Chapter Four
CASSIE HAD SENT her brother a text when she’d returned to her hotel last night.
Caius, I’m fine, please let me have this time to myself. You had your years of freedom. In a matter of weeks, I’ll no longer have this luxury. I love you. x Cass.
Cassie hadn’t received a response from Caius.
But she knew that didn’t mean much. He knew where she was now.
He’d sent his friend after her. His friend, who when she’d looked him up online last night had suddenly appeared in numerous photos with her brother, coming out of various bars and clubs going back a few years.
It didn’t look as if he’d been any happier in those moments, a stern, or even scowling, counterpoint to Caius’s playboy-prince mischievous grin. Cassie had generally avoided looking at her brother’s exploits online, naturally enough.
But if she had, then Ares Drakos might have been familiar to her last night.
Because clearly he’d enjoyed playing the playboy along with her brother and apart from pictures of him with Caius there had been plenty of him at glittering functions with a stunning woman on his arm.
A different one every time. Blonde, brunette, redhead.
He didn’t seem to have a type. Maybe he was just the kind of guy who would hook up at any opportunity. With any willing woman.
Like last night. Cassie had to push down the resurgence of humiliation that had kept her awake with heartburn all night.
Ares Drakos was from one of Greece’s biggest shipping dynasties and yet he’d broken relations with his family when he’d graduated high school, at the age of seventeen. He’d turned his back on his inheritance and the family business to go his own way.
He’d served with the Greek army before going into the special forces for a few years, but those details were hazy. There were several online rumours that he’d been involved in some of the most high-profile security engagements in the world, including several political prisoner swaps.
He’d emerged from his time with security forces and set up his own security company—Drakos Security.
There was little information about it online except for the mention that Ares had invested in cutting-edge software that had made his security company one of the most in demand in the world. And worth billions.
Cassie huffed to herself now that he’d probably used this software to track her down.
She was dressed today in cut-off shorts, sneakers and a T-shirt that she’d tied in a knot at her waist. Her hair was now free of the temporary tie-dyed colours and up and stuffed under a baseball cap. She didn’t have contacts in her eyes to disguise their colour.
She’d leased a sailing boat from a marina on the other side of the island. She was going to avoid any more troublesome interactions by taking to the seas and doing some island hopping.
That would give her space to think and enjoy her freedom. Alone. She ignored the pang of loneliness.
Well, she thought to herself as she jumped down from the boat to the wooden walkway to untie it, better alone than being potentially drugged or mocked.
She had the rope in her hand and she was about to step back onto the boat when the skin on the back of her neck prickled and she went still.
No.
Slowly she turned around to see an all too familiar tall, broad figure just a few feet away. He was wearing board shorts and a short-sleeved polo shirt. He had a baseball cap too and it shadowed his face but she could still make out the hard, bearded jaw and that provocative mouth.
In fractured moments of sleep last night she’d dreamt of that mouth. Touching more than her lips.
‘What are you doing here?’ As she asked that question she noticed that he was carrying a scuffed holdall. She pointed to it. ‘What is that?’
He lifted it up and Cassie noticed the way his muscles bulged. She also remembered how hard his chest had felt against hers.
He said, ‘It’s my bag. I’m coming with you.’
Panic spiked. Cassie turned away and jumped lithely onto the boat. She turned to face him. ‘No, you’re not.’
He walked to where there was one more rope mooring the boat to the dock and he put his foot on top of the post. Cassie cursed inwardly.
‘Yes, I am. Your brother has acquired my services until such time as you’re done with this little trip and you’re back at the palace.’
Cassie shook her head. ‘No way, no how. He has no right to do this. I’ll pay you double whatever he’s paying you to leave me alone.’
‘It’s not about the money. He’s my friend and it’s a personal favour.’
Cassie smiled sweetly, belying the way her belly was cramping with tension.
‘Well, we were pretty friendly last night, maybe you’ll do me a personal favour and get lost?
’ She had never been so rude in her life.
But something about standing up to this man was a little shamefully exhilarating, especially when she’d spent all her life trying to make everyone else happy.
Now he smiled and Cassie almost fell off the boat.
His mouth was wide and his teeth were very white and the smile completely transformed his face.
Even though she knew it wasn’t a real smile.
Lord help her if he ever did that. She scowled.
She wasn’t going to ever see him smile for real and didn’t want to.
She secured the rope in her hand and went back down onto the walkway to untie the last rope mooring the boat to the jetty. She looked expressly at his foot and tried not to be so aware of his size. ‘Can you move your foot, please?’
‘Not until you tell me where you plan on going.’
She looked up from under the rim of her cap. ‘Island hopping, not that it’s any of your business. But after last night I’d prefer to take my chances with sharks at sea rather than the sharks on land.’
She bent down and pushed his foot off the bollard and lifted up the rope, moving back towards the boat. She hadn’t even unbalanced him.
‘I’m coming with you whether you like it or not, sweetheart.’
Cassie went rigid and turned back towards him. ‘I am not your sweetheart. And I am leaving now on this boat. If you attempt to board I will call the marina police and have you arrested.’
‘And how will that look in the papers, hm? Crown Princess Cassandra running from her duties to be queen?’
Cassie’s mouth fell open and her eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
He shrugged one wide shoulder. ‘I’ve been given a brief and I don’t ever renege on an assignment and my assignment is you until you’re back at the palace under the protection of your own guards again, who, admittedly, need a refresher course in how to protect you.’
My assignment is you. Those words sent more than a frisson of awareness into Cassie’s blood.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘we’re not leaving here on a boat. I have a private plane standing by ready to take you wherever you’d like, preferably back to your palace but if you insist on wanting to island hop then that’s what we’ll do.’
A million things buzzed into Cassie’s head—the sheer arrogance for one, that censorious tone again along with a trace of weariness, as if suffering a petulant child.
She very deliberately stepped back onto the boat that was now untethered from the jetty and, after securing the rope, she stood up with hands on her hips.
‘Now,’ she said, mimicking his tone, ‘I am not leaving here, except on this boat that I have paid good money for. I have no desire to contribute to global warming by using a private jet when I don’t have to.
There’s an app that you can download that’ll allow you to follow the boat’s progress—feel free to keep an eye on me that way. I’d really prefer it.’
Cassie turned her back on Ares and focused on turning the engine on to navigate out of the marina. She couldn’t see someone like Ares Drakos dancing to her tune, so good riddance.
Ares looked at the boat and the back of Crown Princess Cassandra as she stood by one of the two big wheels.
It had taken more strength than he cared to admit just to walk down the jetty to where she had been untying the boat.
Not even her long, golden, slim legs and that high, curvy behind encased in demin could have stopped the clammy feeling of sweat on his brow and palms.
Or the bolt of electricity he’d felt when she’d looked up at him from under her cap and he’d seen those amazing blue eyes that she’d hidden under contacts last night.
He hated boats. Loathed them. He still had nightmares about them.
He’d been kidnapped when he was ten and the gang had held him on a boat, moving around to evade detection, as they’d negotiated with his parents for his return.
His parents had fought paying up, fearing it would set a precedent, caring more for their vast wealth and reputation than the life of one son. They’d had another heir in his older brother, Axel, so they could afford to lose one.
Axel’s academic prowess in contrast to Ares’s struggles reading and writing had ensured that Ares was never going to inherit the family business, highlighted by the reaction to his kidnapping.
In the end, it had been a specialist team from the police department who had tracked down the boat and saved Ares, with no help from his family. It had shown Ares that the police force had cared more than his own flesh and blood about his welfare.
He’d returned home, traumatised and changed for ever.
His brother had wanted to know what had happened but Ares hadn’t been able to talk about it.
And his parents had encouraged him not to talk about it.
To just forget. Eventually Axel had stopped asking and had been drawn more and more into the realm of becoming successor to their father—cementing an even bigger gulf between the brothers.
His sisters had been too young and Ares had distanced himself from them too, finding their childish innocence terrifying—because he knew how quickly it could be taken away.