“What?”
“Your dress. Take it off.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The wedding dress is an insult. To her. To me. Take it off. You are not a bride.”
“I was—am!”
“Take off that dress,” he growled. “Or I will take it off for you.”
“I have nothing else to wear!”
He gave her a cold smile. “That is not my problem.”
She rose to her feet in fury, lifting her chin. “I have the right to wear this. I am a bride, a married woman. You’re a liar!”
He swiftly rose to his feet, like a predator. “Call me that again, princess,” he said dangerously.
“Baroness,” she corrected fiercely. She tossed her hair, glaring up at him with all the fury of her five feet, four inches. Her eyes glittered as she met him toe to toe. “And you, Xerxes Novros, are a liar!”
Chapter Four
“YOU’RE a liar!”
Young and dark-haired, Laetitia Van Reyn had gripped the gilded arms of her chair as she stared at Xerxes in her family’s mansion with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d remained home from boarding school after her father’s death to support her fragile mother, who had collapsed at his funeral. “No!” Laetitia had jumped to her feet at Xerxes’s news. Her hands flew to her ears as she backed away. “You’re a liar! Get out of my house! Never come back!”
Xerxes blinked. Liar. Same accusation. Very different woman.
He stared now at the young blonde who stood before him in the cabin of his private jet. Rose Linden was magnificent. A little too thin, perhaps, but it was hard to notice that when her full breasts swelled up against the bodice with every angry breath. Her waist was tiny, the perfect span for a man’s hands. Her honey-blond hair fell back in waves as she tossed her head, her chignon now completely collapsed, exposing her swanlike throat. Her aquamarine eyes glittered at him in fury.
“You are a liar,” Rose cried. “I don’t believe a word you say!”
A liar. To Xerxes, the integrity of a man’s promise equaled his worth as a man. It was the one accusation he could not endure. In cold rage, he gripped her shoulders.
“I’m selfish,” he ground out. “Ruthless. Even cruel. But not a liar. Never that.”
His gaze fell to her mouth, where she was chewing on her lower lip. He saw her lick her lips with her wet pink tongue, and his body tightened.
He wanted her. And in this moment, the layers of her wedding dress were all that separated them.
The wedding dress.
She was continuing to defiantly wear it, as a visual, physical insult both to Xerxes and to Växborg’s real wife. As if Laetitia were already forgotten. As if she were already dead!
Xerxes’s hands slowly moved down her arms, against the see-through lace of her sleeves. His lips turned down grimly.
“I told you to take that dress off.”
He felt her shiver, even as she stuck out her chin and glared at him with her beautiful turquoise eyes.
“No.”
“Then I will take it off for you.”
Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare to—”
With a rough motion, he ripped apart the shoulders of her wedding dress, tearing through the layers of white lace and popping the line of tiny white buttons off the back. He yanked the sleeves down her arms with such force that she staggered forward, nearly falling to her knees.