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“Yes,” Damian said coldly. “The lady’s name is Ivy Madison. Make her comfortable, but under no circumstances is she to leave this island.”
Two days later, the crisis in South America had been resolved and Damian was on his way back to Minos.
It had been a hard, exhausting couple of days but it had given him time to calm down.
If he hadn’t been called away…
No, he thought, staring at the ocean swells far below the fast-moving helicopter, no, he wouldn’t think about that. Ivy had deliberately taken him to the brink of self-control.
He was certain of it.
But he hadn’t let her push him over the edge. And there was no chance it would happen again.
Two days in Athens. Two days away from temptation. Two days of rational thought and he’d come to a decision.
He’d made a mistake, bringing her to Minos. As for the rest, telling her he’d make her his mistress, that he might marry her…
Damian shook his head. Crazy. Or perhaps crazed was a better way to put it.
Why would he have even considered making her his mistress? All the emotional baggage that went into an arrangement like that? No way. The world was full of beautiful women. He surely didn’t need this particular one.
As for marriage…Crazy, for sure. He wasn’t marrying anybody. Not for years to come, if at all. And when that time came, assuming it did, he would choose his own wife, not let her choose him.
Because that was what had been going on. How come he hadn’t seen it right away?
Like her sister, Ivy had been angling for marriage from the start. She was just cleverer about it. An ambush, instead of a head-on attack. That way, the target didn’t stand a chance.
Her weapon had been the oldest one in the world. Sex. What could be more powerful in the hands of a beautiful woman, especially if a man was vulnerable?
And he sure as hell was vulnerable. He hadn’t had a woman for months. Damian’s jaw tightened. But he would, very soon.
Late last night, once he was sure the South American situation was under control, he’d phoned a French actress he’d met a few weeks ago. A couple of minutes of conversation and the upshot was, he’d fly to Paris next weekend.
She was looking forward to it, she’d purred.
So was he.
A long weekend in bed with the actress and Ivy would be forgotten. Hell, he’d forgotten her already…
“Your Highness?”
How long had the pilot’s voice been buzzing in his headset? Damian cleared his throat.
“Yes?”
“Touchdown in a couple of minutes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
They were flying lower now, skimming over a group of small islands that were part of the Cyclades, as was Minos, but these bits of land were uninhabited, as beautiful as they were wild.
Back in the days he’d had time for such things, he’d sailed a Sunfish here and explored them. Sometimes, making his way through the tall pines that clung to them, he’d half expected to come face-to-face with one of the ancient gods his people had once worshipped.
Or one of the goddesses. Aphrodite. Artemis. Helen of Troy. Not a goddess, no, but a woman whose beauty had brought a man to his knees.
Ivy had almost done that to him, but fate had intervened.
A man could come to his senses, given breathing room.
