just two days before, and they did not know where she’d gone. Her caretaker, a toothless old woman who spoke no English and had no medical training, had been paid in cash. The woman said that the young sleeping woman still lived. That was all she knew.
Returning alone to the honeymoon cottage, Xerxes had been furious and angry—at Växborg, but even more at himself.
Why couldn’t he find Laetitia?
Why couldn’t he save her?
Why did he keep failing?
When Xerxes had seen Rose sleeping peacefully at the table on the beach, he’d stopped on the sand. She was alone beneath the sunset, ethereally sexy in those little gauzy robes over a bikini. And he’d suddenly known how he would take out his frustration. How he would take both his solace—and his pleasure.
Before he’d reached out his hand to shake her awake, he’d already decided that he would possess her. He wouldn’t force her. He just wouldn’t leave her any other choice.
No woman could resist a seduction as gentle as a question. Once secure in the false belief that she held all the power, a woman always surrendered. Power was a heady aphrodisiac.
And last night, Rose would have surrendered as well. If he hadn’t let her go.
Why? He rubbed his forehead wearily. Why had he done it? Because he liked her? Because she had a good heart? Because he admired her?
He thought again of her beauty. Of her luscious body. And his eyes narrowed.
Next time, he would be ruthless.
“Did you really sleep out here all night?”
At the sound of her shy voice, he looked up to discover Rose standing awkwardly beside the hammock. She was wearing a little white cover-up of eyelet cotton and flip-flop sandals. Her face was bare and lightly tanned, her blond hair wavy and tumbling down her shoulders. She looked very young.
“Yes,” he said shortly.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know. You could have slept on the couch.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “I don’t bite.”
“Maybe I do.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
At her shining smile, an ache filled his chest that felt like pain.
Morning had dawned over the beach, streaking pink across the sky over the crystalline waves. A fresh breeze blew through the palm trees overhead, causing tendrils of her blond hair to curl across her beautiful face.
And it was then that he saw it in her face, bright as day. Rose actually cared about him.
The realization jolted him like a kick in the gut. He climbed out of the hammock so quickly that he nearly fell.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” He straightened, irritated.
“Why did you leave like that last night?” she persisted, in spite of the clear signals. He didn’t wish to discuss it.
“For your own good,” he muttered.
“What?”
Angrily, he whirled on her. “Just leave it alone. Trust me. You slept better last night without my company.”
She stared at him.
“No,” she said in a low voice. “You’re wrong. I didn’t sleep at all.” Her beautiful face was heartbreakingly angelic as she whispered, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Their eyes met, and he couldn’t look away.
He wanted her so badly that his whole body thrummed with it. Painfully. Single-mindedly.
He wanted to take her right here on the deserted beach, to rip off her white cover-up in the pale pink morning, to push her naked body against the sand and kiss and suckle and taste every inch of her skin. He wanted to push himself inside her, to fill her completely, to ride her until she forgot every other lover, until she screamed his name.
Standing before her in yesterday’s T-shirt and jeans, Xerxes held himself still. His hands clenched with the effort it took not to kiss her. “Why were you thinking about me?”
“You try to pretend you’re selfish and cruel,” she said softly. “But I keep thinking about you and coming to one conclusion. You’re a good man.”
He gave a low laugh, like thunder reverberating across the dark sky. “I am not good.” Something snapped inside him and he reached for her shoulders, looking down into her eyes searchingly as he whispered, “But you…you are.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “I’m not so very good. I’ve been feeling quite stupid, actually, driving you away from your bed. The couch, I mean.”
She was stammering, embarrassed. As if she had anything to feel guilty about, when
