‘I can’t believe you haven’t slept with the Princess yet, Xander. What are you waiting for?’
Alexander Caras held onto his temper at his brother Theo’s provocative comment while their limousine edged through the night-time traffic in Port Gabriel, the coastal resort hub of the small but exclusive European principality of Galicos.
‘We haven’t even announced the engagement yet,’ he murmured. It was supposed to be happening at an event the following week. ‘And I have no intention of sleeping with her until our wedding night.’ After over a year of intensive negotiation with Princess Freya’s father, Prince Andreas, Xander should have been overjoyed that the deal to finally secure a merger between Galicos’ multibillion-dollar port facilities on the Rivera and Caras Shipping would be finalised with the engagement.
The Prince had insisted Xander marry his wayward oldest child and only daughter as part of the deal before he could buy the land. Xander had been surprised. The concept of an arranged marriage seemed nothing short of medieval. But when he’d been offered Princess Freya’s hand as part of the negotiations six months ago, he’d still jumped at the chance. When was a former Athens street rat going to get another opportunity to marry into royalty? The fact there had been not one single spark between them on the two occasions he’d met her hadn’t bothered Xander then… But it bothered him now.
Because of the woman he had met five months ago. The woman he could not forget. The woman who had captivated him and excited him and still seemed to have some damn hold over him he could not break.
Poppy. The girl whose surname he didn’t even know. He’d met her precisely once, on a hot spring day on the beach in Rhodes. The girl who had insisted on hitching a ride on his jet ski to the island he’d bought off the coast—while having no idea he was the billionaire who now owned the place she’d once visited with her mother while on vacation. The girl whose bright, sunny, sweet smile he could still see, whose sobs of surrender he could still hear echoing in his ears, whose tight flesh he could still feel massaging him to a brutal climax, and whose intoxicating scent—sea and suncream and sultry female sweat—still invaded his senses, every time he had to take himself in hand late at night, trying to forget her.
What the hell had she done to him? Because he didn’t like that their one day together was still intruding on his consciousness—and making him regret the engagement that was going to take Caras Shipping to the next level.
It was just sex. Epic sex, to be sure. But once you’re officially engaged you’ll forget her. You have to.
‘Surely banging your fiancée, though, would seal the deal even tighter with her father,’ Theo goaded. ‘I’ve heard she’s pretty enough. I still don’t get why you’re being so honourable. It’s not like anyone expects guys like us to wait for the wedding night.’
As the glitter of casino lights and the superyachts anchored in the dock flickered in the darkness, Xander tensed, and frowned at his reflection in the limo’s treated glass.
‘Princess Freya is a virgin, Theo. Or at least her father seems to think so. Showing my future bride some respect and not jumping her the first chance I get is the classier move. Remember that is what we’re trying to achieve with this whole damn deal. Class.’ He bit out the words, infuriated by his brother’s low chuckle.
‘Yeah, right, like anyone is going to think either of us have class, no matter how many princesses we hook up with.’
Xander clenched his teeth even harder, frustration and fury grinding in his gut.
His younger brother was a playboy who treated sex like a recreational sport. Which had been great for the Caras brothers’ brand up to now—because Theo exuded the sort of hot, edgy charisma that social media and the celebrity press ate up. It had helped put them on the map, given them connections to the circles of the rich and famous, before the business had taken off. But now they’d arrived, their worldwide logistics brand clearing well over two billion euros in profit a year, Theo still refused to take any damn thing seriously—Xander’s marriage plans most of all.
Caras Shipping was moving into luxury cruises. Xander wanted to diversify, because they’d reached as high as they could in the container market, even if that would remain the bread and butter of their operation. But to launch the cruise business, he wanted to acquire luxury anchorage on the Mediterranean, to house the fleet of boutique liners they were currently kitting out for the inaugural cruise at the end of next year, which was already fully booked. And Galicos was perfect. There was nowhere more exclusive because no other company had secured a deal there. Plus, Prince Andreas needed the investment, because his high-end lifestyle cost a bomb, and he was rich in property, and legacy, not so much in cold, hard cash.
Xander was the one having to marry the Princess to secure their company’s future. A woman he barely knew and didn’t even particularly want to bed. Freya was young, but probably more than a little spoilt and entitled, not to mention mercenary. Because who agreed to let their father marry them off to a Greek shipping billionaire if they didn’t have their eye on the main prize?
But he didn’t begrudge the girl that. He was more ruthless than anyone, because he’d had to be as a kid, to keep him and his brother fed and out of the hands of the authorities. Sentiment meant nothing to a man like him. Because he hadn’t been able to afford it as a child, and now all it was likely to do was stand in his way.
The only problem was Poppy, whose luscious lips and full breasts and captivating laugh had crept into his dreams and refused to leave. To the point where he couldn’t forget how much he still wanted her, which was a lot more than he was ever likely to want the woman he was supposed to be making his wife.
‘The difference is, I don’t just want to screw the Princess, Theo,’ he lied, because the truth was he didn’t even want to do that. Because he could still see Poppy’s open, heart-shaped face, the sheen of excitement in her brown eyes when she’d thought they were sneaking into a billionaire’s house—without knowing the billionaire was him, and the guy she was with wasn’t some random beach bum she’d met three hours ago. ‘I’m going to marry Princess Freya.’
Perhaps if he said it often enough, he’d start to believe it. And stop questioning the decision he had been so certain of before that chance encounter in Rhodes.
‘Seems risky though. How do you know you’ll want to marry her if you haven’t found out first what she’s like in bed?’ Theo murmured, not impressed with Xander’s restraint. ‘What if you find out on your wedding night that she’s frigid? I mean, how come she’s still a virgin at twenty?’
Maybe because she’s not a man-whore like you?
Xander clenched his teeth to stop the knee-jerk response from coming out of his mouth. He’d said all he intended to say on the subject of his arranged marriage, because even thinking about it made him think more about the woman who had got away. The woman he still wanted but knew he couldn’t have. The woman whose memory turned him on much more than the woman he had agreed to make his wife.
He stared through the dark glass at the high-end restaurants lining the wharf, which served cordon bleu food and vintage champagne to anyone who wished to take a break from the casinos or give the chef on their superyacht a night off.
The car slowed in the evening traffic and he caught sight of a waitress, with her back to him, busy scribbling an order. He blinked and lurched forward, his gaze suddenly riveted to the girl.
What the hell? Could it be her…?
A prickling sensation rippled across his nape as he took in the graceful line of the girl’s neck, caressed by honey-brown curls that had escaped her updo. The way she held herself reminded him of that captivating girl and the carefree day out of time he’d spent with her. Was he dreaming, hallucinating, going totally and utterly mad?
He needed to see her face.
Turn, dammit.
Her head moved, and he devoured the sight of her face in profile. The prickling sensation became sharp jagged thorns, ripping through his consciousness, and then turning into red-hot pokers to sink into his groin.
Her smile, those high cheekbones, the dimple playing peek-a-boo with an errant curl, which she swiped away to finish jotting the order down on her pad. The way her teeth chewed on her bottom lip. The same lush lips he had devoured himself.
The rush of sensation throbbed and pulsed.
‘Poppy?’ he whispered. It is her.
‘What did you say?’
His brother’s voice barely registered. The car began to inch forward. He smacked his hand against the glass partition. Their driver, Dimitrios, slid open the panel.
‘Stop the car,’ Xander shouted, his breathing laboured, his mind dazed. ‘I’m getting out here.’
Maybe he was going mad. Perhaps he had conjured her up after too many nights spent alone, frantically trying to masturbate away his memories of that one day like a teenager mooning over a centrefold. But he had to be sure.
The car had barely braked before he flung open the door and leapt out.
‘Xander, where the hell are you going?’ his brother shouted from inside the car.
‘I’ll see you at the yacht,’ he shot over his shoulder, slamming the door. He headed back along the wharf towards the restaurant.
The waitress had finished taking her order and was making her way inside.
Her walk? That was Poppy’s walk, too. Fluid and sensual and so unconsciously seductive it made the heat swell in his groin. The visceral reaction swept through him, turning the nagging arousal at the memory of her in his arms, which had been dogging him for months, into a tidal wave of need.
He strode through the crowds as she disappeared into the restaurant, then jogged past the maître d’ standing by a lectern. The man shouted in French, asking if he wanted a table. He waved him off, breaking into a run.
Once inside, he spotted the girl standing at the far end of the bar, her back to him as she collected drinks on a tray.
‘Poppy,’ he shouted.
The girl’s head whipped round, responding to her name. Joy exploded in his chest as the need blindsided him. Those eyes, that face. It was her. He wasn’t going mad. But as he got closer, a brutal blush suffused her whole face, highlighting the freckles across her nose, which he knew she also had across her breasts, because he had massaged suncream into her pale cleavage that day. But as she turned towards him, depositing the tray back on the bar with a clash of glasses, his greedy gaze swept down her figure.
His steps faltered. And he blinked, exhilaration turning to shock, then confusion, then another blast of hunger.
A compact bulge distended her apron where he had once been able to span her flat, narrow waist with a single hand.
He reached her at last, but it felt as if he were walking through waist-high water now, his movements jerky and sluggish as he tried to make sense of all the warring reactions going off inside his head.
‘Alex…’ she murmured, using the name he had given her that day. The name only she had ever used. ‘Hello,’ she murmured. But she didn’t look surprised to see him any more.
Just shocked he had found her here.
He grasped her upper arm, unable to stop himself from touching her again—still not entirely convinced she was real. She trembled, her instinctive response echoing in his groin, but then she tried to tug her arm loose.
‘We can’t speak now, Mr Caras,’ she said, her voice carefully devoid of emotion. Her gaze flat and direct. ‘I’m on shift.’
Mr Caras?
So, she knew who he was. Had she always known? The cynicism that had deserted him for months—every time he thought of that sultry spring day and her—twisted the joy at seeing her again into something bitter and jarring.
That would be the cynicism—the survival instinct he had relied on for years, ever since he was a street kid scavenging for scraps in Athens to feed himself and his brother—that she had suspended that day, with her artless response to his kisses, his touch, his caresses and the confidences they’d shared. Then the heartfelt words she had whispered after they’d made love—which had made him question everything in his life before her—slammed into him, again.
‘You know what, Alex. I’ve never hated anyone. But I wish I could meet the man who used his wealth and privilege to turn Parádeisos’ unspoilt natural beauty into his private pleasure dome. I’d love to be able to tell him what a selfish bastard I think he is. Wouldn’t you?’
He’d laughed with her then, but his laugh had been forced and hollow, because he’d been wincing inside, knowing what had started as a small lie to see where their day—and their extraordinary chemistry—might lead had suddenly become an enormous, insurmountable one. The sweat had still been drying on his skin from their lovemaking, after spending four hours together so full of surprises he was sure he’d discovered genuine joy for the first time in his life. But as he’d lain on his own bed—which she’d thought belonged to someone else—still steeped in afterglow, her words, edged with sadness and derision, had echoed in the soft sea breeze, damning him. And he’d found himself questioning the ruthless ambition that had stopped him from seeing the island she loved as anything more than a good investment opportunity—a place to build a luxury pleasure dome. But worse had been the realisation he could never tell her he was the man who owned the house she thought they had sneaked into, or she would hate him, too.
But as his real name echoed on her lips now, he suddenly understood that might have been an illusion. That while he’d struggled for months to suppress the yearning to find her and call off his planned engagement, she had never been who she had pretended to be either.
Had she played him? Had he been a sap to believe she was really that artless, captivating, rebellious free spirit? The bright, sweet girl who considered love to be more valuable than money. And true beauty to be something you couldn’t buy…?
His temper surged, becoming a mix of fury and suspicion and anger at the shame she’d caused him, in that moment. But right alongside it was the possessive urge to stake his claim on her again—here, now, for ever—even though she might have lied to him all those months ago.
But then his gaze snagged on her belly again—and the only question that mattered broke from his dry lips.
‘Is it mine?’ he demanded.
Flags of colour slashed across her cheeks, but all he heard in her tone was the sting of regret—not the satisfaction he had expected—when she whispered, ‘Yes.’
