The Bride Thief (6 page)

It was now almost dark. His silhouette was black against the fading red sunset. He’d changed on the plane, but she saw that his jeans and T-shirt were dusty, and his face was grim. His good mood of just a few hours before had evaporated.

“What’s wrong?” she said. “What’s happened?”

“Forget it,” he said heavily, sitting in the chair next to her.

“Where have you been?”

He shook his head bitterly. “It doesn’t matter.” He looked at the flower. “Where did that rose come from?”

She bit her lip. Had she done something wrong, something that would reveal that she’d sent the housekeeper home? “Why do you ask?” she evaded.

“The rose,” he said, then looked up at her. “I heard it was the national flower of these islands, but I’ve never been to this resort. I’m not known by the staff. Is it a coincidence? Or did you request it for me?”

“It was nothing, really,” she said awkwardly. Her cheeks felt burning hot. “I found them in the garden. I was surprised to see the same roses here, growing thousands of miles from your home. I thought you’d like it. That’s all.”

“I do,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

Taking the rose out of the vase, he reached across the table and tucked it behind her ear, in her long, wavy blond hair. His hand trailed slowly down from her ear, caressing her cheek. Then he took her hand in his own, across the table, and she shivered in the warm night.

Overhead, the sky was streaked with red and purple like the echoes of ash and fire. Like the fire slowly smoldering in his dark eyes as he looked at her. Like the fire that was filling her body with the bewildering ache of desire.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he murmured, then looked at the covered silver dish. “Dinner must be long cold.” He sighed with regret. “I’ve been dreaming for the last hour about the dinner the housekeeper would prepare for us. Maldivian food is supposed to be spectacular, a mix of Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern flavors. Nikos has raved about her cooking more than once. I can hardly wait—”

With a flourish, he pulled the lid off the silver tray. And stared. He sat back into his chair with an amazed thump.

“Spaghetti bolognese?” he said faintly.

“Spaghetti is delicious,” she said defensively.

He looked at her.

“And with rice noodles, too!” she said, taking the spoon from him. “That’s certainly exotic! Shall I serve?”

Rose dumped some spaghetti on each plate, then looked down at her cold, rather unappetizing concoction. She’d had to improvise for ingredients. She’d used rice noodles for pasta, and since she hadn’t found a handy can of marinara sauce or even tomato paste, she’d improvised by smashing fresh tomatoes into a rudimentary sauce. She’d added a mishmash of chopped mystery meat she’d found in the fridge with whatever spices she could find in the kitchen, and hoped for the best.

All right, so she wasn’t always the best cook—except where candy was concerned—but even she couldn’t ruin something as simple as spaghetti, she hoped.

She took a bite, and discovered she was wrong.

It was
awful.
And cold, in the bargain. She nearly choked it out, then covered up her gag reflex with a cough before she managed to swallow it down. “Wow,” she managed to say.

Xerxes took a bite and blanched. Standing up, he threw the napkin back on the table. “I don’t know if the housekeeper was drunk in the kitchen, or if this is a joke, but I’m going to register a complaint—”

“No!” Rose grabbed his wrist, looking up at him pleadingly. “It’s not her fault. It’s mine!”

He looked down at her with a frown. “What?”

“I sent Mrs. Vadi home. I told her I’d make dinner and you wouldn’t know the difference.” Rose shook her head tearfully. “Don’t tell her manager she left. If they knew, they might fire her and it’s not her fault I botched dinner so badly!”

He slowly sat down, staring at her. “You sent her home? Why?”

“We got to talking and…her husband died recently and her little girl was sick at home alone. She needed help,” she said, “so I helped her.”

He gaped at her. “You—
got to talking
?” he said faintly. “I have employees who’ve worked for me for ten years and I don’t know anything about their personal lives.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I like it that way.” He blinked, still looking bewildered. “But why you would volunteer to do her work, when you could have just relaxed on the beach? It’s her job. Her responsibility. Not yours.”

Rose looked out into the growing shadows of night, listening to the roar of the ocean waves. “I had to help her be with her little girl,” she whispered, lifting her chin to meet his eyes. “Because all I want to do is talk to my own mother.”

Silence fell between them.

“I can’t risk it,” he said quietly. “If you talk to your mother, she might contact U.S. authorities. A kidnapped young bride is just the sort of sensational story that would be splashed all over the international news.”

“What if I gave you my word she wouldn’t tell?” she said desperately.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

She stared down at her plate. “Anyway, I had to let Mrs. Vadi go home and be with her family tonight. Because I can’t.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Don’t you have a family?”

He blinked. “Not the way you mean.”

“No siblings?”

“I was raised an only child.”

“Your mother?”

“Dead.”

“Your father?”

“No.”

“That’s dreadful,” Rose said softly, her heart breaking. Looking at his profile in the darkening twilight, she tightened her fingers over his. “I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, he didn’t move. Then he pulled his hand away. “Let me guess,” he said sardonically. “You lived in a big old house, your mother baked cookies when you came home from school and your father taught you how to ride your bike.”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Of course.” He looked away. “You had the fairy tale.”

She stared at him. The fairy tale?

Standing up abruptly, he reached for her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “This time, I’ll make dinner.”

The full moon had risen low over the horizon as they walked along the deserted beach to the honeymoon cottage. Pulling her into the modern kitchen, he turned on a light.

“I can help,” she offered weakly.

“Absolutely not.” He used the chopping knife in his hand to point at the kitchen table. “Sit there.”

As she watched, he swiftly made two large turkey sandwiches, served with slices of ripe mango. He set both plates down on the kitchen table and sat beside her.

He popped open a small bottle of Indian beer and handed it to her, then clinked his bottle against hers with a grin.
“Bon appétit.”

The sandwich and fruit were delicious. As she ate, Rose looked at him in the sleek, dimly lit kitchen. His words still echoed through her mind.

You had the fairy tale.

She’d once thought marrying a handsome baron in a castle was the amazing dream. The truth was that she’d had the fairy tale all along.

She’d had family and friends she loved. She had a small apartment of her own, with her childhood home just an hour away. She’d had enough money to pay her bills. So what if she’d had to hold down more than one job to make ends meet? So what if her car didn’t always work well, or she had to jump-start it half the time to get to her night classes? She’d had a happy childhood. She’d had a happy life.

She’d been lucky beyond words.

“You’re right,” she said over the lump in her throat. “With my family, I mean. I guess I did have the fairy tale.”

Finishing his sandwich, Xerxes took a sip of beer and looked at her. “You’ll have it again.” Moonlight from the window frosted his body, making him appear otherworldly, like a dark angel, as he leaned toward her. “A woman like you was born to have a happy life.”

Her breathing quickened as his gaze fell to her mouth. He was going to kiss her. She could feel it. He stroked her cheek, tilting her head up toward his, and she could barely hear the roar of the ocean over the rapid beat of her heart.

“I’ve never met a woman like you before,” he said softly, his black eyes searching hers as he stroked her bare forearm lightly with his fingertips. “You…amaze me.”

This honeymoon cottage, so remote in the middle of a wide, distant ocean, seemed like their own distant world. His handsome, rugged face, the powerful curve of his body as he leaned toward her, the light feeling of his touch against her skin, made her brain stop working. She trembled, licking her lips. Would she fall into his arms when he kissed her?
Would she fall into his bed?

He glanced down at her half-empty plate. “Are you finished?”

She stared up at him, unable to even say yes.

He smiled, then took her hand in his own. “Come.”

He led her from the kitchen to the large sitting room and sat her down gently on the couch. Going back to the kitchen, he returned with a tray. She watched as he dropped fresh raspberries into a crystal flute. Popping open a bottle of expensive champagne, he poured it over the raspberries then held out the flute to her, watching her with his inscrutable dark eyes.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“I’m making it up to you.”

“What?”

“I ruined your wedding night.” When she didn’t take the flute, he pressed it into her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. She could barely breathe as she looked up at him, feeling his large hand wrapped around her smaller one. He said in a low voice, “I am going to make it up to you tonight.”

“How?” she stammered.

He stepped back, his gaze still intensely upon her. She felt butterflies in her stomach and nervously drank the rest of the delicious raspberry-infused champagne. But the butterflies only increased. Xerxes silently refilled her champagne with a sensual promise in his dark gaze.

Then he left her, going into the adjacent white marble bathroom, with its bathtub built for two that overlooked the moonlit sea. He turned on the faucet, starting a hot, steamy bath, filling it with fragrant bubble bath.

“It’s ready,” he whispered, pulling her to her feet. She gripped his hand, feeling a little unsteady.

He pulled her into the elegant bathroom. Still holding her champagne flute, which had somehow been refilled again, she looked down at the enormous bathtub full of bubbles. Beyond it, an enormous open window overlooked the moonlit Indian Ocean. She felt the warm breeze off the lanai. Warm steam and the scent of exotic, spiced flowers filled the room.

She felt his touch move like silk against her waist as he opened the belts that held the two gauzy robes to her body. He dropped first one robe, then the other, to the marble floor.

Xerxes towered over Rose as he looked down at her, his eyes slowly tracing her body as she stood nearly naked in her pale pink bikini. He gave her a dark, sensual smile and a flash of heat raced over her body, causing a bead of sweat to break out between her breasts. What was his electricity that made her so weak, that left her shaking from the inside out?

The smile dropped from his sensual mouth.

“Take off your bikini,” he whispered.

Without thinking, she reached up for the tie behind her neck. Then she realized what she was doing. She dropped her hand.

“I can’t,” she stammered. “Not with you right here.”

“I’ll turn around.”

She had a sudden view of his broad-shouldered back in the form-fitting T-shirt as he turned around. She stared at his form, his slim hips in his jeans, the hard-muscled curve of his backside.

“Done?” he said without turning around.

With a jolt, she put her hands unsteadily to her head. Had she been
ogling
him? The bubbles of the champagne made her feel so strangely unlike herself.

But it wasn’t just the champagne. She looked back at the fragrant, steaming bubble bath. She knew she should leave this room at once. She should tell Xerxes she had no interest in champagne or warmth or bubbles. She should go back into the bedroom alone and close the door. That was the sensible thing to do.

But she suddenly didn’t want to be sensible.

She’d spent twenty-nine years waiting for her prince to come, saving herself for a man she could love forever. But what if he wasn’t coming? What if, as Xerxes had said, her knight in shining armor did not even exist? What if she’d wasted all her youth yearning for a romantic dream that would never happen?

She was tired of being the girl who was always alone. Always waiting, as locked away from pleasure as any sleeping princess in a glass coffin.

Rose took a haggard breath. If she could not have the romantic dream everyone else in her family had, she would take what joy she could in the life that was left to her. She would take risks. She would be bold.

Slowly, Rose untied her bikini top and dropped it to the floor. She untied the bottom and kicked it away. Climbing naked into the bathtub, she sank beneath the fragrant white bubbles. Closing her eyes, holding her breath, she slid all the way down beneath the water.

When she rose up from the bath a moment later, her hair soaking wet, she felt reborn.

She heard a choked gasp behind her.

Xerxes was now standing by the bathtub, staring down at her. Following his eyes, she saw rivulets of water running between her breasts, saw her nipples flushed deep pink. They pebbled beneath his gaze.

With a gasp, she sank into the water, covering her body with thick white bubbles.

“You said you would turn around!” she said.

He gave a low laugh. “I never said I wouldn’t turn back.” He sat on the edge of the large tub and looked down at her. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, running his hand along her naked shoulder, visible above the bubbles. “The most magnificent woman I’ve ever seen.”

She blushed. “You’re just tipsy on champagne.”

“I haven’t had any champagne.”

She blinked, glancing at the nearly empty bottle next to the bathtub. Who’d drunk all that, then? By the way her body felt pleasantly separated from her brain, the answer was appallingly clear. She shook her head. “You…are you trying to…”