“And my feelings mean nothing.”
“That’s not true.” He took a deep breath. “But I must fulfill my obligation.”
“So that’s all I am to you? An obligation?”
“Rose, no,” he said. “I…” He looked at her. “I…care for you. Very much.”
“You care for me,” she said bitterly. “Thank you. I’ve just told you I’m in love with you!”
He blinked slowly, then pushed an envelope into her numb hands. “I’m giving you the choice,” he said. “I’ve held you captive, seduced you. Now you have the power. I’m setting you free to decide.”
“By trading me?” Tears were brimming over her lashes as she crumpled the envelope in her fist. She could not let herself cry in front of him, could not! “By discarding me, pushing me into another man’s arms?”
“No!” he said fiercely. He put his larger hand over hers. “I know you’ll never love him again. But…it must be your choice.”
The icy reality slowly sank into Rose’s heart. Xerxes was really letting her go. He was trading her for the woman he truly loved. And he wouldn’t even offer Rose the small comfort of an explanation!
Agony and fury ripped her heart into shreds. She wrenched her hand from his grasp.
“You love promises so much? All right. Here’s one for you.” She lifted her chin, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “Never come looking for me, Xerxes. I never want to see you again!”
He sucked in his breath. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. I’ll go through with this—this trade.” Her lip twisted. “But I want your word I’ll never see you again.”
“No!” He put his hands on her shoulders, searching her eyes with his own. “Don’t you understand?” he said in a low voice. “If I make you a promise, I cannot break it.”
“I understand that. Better than anyone.” She shook his hands off her shoulders and spoke in an icy voice that revealed nothing of her heartbreak. “That’s why I want to hear you speak the words.”
“I don’t want to do it!”
“As you said,” she gave him a hard, cold stare, “it’s not your choice.”
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“Fine.” The words were low, as if ripped from his soul. “If that is truly what you wish. I will not come after you. I will not try to see you again.”
“Promise!”
“I give you my word.” He swallowed. When he opened his eyes, their dark, fathomless pain registered dimly through her numb heart. “But in return,” he choked out, “you must promise me you will read that letter.”
“Fine.” She wrenched away from him, pushing open the car door before he could see her cry.
He’d actually done it. He’d made the promise. Some part of her had hoped, at the last moment, that he would refuse to make it, that he would tell her he loved her and only her.
Her mistake.
Stumbling out of the SUV, she tripped toward the curb, where Lars was waiting for her beside his gleaming sports car. He looked down at her, beaming.
“Darling,” the baron cried. “At last, you are back with me.”
“I will be a better man from now on. Everything is going to be different now, petal. I swear to you. I will do whatever you say, anything to make you happy, anything at all…”
Rose stared out wearily at the passing scenery as they approached the eastern edge of San Francisco. For the last hour, Lars had been prattling on about forgiveness and love. She didn’t think he knew what the hell he was talking about.
But then, neither did she, Rose thought bitterly. She thought of the stark, anguished look on Xerxes’s face when he’d said, “I will not try to see you again,” and it was all she could do to keep from crying.
So maybe she did finally know what love was after all. Pain.
She blinked quickly, staring out at the rain as they zoomed west on the highway.
“I was so selfish to insist on having our wedding in Sweden. I should have realized how important it was to you to be married in your own hometown. I swear to you, petal, this time we’ll do it differently…”
“Just take me home,” she whispered.
“Absolutely,” Lars said, clearly thrilled to get any response from her. “Straight home to your mother. Then we’ll have the wedding you always wanted. As soon as possible. Is tomorrow too soon?”
That statement was so shocking that she turned to gape at him. “You can’t honestly think I’m going to marry you?”
He switched lanes in his Ferrari, weaving through traffic on the rainy, slippery highway. “I know this whole experience has been very upsetting for you, petal, forced to endure the captivity of that depraved beast…”
Depraved beast? She had a sudden memory of Xerxes’s haunted expression as Lars had driven by him in the Ferrari, with Rose beside him. Her eyes had met Xerxes’s in the endless gray rain. Then Lars had stomped on the gas pedal, and they’d left him behind.
Xerxes was lost to her now. Forever.
“But we must put that all unpleasantness behind us now,” Lars finished firmly.
With an intake of breath, she whirled back to face him.
“What was unpleasant,” she said coldly, “was the way you lured me into a fake wedding to try to get me into bed, while you were waiting for your real wife to die so you could steal her money.”
Silence fell in the Ferrari.
“I did that because I loved you. I needed money for you. To make you happy,” Lars said in a determinedly cheerful voice. “But petal, we must move on now with our lives.” He gave her a toothy grin. “Marry me tonight. Let me start making it up to you.”
She had a sudden memory of raspberries in champagne, bubble bath, inscrutable dark eyes filled with tenderness and fire.
“What are you doing?”
“Making it up to you,” Xerxes had said.
Catching herself, she looked at the blond baron beside her. Lars clearly believed that with almost no effort, he could make her swoon back into his arms. How was it possible she’d ever been so blind as to believe herself in love with such a man?
“We’re not getting married,” she told him evenly. “Not tonight. Not ever.”
“But
