The Virgin's Choice

“I have something urgent to do. I will return later.” He stroked her cheek. “I’ve arranged for the housekeeper to serve dinner on the beach.”

Squeezing her hand, he left. Rose stared after him in shock.

After he left, she walked along the beach and explored the lush grounds behind the cottage. It was strange to be so alone in this beautiful place. Crossing through a tropical garden, she stopped as her jaw dropped when she saw two large weeping rose trees.

Pink fairy roses. Xerxes’s favorite flower. Growing wild on this island in the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from Greece.

Resolutely, she turned and walked away. Then, after five steps, she stopped. Whirling, she went back to the nearest rose tree. Careful not to pierce her fingertips with thorns, she picked one of the tiny pink blooms. Returning to the cottage, she carefully put it in water in a tiny bud vase she found in the stocked modern kitchen.

Hours of sunshine later, she finally put aside the novel she was reading on the lanai in the deepening afternoon. She’d been alone all day long at a luxury beach house. She’d had a lovely lunch served to her by the housekeeper. Reading a fabulous novel and watching the sunlight sparkle across the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, kidnapped or not, she should have been having a decent time.

But she wasn’t. She was missing something. Or someone.

The thought brought her up short. She couldn’t miss Xerxes’s company. Ridiculous. He was her captor! If she occasionally found him amusing or entrancing she was merely making the best of a bad situation, that was all.

But they’d spent the long flight here talking. He’d sat right beside her, plying her with Greek dishes, asking her interested, sympathetic questions about her family and home.

She’d answered in monosyllables at first, giving him one tart reply after another. But instead of being offended, he’d seemed to enjoy the repartee. And his undivided attention had been strangely…pleasurable.

She’d felt his arm along the back of the white leather sofa behind her, so close to her body, and she’d trembled. Every time he looked at her, the intensity and heat of his dark gaze turned her inside out.

Rose didn’t want to think about it now. Or why she’d not only noticed his favorite flower in a lush garden, but she’d also picked a rose for him and placed it in water.

Looking up from her book, she noticed the dark-haired, plump young housekeeper struggling to carry a table across the beach to a spot overlooking the surf. Relieved to leave the lanai and lounge chair and all her disconcerting thoughts behind her, Rose got to her feet and hurried down to the beach. “Wait! Can I help?”

The housekeeper, who looked only a few years older than Rose, shook her head, even though she looked as if she were fighting back tears.

“Really?” Rose bit her lip. “Please, Mrs. Vadi, won’t you let me help?”

“No,” the woman said, then burst into tears. Within minutes, Rose had learned the woman was grieving for her husband, who’d died six months before, and that she was worried about her feverish eight-year-old daughter, whom she’d had to leave at home alone.

“But I can’t lose this job, miss,” the woman gasped, wiping her eyes fiercely. “If I do, I won’t be able to keep a roof over my child’s head.”

“Go home!” Rose said, sympathetic tears welling in her own eyes.

“I can’t.”

“Mr. Novros will never know you’re gone.” When the woman still hesitated, Rose grabbed her sleeve. “Please, it’s such a small thing,” she whispered. “I’m so far away from my own family. Let me at least help yours.”

The housekeeper wept and embraced her, then gave her detailed instructions about how to make the dinner, instructions Rose found herself unable to remember when she faced the stainless-steel kitchen alone half an hour later. After several inedible attempts, she gave up and prepared her own favorite dinner instead. As the rice noodles bubbled, Rose went outside and finished setting up the table by the beach.

She cast an anxious look at the sun lowering in the west in streaks of red and orange. Expecting Xerxes to return any moment, she hurried to the cottage, where she showered and brushed her hair. What to wear? Beachwear was all she had, thanks to him. Scowling, she went back to the wardrobe. She briefly considered wearing one of Xerxes’s T-shirts or khaki shorts, but the thought of wearing his clothing was too intimate. That would be the action of a lover, which—she told herself firmly—she would never be.

Ultimately, she wore two gauzy beach cover-ups layered over a pale pink bikini. She surveyed her modest look with satisfaction. The two robes together blocked her body from view. She smiled at herself in the mirror, anticipating his reaction. That would teach him!

Carrying out the dinner tray, she impulsively grabbed the pink rose she’d picked in the garden, still in a bud vase, and placed it in the center of the table. Then she sat down and waited, staring across the white sand beach toward the red and purple sunset streaking the sparkling sapphire ocean.

She jerked awake as she felt Xerxes shaking her shoulder. With a start, Rose realized she’d fallen asleep with her head cradled in her arms on the table.

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?”