He said nothing, and when she glanced up at him, she met his gaze looking back. Something she couldn’t name glinted in his eyes. ‘You don’t have to be afraid, Rose. I told you it would be all right and it will be.’
‘I know. I just...don’t want to think about that right now. We only have a week left and I’d rather spend it doing this.’ And she lifted her hips for emphasis.
His mouth curved in one of his rare, precious warm smiles that made her heart flutter behind her ribs. ‘In that case, it can wait. I am all yours.’
And for the whole of the next week, that’s exactly what he was.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Winter
ARESSTOODONthe frozen lake that served as a helipad for the lakefront lodge in Iceland that he liked to retreat to during winter and watched as the helicopter bringing Rose from the airport touched down.
It was a still, clear night, the stars glittering in the black sky above like hard chips of diamond, the temperature well below freezing. Behind him was the lodge, all lit up and warmly welcoming so she wouldn’t have to bear the freezing temperatures for too long. He’d hurry her inside, let her get settled and then he’d tell her what he’d found.
Her identity.
His staff had only brought him actual confirmation right before his jet had left the States where he’d been completing some business, so he hadn’t had long to contemplate it. But it was good news and he wanted to be the one to bring it to her.
Since leaving the Cotswolds he’d put an entire department of his best people onto finding out Rose’s identity. They didn’t have much to go on—her general age and the possibility that she was Greek—but it was enough to start a search and he did have a lot of resources at his disposal.
His team had trawled police reports and found evidence of many missing girls in Greece around the time that Rose could potentially have been abducted, and one by one they’d dismissed them, apart from a couple.
Yet Ares knew there was only one possibility from that list: Ismena Xenakis, abducted as a child from the streets of Athens twenty years earlier.
The report had been filed by her older brother, Castor Xenakis, but nothing had ever been investigated.
Ares knew of a Castor Xenakis. He’d once been a notorious playboy known for his various shady criminal underworld connections who’d suddenly cleaned up his act, married a woman who’d once been a supermarket checkout girl—if the press could be believed—and was now a respectable family man.
It had to be the same Castor Xenakis who’d lost his sister. The name was too unusual. Further investigations had also revealed that Castor Xenakis had led a secret life infiltrating trafficking rings and passing the information on to relevant authorities, which virtually guaranteed him to be the same man.
Ares had debated contacting him, but then dismissed the idea. It wasn’t his place. He had to bring the information to Rose first before anything else, because the conversation they’d had in the gym at the manor house had stuck in his head, as had the fear in her beautiful golden eyes. The fear that no one had looked for her because no one had wanted her. Even now the memory of the pain in her voice made his own chest tighten, though he didn’t want to think about why that was.
What he was clear about was that she had to know she wasn’t alone. That she had an older brother, and that if he was the kind of man he was reputed to be, he hadn’t stopped looking for her. That he’d been looking for her for the past twenty years.
The rotors slowed and Ares ducked beneath them, walking over to pull open the helicopter door. And felt something akin to an electric shock as he met Rose’s bright gaze. She smiled, her lovely face lighting up at the sight of him, and that strange feeling in his chest, the one that had tightened in response to her pain, now tightened again in response to that smile.
You are getting emotionally involved with her.
No, he wasn’t. He was pleased to see her because he liked her and felt empathetic towards her, but that was all. Certainly nothing more.
She was all wrapped up in the thick pale blue parka he’d had sent to her, a scarf and hat to match, plus gloves. She looked so beautiful he could barely hold himself back from reaching for her.
But then she flung off her headset and launched herself into his arms and her mouth was on his, making it very clear that she’d missed him.
You missed her too.
He tightened his arms around her and kissed her back hard. Yes, he had missed her. In his bed. Fifteen years of celibacy had never bothered him, yet the past three months without her had been agony. He’d been counting down the days until winter, until it was time for their two weeks, and once he’d told her about her brother, he was going to take her to bed and keep her there for days. Maybe even a whole week. After all, it was winter in Iceland and there wasn’t much else to do.
The lodge staff were already hauling out her luggage, so Ares lifted her from the helicopter himself, carrying her in his arms across the frozen lake, the chilly air bringing a flush to her cheeks.
‘You don’t need to carry me,’ she protested, not making any attempt to dislodge herself from his grip. ‘I can walk.’
‘Very well.’ He stopped, making a show of letting her down.
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, snuggling into him. ‘On second thoughts, it’s too cold to walk.’
He grinned and resumed striding towards the lodge, feeling as if a weight had been pressing down on him and now that she was here it was gone. It made him feel ridiculously light.