But she’d been waiting a week for him, winding herself up with imagining what would happen when he arrived, and getting herself into quite a state. She was angry she hadn’t been told exactly what these first two weeks would entail—he’d said it would be so they could get to know one another, but what did that mean?—and then even more angry to find that when she’d arrived, he wasn’t here. That he’d been delayed a whole week, leaving her to stew about what would happen when he finally arrived.
She knew she should stay in control of her emotions, that there was a reason she should keep them locked away, but three months of freedom had allowed her more emotional expression than she’d ever had in her life, and she liked it.
Oh, she’d tried to enjoy herself too—she’d never been to Thailand and his villa on a secluded island was more luxury than she’d ever seen—but anger felt good, it felt powerful, and so she indulged it.
That night in the helicopter, he’d told her she owed him nothing, yet she knew she’d never truly be free unless she got rid of all ties, all obligations, and so she’d insisted he marry her. He’d agreed. It had seemed like an excellent plan at the time, but now she’d had time to process what had happened and, quite frankly, she was having second thoughts.
It had seemed so clear that night. He’d given her what she wanted and so she’d give him what he wanted. That was how the world had worked in the compound, and now that she was out, it seemed that was how it worked everywhere else too. Things were bought and sold, sometimes for money, sometimes for favours, sometimes for services, but nothing came for free.
The first month she’d decided that out of necessity she’d use some of the funds her powerful husband had set aside for her, but in the future, it was better not to rely on him. So, she’d found a job and an apartment, and even though she didn’t earn much, she made sure she lived within her means and had some left over for savings.
She was enjoying being self-sufficient and wasn’t in any hurry to live with him, be a wife to him like she’d seen in the movies or TV. Where wives seemed to worry over the wellbeing of their husbands, have difficulties with children, argue about money and get annoyed about sex.
That didn’t look like freedom to her.
However, shehadpromised she’d come to him for two weeks of every season and she would. Except he hadn’t been clear what ‘getting to know each other’ actually meant. She’d assumed it was just another way of saying he expected sex. That was usually what men wanted, no matter what they said.
She was fine with sex. She’d prepared herself for it.
Yet now, here he was, telling her that no, he didn’t expect that and in fact what he wanted was dinner.Dinner.
It didn’t help that he’d startled her awake, his rasping voice somehow insinuating itself in a dream she was having about lying naked on the sun lounger with someone stroking her bare back very lightly, making her shiver and not with fear.
She’d been enjoying it, until he’d said her name and she’d woken up with a start to find him standing next to her, staring down at her.
That silver-green gaze of his was just as haunting as it had been three months earlier, those deep scars just as horrifying. The proud, stark planes and angles of his face just as mesmerising.
He wore a crisp white business shirt, and dark blue suit trousers, and standing there with his hands in his pockets, his broad, powerful figure looming over her, the force of his presence had been like a hammer blow.
He’d looked at her in the way a man looks at a woman he wants, and she knew that because men had looked at her that way before. She’d always hated it. It made her frightened and then angry, because if they’d wanted to do anything about it, she couldn’t stop them.
But now, even though she could stop him, it was worse. Because when he looked at her, she didn’t feel frightened. She felt...prickly. Shivery. As if she liked him looking at her, which couldn’t be right.
She didn’t like it. She didn’t. And shedidhave more important things to do. Such as continuing the search for who she was. For anything that could give her a clue about her real identity. She hadn’t found anything yet, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to find. She hadn’t given up wanting to escape the compound and she had, and she wouldn’t give this up either.
Ares raised one black brow again, infuriatingly calm. ‘What important things do you have to do, little maid?’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a maid any more.’
His other brow rose. ‘True. But Rose isn’t your name either, is it?’
She wasn’t surprised he knew about her origins—or rather, her lack of them. She’d done her research on him as soon as she could. Ares Aristiades, owner of Hercules Security, a worldwide security company that provided military services to governments the world over. There wasn’t much about him on the internet, not that she was surprised about that either. He was a man who stayed out of the spotlight, which she could understand given his business and the secrecy that it no doubt entailed.
What other information she’d managed to find was sparse. He’d been born to a hardscrabble life in the mountains of Greece as a shepherd before going into the French Foreign Legion and carving a military career for himself that many would be proud of. Then he’d built himself a billion-dollar company by being one of the best military tacticians on the planet.
A mysterious man with a questionable company and who knew Vasiliev.
She didn’t like what that said about him, despite the fact that he’d rescued her. She didn’t want to be a wife to a man who condoned the buying and selling of people like herself, or associated with those who did the buying and selling.
No, she didn’t like that, and she didn’t like him.
Now, she glared angrily at him. ‘My name could be Rose. You don’t know.’
‘It’s unlikely.’
‘It doesn’t matter how unlikely it is, it still could be.’ She sniffed. ‘Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I have decided my name is Rose so that’s what it is.’
He regarded her for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. ‘You are not the same woman you were three months ago, are you?’