The Snow Bride

He dimly remembered seeing polished floors and an immaculate kitchen. He hadn’t really noticed. He never really saw the work of servants or employees, he just took the results of their labor for granted. He slowly looked at her.

“This is your idea of a vacation?” He brushed a tendril from her face. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Rose. The way you care so much for other people. The way you try so hard to make everyone else’s life better. You never think of yourself. We’re so different. So very different.”

He heard her intake of breath. She tilted her head, looking up at him. “We’re not.”

Immediate defiance, typical of her. It almost made him choke a laugh. But he couldn’t. How could she believe he had anything good in his soul?

Because she is a fool. Something he would prove to her when he seduced her, luring her into his bed for the express purpose of his own selfish pleasure, coupled with the satisfaction of causing his enemy pain. And then he would trade her.

She reached her hand up toward his rough cheek. “You are a good man. I know you are.” Her eyes were luminous as she whispered, “Why do you do it, Xerxes? Why do you pretend to have no heart?”

Her gentle touch burned him. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear it. He jerked his head away from her hand.

She stared at him in surprise. He was equally surprised. This was the same strange reaction his body had had last night.

You deserve better than a man like me.

Xerxes Novros, who’d fought tycoons, ruthless despots and corrupt businessmen, had been rendered powerless by this beautiful, gentle-hearted woman.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, backing away. “I need to—need to…take a shower.” He glanced down again at the table, at all the effort she’d clearly put into breakfast. She must have been up before dawn to arrange the flowers and cut the fruit; doing everything herself so that the housekeeper could be home with her sick child and working hard so that he, Xerxes, would not be disappointed or angry. “I’ll be back,” he choked out.

Fleeing to the bathroom, he took a very hot shower, but it did not help him relax. So he turned the temperature to freezing cold. But even an arctic blast of cold water couldn’t stop this fire inside him. This fire for her.

She was the first, the only, pure-hearted woman he’d ever known. Who would give up their own sleep, to work for free in place of a stranger who claimed to have a sick child?

Xerxes would not have done it. He didn’t know anyone who would. He would have either assumed the woman was lying about the child—working some angle—or else he would have not wanted to get involved. Not my problem, he would have said.

And yet Rose had immediately said, Yes, I want to help. Sick child? I’ll do all your work. Go home to your daughter!

Xerxes leaned his head against the cool marble of the shower, then turned off the water. He got dressed in khaki shorts and a snug black T-shirt.

He threw a tortured glance toward the lanai where she waited. Yes, he was hungry. But not for food.

He took a deep breath. Could he ruthlessly seduce a woman like this—a woman with such a kind soul that she believed the best of everyone, even him?

She’s not some innocent virgin, his lust argued. He would make sure she thoroughly enjoyed their affair. She would have nothing to regret.

And yet he knew she would. A woman like Rose didn’t take lovers easily. She couldn’t have done. She wasn’t jaded enough. If he took her to bed, she wouldn’t just give him her body; she might give him her heart.

But he wanted her. She would be with him for days, maybe longer. How would he keep himself from taking her? He didn’t have any practice at resisting desire. This was the first time he’d ever tried not to seduce a woman. And he’d never felt a longing as powerful as this. Need for her gripped him, body and soul.

Squaring his shoulders, he went back out on the lanai. Still waiting, Rose looked up at him, looking so innocent and fresh and pretty that a tremble went through him at the thought of defiling her.

“You must be starving.” Smiling, she indicated a chair. “Coffee or tea?”

He fell heavily into his chair. “Coffee.”

“Cream or…?”

“Black,” he bit out.

Sitting in the chair beside him, poised as a Victorian lady, she gracefully poured coffee into his china cup. He grabbed it from her with a meaty fist and gulped down the hot black liquid, burning his tongue.

The pain was a welcome distraction. He knew how to deal with pain. What he did not comprehend was how to deal with his desire for her.

Rose stared at him in consternation, then cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

She licked her lips, and he could not look away from the vision of her moist pink tongue sliding over her full lower lip, darting to the corners of her mouth. “For chasing you out of your bed last night.”

Yes, she was to blame. But not in the way she thought. He raked his hand through his wet black hair, then shoved his coffee cup toward her on the table.

“More,” he growled. Then at her expression, he amended, “If you please.”

She poured steaming coffee from the silver coffeepot, looking impossibly lovely and old-fashioned. She was the kind of woman, Xerxes thought, that any man would want to come home to. She was the kind of woman who made a home.

Christ, what was he thinking? First he’d had images of her pregnant, now he was having ideas of coming home to her? He took another burning gulp of steaming hot coffee.

He was meant to be alone. He clenched his fingers over the china cup. He always had been and always would be. Hadn’t he learned that by now?

“Would you care for jam on your toast?” she asked him, holding out a tray with a smile.

“I want it plain.” Taking the closest piece, he shoved it into his mouth. He barely tasted it as he ripped through it with his teeth and gulped it down, wolflike.

An awkward silence fell between them. The only sound was the caw of seagulls and the pounding surf.

“So.” She took a deep breath. “Have you heard from Lars?”

“No,” he bit out. It reminded him that now he would have to trade Rose to the bastard as planned, because he hadn’t found Laetitia on his own. Once again, he’d been too late to reach her. Too late and too slow. And so he’d have to trade.

At the thought of giving Rose to any other man, Xerxes was so enraged he wanted to punch a wall. Instead, he shoved another piece of toast into his mouth.

“You must be starving,” she murmured, trying not to stare.

Xerxes wiped his mouth with his hand, staring back at her. At the pulse of her swanlike neck. At the shape of her breasts beneath the thin eyelet lace cover-up. At the curve of her slender waist. From this close space, he could smell the scent of her, like flowers and sunshine. Her hair was long and golden and wavy. Natural. As if she’d just come from making love.

As if, instead of taking a shower, he’d cleared the breakfast table with a rough swing of his arm. As if he’d ripped off her clothes and thrown her against the bare table, kissing her neck as he thrust himself inside her.

He had to resist. For once in his life, he had to do the right thing for someone else. He couldn’t seduce a woman like Rose, knowing that it would ultimately hurt her—knowing he’d still be forced to trade her back to Växborg like a used toy.

He had to resist. But still, even knowing this, his body shuddered with the effort it took not to seize her and take her like an animal, right there on the table. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to put down the remaining bits of toast he hadn’t devoured. Forcing himself to pretend, for just an instant, that he was a civilized man.

“Växborg is in Las Vegas. He will contact me as soon as the divorce is final,” he ground out. “I expect within days.”

She blinked. “A divorce can go through so fast? Even in Las Vegas?”

“An uncontested divorce in Las Vegas usually takes about two weeks. I’m using my influence to make it go more smoothly.”

“How?”

“My people are persuading every office to make this case a priority and move it to the top of the pile. It’s not difficult.”

“Of course it’s not—for you.” Looking away, she took a small sip of her creamy coffee, holding the delicate cup with light grace. “You must be desperate to see her.”

Desperate was the right word, but he did not wish to be reminded of his latest failure. “And you?” he said bitterly. “Are you desperate to be back in Växborg’s arms?”

She whirled back toward him, her blue-green eyes widening in shock. “You know I am not!”

He knew that, but Rose believed the best of people. Could she, in time, grow to forgive the baron as well? The thought made him cruel.

“You should know,” he said brutally, “that you were not the first woman he took as his lover since his marriage.”

She licked her lips. “I wasn’t?”

“He’s had five or six.”

She set her coffee cup down on the table with a trembling hand. “You must think I’m the biggest idiot in the world,” she whispered, blinking fast. “Believing Lars would actually marry anybody like me.”

Staring at her, Xerxes abruptly grabbed both of her hands in his own. The sizzle of her soft touch, of her fingers against his rough palm, was torture. Ignoring the pain of his own longing, he looked into her beautiful face.

“Anybody? You weren’t just anybody. You were the special one.” His fingers tightened over hers as he whispered, “You were the only one he wanted to keep.”

As if his touch burned her, she ripped her hands from his grasp, looking away.

“I still don’t understand what he was doing in San Francisco when we met. He told me that he’d been looking for business opportunities—” she gave a small laugh “—but I’ve never seen him work.”

Xerxes set his jaw, fighting the fury that threatened to choke him at the memory. “There’s a medical clinic an hour east of San Francisco, the best brain trauma hospital in the world. At first I thought he’d taken Laetitia there. Instead, he dumped her at an old cabin in the mountains before he went to San Francisco to try to put her family’s mansion up for sale.”

Rose blinked. “A cabin?”

“It’s old and desolate. No electricity. No running water.” Grimly, he looked away. “When I arrived, I found dying embers in the fireplace, a new blanket on the floor, an open bag of potato chips in the kitchen. But Laetitia was gone. Since then, I’ve chased rumors of her around the world, looking in one desolate clinic after another, trying to find her before Lars finally gets his wish and she dies.”

“I still can’t believe he would be so cruel.”

“You can’t?” He gave a hard, ugly laugh. “Love brings out the worst kind of self-deception.”

Rose’s turquoise eyes looked close to tears as she sucked in her breath. “You can’t still think I love him!”

He shrugged.

“What happened to you?” she said softly. “What made you so hard and cynical?”

“I just know that when people think they’re in love—” he couldn’t keep the sneer out of his voice “—they’re usually lying. Either to others, or to themselves.”

She blinked at him. “And yet you say you love her.”

Clenching his jaw, Xerxes looked away. “I won’t abandon her. I won’t leave her to die alone and be forgotten. I can’t. I won’t.”

He could see the questions in her eyes. Her body leaned toward him. But he wouldn’t allow her to get any closer. His need for her already made him too vulnerable. He could not imagine what would happen if he wanted more than just her body. If he started wanting part of her heart. If he someday wanted to actually be the good man she thought he was.

Clenching his jaw, he looked down at her.

“Laetitia was barely eighteen when Växborg married her in Las Vegas. They must have argued because she was driving back alone. My guess is that she’d already decided to leave him. Then she crashed in the desert.” His hands tightened. “For a year, I’ve tried to find her. But I feel like I’m running out of time.”

His voice choked. He looked away.

Suddenly, he felt Rose’s soft arms around him. She’d risen from her chair and now knelt before him, pulling him into her embrace without a word.

For a moment, he breathed in the scent of flowers and sunshine. He felt comforted. He felt safe, even protected. But that was ridiculous. He’d never been protected by anyone. So how could he feel so safe in the arms of this woman who was a foot shorter and half his body weight, who had no money in her bank account and no power of her own?

Except that was a lie. Rose had incredible power, a strength he’d never seen before. She made him betray himself from within. She tempted him beyond measure. Not just with her body or beauty or strength.

She made him feel…like he was home.

With an intake of breath, he closed his eyes.

“You once said everything and everyone could be bought,” she said.

His eyes flew open. “Yes.”

“So why not just pay Lars off, allow him to keep Laetitia’s fortune?”

“Reward him for what he’s done to her?” he demanded fiercely. “Allow him to profit for nearly killing her?”

Her eyes met his. “It would be the easiest thing to do.”

“I do not care about easiest. I care about right. He will not receive a single euro from me. Ever,” he bit out.

“Just as I thought,” she said with a tremulous smile. “A man of principle. But there’s one small problem.”

“And that is?”

She took a deep breath. “What if Lars changes his mind about giving up everything for me?”

Xerxes reached out to stroke her cheek. “He won’t. A man would do anything to possess a woman like you,” he whispered. “He would betray his own soul.”

She held her breath.

He started to lean toward her. Then he stopped himself, clenching his hands to his fists.

Abruptly, he rose to his feet. “I should go.”

She grabbed his arm.

“Stay,” she said, looking up at him.

“If I stay,” he said in a low voice, “I will kiss you.”

“I know.”

He looked down at her harshly. “Do you know what you’re asking me?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him, her turquoise eyes full of light as she whispered, “I want you to kiss me.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ROSE heard his harsh intake of breath. It was all she could do to not to release his arm. Heat suffused her cheeks at her bold words.

But she’d said it. She’d actually said the thought that had been pounding in her heart all night as she lay alone in the large bed. The question that had built inside her all morning as she made breakfast.

She’d realized Xerxes would never go back on his word not to kiss her. If she wanted him, she would have to beg.

He turned to her now, cradling her face in his strong hands as he looked down at her with such hot intensity that she felt lost in it.

“If I kiss you,” he ground out, “it won’t stop at a kiss.”

Wouldn’t it? She hadn’t thought that far ahead. All she knew was that if he didn’t kiss her soon, she thought she would die.

This is madness, Rose’s mind was frantically trying to tell her. But her body had long stopped listening to her brain.

“It will destroy your relationship with Växborg for-ever,” he said quietly.

Her eyes widened as she demanded, “Do you honestly think I care about that?”

“I hope not. I hope it like hell,” Xerxes said roughly. Stroking her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs, he searched her gaze with his own. “But…I want you to understand. There would be no going back.”

She could see the hunger in his dark eyes, hear the ragged edge of his voice. She could feel how much he wanted her with each stroke of his trembling fingertips against her skin. Shivers of longing curled down her body, to her earlobes, down her throat, to her breasts and other sensitive places deep inside her.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

Closing her eyes, she waited, her lips parted. A warm wind blew against her skin over her thin white cover-up.

She knew an affair between them could not last. But if she never found a man she could truly love, she didn’t want to die without knowing a single instant of pleasure.

She didn’t need forever. She just needed today.

Or at least that was what she told herself with Xerxes so close to her that she could breathe his breath, that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers.

She felt his thumb lightly trace her sensitized lower lip.

“The pain of his betrayal is still fresh in your heart,” he said in a low voice. “You want to take revenge.”

Right now, Lars was the furthest thing from her mind. But opening her eyes, she saw his watchful, searching gaze. “Wouldn’t you want revenge if someone betrayed you?”

“Yes,” he said instantly. Then he shook his head. “But you’re different. You care about people. You have a good heart. Committing an act of revenge would hurt you. And…I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. You can’t. I will never go back to him.”

“You think that now,” he said softly, stroking her cheek as he looked down at her with longing. “Christ, I cannot believe I am trying to talk you out of this, but…you cannot have had many lovers. Forgive me, but you are not jaded enough. You would not have sex, like I do. When you go to bed with someone,” he said lightly, “I fear you make love with all your heart.”

She choked out a laugh. “I have no idea. It’s all still hypothetical.”

Xerxes went very still. “What?”

This was humiliating. Her cheeks went red-hot, but he had to know. “You’re going to laugh.”

He did not look as if he were at all tempted to laugh. His black eyes were wide. The lanai was utterly silent except for the sound of the seagulls flying over the beach. “What do you mean, you have no idea?”

“It will sound stupid to a man like you.”

Uncertainty filled his dark eyes as he frowned, tilting his head. “But Rose. You can’t possibly mean…”

His voice trailed off. She took a deep breath and forced herself to speak the words out loud.

“I’m a virgin.”

He stared at her.

“But you can’t be,” he whispered. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“And it’s even worse than that.” She took a deep breath. “You’re the first man who’s ever really kissed me.”

With a gasp, he grabbed her by the shoulders, searching her eyes. His handsome face was a picture of shock. “No.”

“That’s why Lars threw me a fake wedding,” she choked out. “Because I wouldn’t kiss him. I barely let him peck my cheek at our wedding ceremony. He knew I was saving myself for my wedding night.”

“And now?” he demanded, his hands gripping her shoulders painfully.

She lifted her chin. “Now I want you to kiss me.”

For a moment, he stared at her. Then he exhaled with a flare of nostril. “Do not offer yourself to me out of revenge,” he ground out. “Do not!”

“I’m not!”

Xerxes looked down at her. “You told me you want a love that lasts forever. And it wouldn’t be forever with me. I am not the sort of man you bring home, settle down with, the man who’ll marry you!”

“I don’t care.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Don’t you understand?” he said harshly. “I will still trade you.”

“I know.”

“So what the hell are you thinking?”

She took a deep breath.

“I’m tired of waiting,” she whispered, “for a husband I can’t find. A man who might not even exist. I want to know what it feels like to live. Here. Now.” She faltered. “Unless…unless you don’t want me after all.”

Raking back his dark hair, he cursed under his breath.

“You said you love Laetitia,” she continued in a small voice. “Loving her, you might be too honorable to ever let a flirtation get out of hand by betraying her—”

He grabbed her.

“I am not honorable,” he bit out. “And you’ve got it all wrong. Laetitia is not my lover and she never was.”

She sucked in her breath. “She’s not?”

When he spoke, every word was weighed and grudging, pulled from him like blood from a stone. “My feelings…for Laetitia are more…familial…in nature.”

“Familial?” She sucked in her breath. “Like how?” He didn’t answer.

“Is she your cousin? Your niece?” She bit her lip. “Surely she’s not young enough to be your…your daughter?”

Clenching his jaw, he looked away.

“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

“No,” he bit out.

“Because you promised her you wouldn’t?”

He gave a single unsteady nod.

Familial. So she wasn’t his mistress. She wasn’t his lover. Laetitia was a member of his family, or at least that was how he felt toward her.

Rose’s heart suddenly lightened. She took a deep breath. She looked up at him.

“You also promised,” she said softly, reaching up to stroke his face, “that you would kiss me if I begged you.”

Looking down at her, he sucked in his breath.

“I’m begging you.” She let her hand slowly trail down his bare throat, placing her palm against his shirt, over the rapid beat of his heart. “Kiss me. Kiss me now.”

She heard him gasp, then he grabbed her hands in his own. “All right,” he rasped. His voice was raw. “All right.”

“All right?”

“God help me—” He crushed his mouth against hers, hard and hungry. Cradling the back of her head, he shoved her against the wall, kissing her so deeply that she nearly gasped from the exquisite, anguished pleasure. She felt his hardness against her, felt his body so much stronger and more powerful than her own. But she was no longer afraid. She kissed him back, her hands gripping his hair as she gasped for breath, tilting back her throat.

He kissed down her neck, his hands moving over her thin cover-up, murmuring words of desire that she could not hear clearly, but she still heard them ringing through her body. Cupping her breasts with his hands, he bit the edge of her throat and shoulder, causing sparks of fire to spread down her body, making her shiver and shake.

With a ragged gasp, he pulled away, abruptly meeting her gaze. “You’re cold.”

Without waiting for a reply, he lifted her up against his chest, carrying her from the shadows of the cool lanai out into the sun. She blinked at the intensity of the blinding light glaring off the white sand. He set her down on the warm sand of the beach, lying down beside her.

She looked up at him, dazed with emotion and sensuality. His face was in shadow, his dark head haloed by the sun, bathed in golden light.

Lowering his head, he kissed her, covering her with his body. As he ran his hands over her thin cover-up and the bare skin of her arms, she felt the weight of his body over hers and was suddenly flushed with heat.

Leaning back on his haunches, he lifted his muscular arms and pulled off his black T-shirt. Dropping it to the sand, he reached for the belt of her cover-up.

She put her hand over his. “No,” she gasped. “We can’t. Not out here.”

“Here,” he said.

“But—”

“This place is ours.”

He kissed her, and his lips were so persuasive, moving against hers with aching sweetness as his tongue flicked against the corners of her lips, she could deny him nothing. She meekly submitted to his demand, barely noticing as he undid the belt of her thin cotton cover-up and pulled it off her body.

His hands moved over her bikini, beneath the tiny squares of fabric, cupping her breasts, rolling her aching nipples between his fingers. Locking his eyes with hers, he reached for the strings of her bikini and pulled them open.

She realized she was naked before him, lying on the sand. The heat of his gaze was too intense, and as he reached for his own shorts she squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the hot sun against her naked body, the sprinkle of cool mist from the pounding surf.