The Bride Thief (4 page)

“Your family?” he queried, his lips curving sardonically. “Not your precious boyfriend?”

She blinked. She’d actually forgotten about Lars for a moment. But it was only natural, she told herself. She’d known Lars only a few months, while she’d loved her family for her whole life! But still, the thought brought her up short. Shouldn’t she have wanted to speak to Lars above all others?

Pushing the disquieting thought aside, she glared at him. “My husband
is
my family.”

Xerxes pulled out his phone, dialed a number and handed it to her. “Here.”

She stared up at him in surprise, her mouth gaping as she held the phone in her hand. “Is this a trick?”

“It’s ringing,” he pointed out.

With a gasp, she pushed the phone to her ear. When she heard Lars’s voice at the other end, she nearly wept with relief. “Lars!”

“Rose?” he said, his voice more high-pitched that usual. “Where are you? One of my groundskeepers found the tiara smashed in the road. Your family is worried sick. Why did you leave?” His voice wavered. “Did you hear something that made you angry? Whatever it was, I can explain—”

“I’ve been kidnapped,” she sobbed. “I’m in Greece.”

There was silence on the other end. Then Lars spoke grimly.

“Novros,” he said. “Novros took you, didn’t he?”

How had he known that?

“Yes,” she choked out. “And he—”

“What did he tell you?”

She turned away so Xerxes couldn’t see her tearful face as she whispered into the phone, “He’s told me all kinds of lies. Oh, Lars. He said you were already married, that the tiara was fake, that our
wedding
was fake! Ridiculous lies that no one would believe!”

Sniffling, she waited for Lars to tell her that of course it was a lie, that of course she was his legal wife and that he’d be calling Interpol immediately.

Instead, there was silence.

“It’s complicated,” he said weakly.

The word was a stab to her heart. “Complicated?”

“I pawned my grandmother’s tiara a few years ago, but the glass version looks almost the same,” he said defensively. “I intended to buy it back, but never got around to it. Your engagement ring is real though!”

Why was he talking about jewelry? Who cared about that? She choked out, “But the other things—”

“Well, technically I suppose you could say that I was already married, but my so-called wife has been comatose for a year. She’s a vegetable. I never loved her, Rose, but I needed money, don’t you understand? I have an image to uphold. And I swear to you,” he said urgently, “Laetitia is nothing to me.”

“You’re married,”
Rose whispered numbly, feeling like she was in a nightmare. She felt Xerxes move behind her, felt the warmth emanating off his strong body. “Our wedding today was really fake.”

“I had no choice. You wouldn’t let me touch you!” Lars said. “I hired an actor to lead the vows. It was easy. None of my friends knew about Laetitia. The day after we eloped, my stupid, brainless wife drove her car into a telephone pole.”

Rose sucked in her breath.

As if sensing he’d gone too far, Lars changed his tone. “You’re the one I love, petal, my perfect bride. You are the one I truly want as my wife. I always intended to renew our vows, legally, as soon as Laetitia died. The doctors say she’s fading fast,” he added eagerly. “She could die any day.”

“You…” Her throat closed. It took her a minute to force out the words. “You
want
her to die?”

“Of course I do!” he said. “I need you, my beautiful Rose. Please, petal, you have to believe…”

But Rose heard no more. The phone fell from her numb hands, clattering to the marble floor.

She stared dimly at the sparkling diamond ring on her hand. She’d pledged her faith to a man who was not free. And worse than that, a man devious enough to twist Rose’s innocent words into the justification for his deception. A man heartless enough to want his comatose wife to die.

Rose had believed in him. She’d thought she’d truly married him. And in a few hours more, she would have given him her virginity.

How could she have been such a fool?

The entire fairy tale had been a lie.

Her knees collapsed. Peeling the diamond ring off her finger, she threw it across the room, where it ricocheted off the bookcase. Covering her face with her hands as she wept, she sank to the white marble floor.

Xerxes picked up the ring from the floor, along with the dropped phone. He put the phone to his ear.

“So,” he said coolly. “Shall we trade?”

She dimly heard Lars’s furious shouting in response.

“This is my last offer,” Xerxes said carelessly. “I will allow you to keep your castle, even to keep the car you bought with her money. But you will give her up, along with the rest of her fortune. You will complete the divorce within the week. Or you will regret it.”

More shouting.

Xerxes’s gaze was dark as he looked down at Rose. “We both know you will agree. And Växborg? Do it as soon as you can. Your mistress is a beautiful woman.” His lips curved into a cruel, sensual smile. “Any man would commit crimes to possess her.”

Chapter Six

A
FTER
he ended the call, the library was silent. Rose heard only low, soft snuffles that she realized were her own sobs.

Her captor stood over her, and she felt his silent, considering gaze upon her. She tried to stifle her weeping but could not.

All she could think about was that Xerxes had been right. Lars had betrayed her. Tricked her. He’d used her own idealistic nature, her belief in loyalty and love, against her.

He’d never loved Rose at all. He’d only wanted her body. He was already married, and he’d been waiting…waiting for…

“He’s waiting for his wife to die,” she whispered aloud.

She felt Xerxes touch her arm. “I know.”

She looked up. His dark eyes were surprisingly gentle.

“Come,” he said in a low voice. “You’ve had a rough day. I’ll take you to bed.”

She was unable to resist as he took her hand in his larger one, lifting her to her feet. She trembled at his touch, barely feeling strong enough to hold the bodice of her wedding gown closed with her other hand. She pressed her fingers against her heart. She felt faint, her knees weak as she tried to walk. Stopped.

She looked up at him in the dark, shadowy hallway. She saw the roughness in his expression. He was everything Lars was not: brutal, ruthless, vengeful.
Truthful.

Abruptly, Xerxes lifted her into his strong arms, holding her against his chest. She felt the rush of electricity, the overwhelming awareness sizzling through her just as it had when he’d first touched her, when he’d kissed her on the plane.

He didn’t know that it had been her first kiss. And that her whole body trembled now with all the desire and yearning of twenty-nine years of loneliness.

He carried her down the shadowed hallway and up a sweeping flight of stairs. The rhythm of his footsteps was heavy against the marble floor, mingling like percussion against the music of the roaring surf outside.

She glanced up at his face. His expression was brutal, even cruel. And yet he held her so gently. She’d thought him some kind of malevolent demon, but perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps he was a dark angel, who’d unexpectedly come to save her.

At the end of the hall, he used his shoulder to push open a door with a low creak. Supporting Rose’s body with one arm as if she weighed nothing at all—which she probably did, compared to him—he switched on a small lamp with his free hand.

She dimly saw a large, Spartan bedroom, utterly masculine, devoid of color. The walls were white. The bed was black. The wide windows had a balcony overlooking the moonlit sea.

He set her down on the bed. Looking down at her, his eyes were dark as night. Dark—and full of hunger.

He was going to kiss her again. She knew it. He was going to kiss her, despite his promise. Promises meant nothing to men. They’d meant nothing to Lars. Now Xerxes would ruthlessly possess her. He would take everything she had once hoped to give her husband in innocence and faith.

Rose no longer had the strength to fight.

He pushed her back against the enormous bed. Slowly, he pulled the fabric of the bodice from her clenched fingers, leaving her silken bra and the bare skin of her belly in clear view. She felt the magnetic force of his body over her own, his powerful strength and size as he stared down at her, pinning her with his dark gaze.

She stared at him numbly. She had to fight.
Why couldn’t she fight?
She breathed, “I…I hate you.”

His sensual mouth curved as he looked down at her. “I don’t need you to love me. I just need you to obey.”

Rose closed her eyes, waiting for him to rip the wedding dress down her legs and throw his body over hers. Waiting for him to ravish her without hesitation, to ruthlessly and brutally seduce her naked body.

She almost didn’t care. She’d lost herself completely. Just a few hours ago, she’d been idealistic, romantic. Now, she felt—nothing.

Then he touched her.

His fingertips were feather-light, running along her bare collarbone to her shoulder. Strange sensations coursed through her body, an odd tumble of emotions that frightened her. Fear? Yes. But also…something more than fear. Something greater than fear that made her tremble deep inside.

His hands moved slowly down the naked valley between her breasts, causing prickles to spread all over her body. His hands sizzled everywhere he touched. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples tightening to aching points beneath the silky white bralette that Lars had insisted on ordering for her from Paris. She’d blushed when he’d given it to her. Now, she was wearing it in front of his enemy.

His fingers moved down her bare belly to the tattered wedding gown pulled down around her waist. He gently pulled the layers of lace and tulle down her legs, then dropped it to the floor in a crumpled heap.

“I knew I’d get that off you eventually,” he whispered.

She started to reply, then saw that he’d fallen to his knees at the foot of the bed. The image of him kneeling before her half-naked body was so shocking that she squeezed her eyes shut.

But if anything, the sensation only grew more intense as she felt his hands on her thigh, unhooking a lace garter that held up her white silk stocking. The warmth of his breath curled against her naked belly, and she gasped with the sweet agony of forbidden desire. She shouldn’t feel like this—not for a stranger!

He slowly pulled the stocking down her leg, his fingers brushing her skin from her thigh to her knee. The sensual silk slid slowly down her calf, down her ankle to the sensitive hollow of her foot. And suddenly her leg was bare.

He moved on the mattress, moving up between her legs. With a gasp, she opened her eyes.

He was looking down at her, his dark eyes hungry. Holding her gaze with his own, he tossed the stocking to the floor. Reaching for her other thigh, he unclasped the garter and moved the second stocking down her leg, sliding the silk down her skin like the whisper of a caress.

Heat built inside her, coursing through her body, sizzling her with his every look and every touch. Tension tightened her nipples to aching points, coiling low in her belly. Her breaths came in increasingly quick gasps.

She shouldn’t do this. He was her captor, a criminal, a stranger to her! She shouldn’t let him touch her!

But even as her mind screamed for her to push away, she couldn’t move. She just lay there on the soft cotton sheets, feeling the breeze from the open window, seeing it wave through white translucent curtains. In the distance, she heard the plaintive call of seagulls and her own hoarse breath. Biting her lip until it bruised, she looked up at his brutal face.

But he did not look brutal anymore. He stroked her concave belly with concern. “So thin,” he murmured. “Why so thin?”

It broke the spell. She sat up abruptly.

“Gullible. Clumsy. Skinny,” Rose said bitterly, as her fingers gripped the cotton sheets, pulling them up. “You are cruel. Lars always said I was the most beautiful girl in the world—”

Then her throat choked as she remembered that Lars was a heartless, soulless liar.

Xerxes’s fingers stilled. “Växborg did not lie,” he said quietly. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Rose Linden.”

He pushed her down firmly with his rough hands, and she did not resist. She closed her eyes. When she felt a soft sheet cover her body, she looked at him in shock.

From beside the bed, Xerxes looked down at her with a crooked smile. His rugged face was impossibly handsome in the circle of lamplight. He lifted a white goose-down comforter over the sheet. And suddenly, she realized what he was doing. He wasn’t trying to seduce her.

He was tucking her in for the night.

“You’re leaving me?” she whispered as he turned away. “Just like that?”

He paused at the door, his expression half-hidden by shadow. The dim golden light illuminated the edges of his muscular body as he spoke to her without turning around. “Good night.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like a gentleman. Like…like a good person.”

Abruptly, he clicked off the light, and the room fell into darkness. “Don’t think I’m a good person,” he said in a low voice. “If you do, you’ll regret it. ’Til the day you die.”

And he left, closing the door heavily behind him, locking her in—alone.

Chapter Seven

R
OSE
woke up the next morning to find sunshine flooding her with white, almost blinding clarity. It refreshed her, washing away the dark nightmares that had troubled her all night.

Yawning, she blinked sleepily.
It was a dream,
she thought.
Thank heaven it was all a dream.
She was back in her solitary bedroom at Trollshelm Castle. Today was her wedding day, the day she would pledge herself as Lars’s wife for the rest of her life…

Rose blinked.

She sat up abruptly. Her blankets fell to her waist as she stared around her.
This was not her bedroom.

She glanced down at the white silk bra and panties that she’d slept in. A blush heated her cheeks as she remembered Xerxes moving over her on the bed last night, his body so close to hers as he slowly undid her garters and pulled her silk stockings off her legs. She could still feel the intensity of his mouth on hers when he’d kissed her on the plane. She touched her lips as she recalled how his lips had seared her, how he’d crushed her to his chest and taken her in a hard, hungry embrace, his tongue sweeping her own as he—

“Good morning.”

She looked up from the bed with a gasp, yanking her sheets back up to her neck.

Xerxes leaned in the doorway, dressed casually in khaki shorts and a black tank top that revealed his tanned, muscular arms.

“Good morning,” she choked out in reply.

“I hope you slept well.” He gave her a darkly sensual look. “I unlocked your door. I’m here now to give you what you need.”

Had he somehow guessed what she’d just been thinking?

“What?” she said in a strangled voice.

He sat down on the bed beside her. “Here.”

He placed a silver tray in her lap that held a silver coffeepot, chocolate croissants, fresh fruit, fried potatoes and orange juice. Staring down at it, her mouth watered. “You brought me breakfast?” she said numbly.

“You looked hungry last night.”

She was. But something else caught her eye. Surprised, she reached across the tray to a bud vase that held a tiny pink rose. She breathed in the delicate scent of the bloom. “And this? Am I supposed to eat this?”

He shrugged. “It reminded me of you.”

“
You
picked a flower?”

“I do know how,” he said dryly. “I have my gardener grow them in our greenhouse in winter.” He paused. “My grandmother grew polyantha rose bushes, fairy roses. They were the only bit of beauty we had then—her weeping rose tree.” He looked at the tiny flower. “It’s so delicate, the bloom’s barely bigger than my thumb, and yet it’s stronger than it looks. It resists disease, poor soil. Even men.” He gave a slight smile. “The thorns are vicious.”

She looked at the flower, then him, still shocked.

“It’s my way of saying I’m sorry for the way I kidnapped you,” he said with a sigh. “If I’d known you were innocent, that you hadn’t deliberately set out to replace Laetitia, I would have…” Leaning back, he raked the back of his dark hair with his hand, then gave her a crooked grin. “Well, I would still have kidnapped you, but I’d have been more courteous about it.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. It made her nervous to have him so close to her again. He was freshly shaved and brutally handsome. And the smile he was giving her now was nothing short of devastating. Quickly, she looked back at the breakfast tray. “This looks delicious. I suppose now you’ll tell me you cooked it yourself?”

“No.” His sensual mouth quirked. “But I run a full-service prison here. Room and board included.”

“Nice.” She lifted her eyes to him suddenly. “It would be even nicer if you’d let me go.”

He blinked, then his eyes hardened. “But we already agreed that I am not nice. I am a businessman. And you are too thin. No more diets. You will eat.”

“I wasn’t on a diet,” she said, stung. “I wasn’t even trying to lose weight. I just couldn’t relax around Lars. I never had an appetite.”

“You found him unappetizing? Shocking,” Xerxes said, lifting his eyebrow. “But you are in my care now. Further starvation will cause you to lose your value. You will obey me in this.”

Rose scowled at his tyrannical tone, then looked down at the tray. The coffee smelled divine, the croissants looked flaky and buttery. Her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten a thing since yesterday. Or was it the day before? She hadn’t even eaten a slice of wedding cake. Cake with buttercream frosting was normally her favorite, but she hadn’t been able to eat a bite.

Why hadn’t she listened to what her body had been trying to tell her all along?

So rather than argue with him, she took a deep breath and placed the napkin in her lap. She took a bite of chocolate croissant, and her eyes widened. “Yum!” she breathed, and quickly ate another bite, and another.

“That’s what I like,” he said approvingly.

She took a big swig of orange juice. “I can relax around you, Xerxes. I don’t need to be perfect for you—” she gave him a sudden grin “—because you’re basically a terrible person.”

“I am,” he agreed. Leaning forward, he suddenly stroked her upper lip.

Electrified, she stared up at him in shock. “Why did you do that?”

“Orange juice on your lip,” he said.

She swallowed. How could he do that? How could Xerxes, with just one touch, make her completely forget who she was and what she was doing?

“Go on,” he said. “Don’t stop now. I want you nice and healthy when I trade you.”

Her smile faded.

Trade.
Yes. Of course he wanted her healthy, so he could trade her like a horse. Fat and sassy, like a farm cow. Maybe he’d even find a way to sell her by the pound. Biting her lip, she looked down at her tray.

“How can you be so sure he’ll still trade me?” she said in a small voice. “Lars is married. He can’t love me. If you’re married, you can’t love anyone else.”

Xerxes’s black eyes gleamed. “You really believe that.”

“Of course I do!” she said fiercely, looking up. “He doesn’t love me, and I don’t…
can’t
…love him ever again.”

“Why not?” he said curiously. “Växborg is still a baron. Once he’s divorced, he’ll be free to legally wed you. But he will no longer have Laetitia’s fortune. Is that the problem?”

She choked out a laugh. “I don’t care about money. I’ve been broke for years. I know how to deal with it.”

“So?”

“
He lied to me.
And it’s more than that. Marriage is forever. Promises aren’t just words. When I marry,” she said, “it will be to a man who knows what a promise means.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“You surprise me,” he murmured. “I never expected any woman, let alone a woman who looks like you, to be…”

“To be what?” she demanded.

“Old-fashioned,” he said quietly. “A woman who believes in honor and commitment? A woman who cannot be bought?” He shook his head. “I didn’t know there were any such left in the world.”

Rose’s cheeks went hot. Was he mocking her, calling her a fool? She already felt like enough of one for a whole lifetime.

“It’s not so rare,” she said defensively, folding her arms. “Lots of people feel that way in my hometown. Especially in my family,” she muttered.

Her family.
She bit her lip. What had Lars told them about her? Were they worried? Scared? Angry? She unfolded her arms and looked at him pleadingly. “Won’t you let me call my mother and tell her what’s happened?”

His eyebrows lowered as he shook his head. “Sorry. Too risky. Your mother might call the police. I know Lars will not.”

“All right,” she whispered, looking away. “I still don’t understand how he could do such a horrible thing as pretend to marry me.”

Xerxes cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. His black eyes went through her, causing a flicker of heat against her skin, spreading down her body. He moved closer to her, so close that she felt consumed by the black fire of his gaze. “He wanted to make sure no other man could have you.”

No
other
man? Try
no man ever.
She took a deep breath. What would he say if he knew he was actually the first man who’d ever kissed her? Would he think she was a freakish old maid?

She covered her face with her hands. “I feel pathetic.”

“Rose.” Xerxes’s voice was low. “I was wrong to call you naive. You…you just believe the best of people. It’s a rare quality.”

She felt the warmth of his arms start to encircle her. No! She couldn’t let him touch her, or she might completely collapse back into his arms. She jerked back away from him on the bed, looking up at him fiercely. “If you believe that, let me call my family and tell them I’m safe!”

He blinked. “I’m sure Lars told them that.”

She thought of her parents, her grandparents, her brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and choked back her tears, causing her throat to throb. “No. I need to talk to them
now.
”

“I already gave you my answer. No.” He abruptly stood up from the bed. “There are a variety of new clothes in the closet for your stay. Enjoy your breakfast.”

He left. Rose stared at the closed door.

With a weary sigh, she rose from the bed and went to the closet. There, just as he’d promised, she found an entirely new wardrobe, laundered and pressed, in a variety of sizes.

She ran her hands over all the hanging clothes softly, then looked at the shoes stacked neatly beneath.

There was every style of clothing possible, everything any woman could want—from bikinis and cocktail dresses to oversized sweatpants and T-shirts. Schlubby to chic and everything in between.

Very unlike Lars, who’d always had a very specific way he’d wished her to dress. He hadn’t even allowed her to pick out her own wedding dress.
“You’re beautiful in anything, petal,”
he’d said.
“But I prefer you to wear the jewels and furs you deserve.”

She’d tried to tell him that she didn’t feel comfortable in those things, but he never listened to her. So she’d worn his fancy clothing in the hope it would make her feel like she belonged in his aristocratic set.

Grimly, she went back to the bed and poured herself some hot coffee into a pretty china teacup on the tray. Taking a sip of the steaming black coffee, she stared at herself in the vanity mirror.

She looked awful. Like a raccoon with circles under her eyes, or maybe a Halloween ghost, pale and thin. Yesterday’s wedding makeup was still smeared on her face, black mascara dark beneath her eyes from weeping.

With Lars constantly telling her she was perfect, when she knew she wasn’t, she’d been afraid to stick up for herself or even, heaven forbid, start a fight. She’d told herself she was just inexperienced at dealing with relationships. Couples were supposed to compromise, weren’t they?

But instead of compromise, she’d given herself up completely—when all he’d offered her in return were lies.

Rose choked down another sip of black coffee. Her eyes fell upon the wedding dress, still lying in a crumpled heap on the floor where Xerxes had dropped it the night before. Crossing the room in her bare feet, she picked up the couture gown with two fingers and dragged it into the trash.

There. It was gone. Brushing off her hands, she turned her back on it and felt immediately better. And then—
she was hungry.

Going back to the breakfast tray, she dumped three heaping spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee, followed by copious amounts of real cream. She took a long drink of the hot, fragrant coffee and it was so sweet and creamy that she gasped with pleasure. She reached back for the buttery, freshly made chocolate croissant and polished it off in three bites.

Carrying the tray to the vanity table, she ate a big bite of sweet roll. Still chewing vigorously, she pulled Lars’s expensively tarty lingerie off her body and dropped it onto the floor. She stared at it for a moment, then kicked it into the trash as well.

Going into the ensuite bathroom, she turned on the shower. Beneath the hot water, she scrubbed her face clean with a rough washcloth, washing off all the old smeared makeup from yesterday, rubbing at her skin until it was half-raw.

Toweling herself off afterward, she automatically looked around for a hair dryer. Then she stopped herself. No. No more hair dryer. No flatiron. No more fuss.

Going back into the bedroom, she flung open a drawer and found a wireless bra and comfortable white cotton panties that would actually cover her backside. Looking through the closet, she bypassed the fancy satin cocktail gowns and reached for a soft cotton skirt and a tissue-thin knit top. After getting dressed, she looked at herself again in the vanity mirror and took a deep breath.

She looked like her old self again. Regular old Rose Linden from California, the waitress who was working toward a college degree, the loving daughter who brought her parents homemade candy on weekends, who babysat for her nieces and nephews on Friday nights. No jewels, no furs, no tiara.
Just her.

But her eyes had changed. They were exhausted and puffy from weeping, but it was more than that. Though still a virgin and no longer a bride, Rose knew she would never completely return to the idealistic girl she’d been.

But without all the makeup and confining clothes, letting her long blond hair air dry into its natural wave rather than wasting a precious hour of her life with the flatiron, she felt a new freedom. She went out to the chair and table by the window. Opening the screen door, she looked out at the view as she ate the rest of her breakfast, devouring the fresh fruit, potatoes and buttery pastries with equal relish.

She felt light. Freedom coursed in waves against her skin, as cool and refreshing as the soft sea breeze blowing through the window. Setting down her coffee cup beside her empty plate, she wandered outside on the balcony and looked out at the blue Aegean. The air was warm and smelled of salt and flowers and freshly exotic scents from faraway lands.

Last night, she’d been overwrought and exhausted and afraid. This villa had seemed full of darkness and shadows. But today, in the sunshine, she saw that it was beautiful. Bright pink flowers laced over white stucco on the edge of the bright blue sea.