“I’ll explain later,” Xerxes replied, but when he hung up his whole body was cold with sweat.
Rose would not have willingly run off with Växborg. She detested the man’s lack of morals, his selfish cruelty. She would have wanted to go straight home to her family. She wouldn’t have detoured for a cozy chat with the baron.
At least not willingly.
Xerxes raked his black hair back with his hand. How could he have been so arrogant as to assume that Växborg was no threat, and he would meekly accept Rose’s refusal? How could he have believed the man would relinquish her—and her new fortune—without a fight?
The man’s weakness, his cowardice, were exactly what made him dangerous. And now Xerxes could do nothing to save her.
Sucking in his breath, he punched the concrete wall of the clinic, causing little pieces of rock to crumble and scatter. Blood oozed from his knuckles as he covered his face with his hands. He was helpless to find the woman he loved.
Or was he?
Slowly, he lowered his hands.
All his life, he’d considered his promise to be his worth as a man. But in this moment, he realized that there was something even more sacred than a man’s word.
His love.
It was honor beyond any promise: A man had to protect his woman.
He had to keep Rose safe.
Opening his cell phone, he dialed his chief bodyguard, his top private investigators, his connections in San Francisco, even the sheriff in Rose’s hometown. No car accidents had been reported. As he waited for news, Xerxes paced back and forth in the parking lot of the medical clinic. He no longer felt the cold drizzle of the rain against his face. His muscles ached to jump into his car and drive to find her. But where? Which direction should he go?
Lars wouldn’t take her to a motel. He wouldn’t take her anywhere she might be seen. And he no longer had the money to charter a plane.
Unless he married Rose. Xerxes had thought it was such a tidy way to get revenge on Lars, to use the man’s arrogance and greed against him, to get Laetitia to safety while allowing Rose to make her own choice about her life. He raked his hair back again. He’d been a fool!
The phone rang in his hands and he answered on the first ring. “Yes?”
“A red Ferrari was seen on the I-50, heading east,” the investigator told him. “No license plate information, but a car like that stands out.”
Heading east. Why east? There was nothing in that direction, nothing but the wild mountains and eventually Lake Tahoe, which in February would still be thick with snow and frozen rain. Why would anyone be insane enough to drive a low-slung race car in that direction? Where was the man going?
Then Xerxes knew.
Closing his phone with an intake of breath, he ran for his SUV.
“Get in there!”
Cursing, Lars shoved her into the old cabin before he slammed the door behind them. Rose backed away, still glaring at him, rubbing her half-frozen wrists that he’d bruised with his sinewy grip.
They’d walked for three hours in the frozen rain, up the snowy, rutted dirt road on foot after Lars’s Ferrari had slid on a patch of ice and blown a tire. Her black dress and thin black coat couldn’t hold up against these wintry conditions. Her black leather pumps were soaked through, her feet like ice, and she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be warm. She didn’t know if she would ever feel warm again.
But still, when Rose had seen the cabin in the clearing, she’d tried to run away. She’d turned blindly back toward the woods to take her chances in the frozen mountains. But Lars had had other ideas. Now, he blocked the door, locking it behind him.#p#分页标题#e#
“What is this place?” she choked out, huddling near the cold fireplace.
“Laetitia’s great-grandfather built it.” He looked around with a twist of scorn on his lip. “I left my wife here with an incompetent nurse right after her accident. I hoped I would return from San Francisco and find she’d joined her mother in the afterlife. No such luck. My wife—” he spat out the word “—still lived.”
Lars picked up a piece of the wood stacked neatly by the fireplace. “This is who their family really is,” he said. “Jumped-up nobodies. Peasants who earned money with their hands. Like Novros.”
Rose sucked in her breath. Xerxes’s name hit her like a blow. If only…
“He came here last year, hot on my heels,” he said coldly. “He very nearly found Laetitia. I barely had time to pull her into the woods with the nurse to hide. After he left, I started leaving false trails around the world, hiring look-alikes to distract him.”