Her arms started to reach out to comfort him before she caught herself. Why would her body reach to comfort him? She always worried about other people’s feelings but she was way off here, being concerned about him. Xerxes Novros was powerful and rich. He could get any woman he wanted—and probably did. So why would Rose possibly think she could comfort him? Or even that he needed comfort?
Faith is a lie that fools tell themselves in the night. It was the most heartbreaking thing she’d ever heard.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said slowly. She shook her head. “But a life without faith, without being brave enough to risk loving someone and be loved in return, is no life at all.”
His jaw tightened. “I measure success differently. On how I keep my word.”
It was almost unbearable now for Rose to keep still, to resist the urge to wrap her arms around him and ask what had left such a deep scar on his heart. Rose had to force her arms to remain at her sides, her hands tightening into fists with the effort it took not to reach her arms around him.
“But such honor is meaningless without love,” she said in a low voice. “And you must know that already. It’s why you’re desperate to save Laetitia. Because you love her.”
Slowly, he turned toward her. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not?”
He didn’t answer. She took a deep breath and changed the subject. “But what if your plan doesn’t work?” she said in a small voice. “What if Lars won’t trade her for me after all?”
“It has to work.” He blinked, his eyes briefly bleak. “It must.”
Rose’s heart felt anguished in sympathy for the dark, powerful man before her, who looked so haunted and alone. But just as she could bear it no longer and started to reach for him, Xerxes’s eyes widened to stare at a point behind her ear. He called out in Greek, and she whirled around to see a bodyguard approaching them rapidly, hurrying up the hillside. The hulking man spoke into Xerxes’s ear.
Xerxes’s eyes went wide. He inhaled a deep breath that expanded his chest, then turned to her. “Time to go.”
“Go?” she stammered. “Where?”
“Right now.”
“Why?” she said, bewildered.
Xerxes seems strangely back to his old self as he grinned. “I have a new desire to see a tropical beach.”
She looked out in shock and pointed towards the sea. “What do you call that?”
“Rainy and cold.”
“It’s warm!”
“But not hot.” He put his hand on her shoulder and looked down into her eyes with a deep, smoldering heat. “And I want to see you in a bikini.”
“Where?”
But Xerxes just turned and headed for the villa with the bodyguard. She stared at him in shock. What had changed his mood?
Rose stomped her foot in confusion, then yelled after him, far too late, “Wherever we’re going, if you think I’m going to wear a bikini for you, you’re crazy!”
By late afternoon, they had arrived via private jet to an island in the crystal blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Above a white, sandy beach, palm
trees swayed in the hot breeze.
“Where are we?” Rose stammered, yawning from her nap as they climbed out of the SUV.
“The Maldives,” he said simply. She turned to stare at him in shock.
“How many islands do you own anyway?” she said faintly.
He gave a hearty laugh. “I don’t own this one. We’re at a resort owned by a friend of mine, Nikos Stavrakis. He’s assigned a full-time housekeeper to this cottage exclusively for our stay. The bodyguards will be at the gatehouse a mile down the road.”
Taking her hand, Xerxes escorted her into a small yellow cottage on a private, secluded beach. Inside the main living area, a fan moved the air from the high wooden ceiling. Through the wall of windows, she saw a private pool and veranda beside the white beach and azure waters, beneath swaying palm trees.