LITMIR.BIZ

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his thumb grazed her cheek lightly as he muttered, “Kristin. My lovely, lovely Kristin. I am afraid for you. I should not have brought you here.”

      In the distance Kristin heard the ominous popping sound of gunshots, and the drilling of the troops went on. She forced herself to smile. “Whatever happens, Jascha, I want to be with you.”

      He bent to nibble at the side of her neck, and one of his hands lightly cupped her breast.

      To her own surprise, as much as Jascha’s, Kristin bolted backward out of his embrace.

      Jascha was not without temperament, and his well-sculpted lips formed a royal pout. “You still think of him,” he accused. “The man you lived with in California.”

      Kristin shook her head, acutely aware that he was right. “No. it’s just that—it’s just that I think we should wait. Until after our wedding.”

      He folded his strong arms and cocked his head to one side, and for the first time, Kristin knew he was considering forcing her. Although he had always been kind, she was well aware of Jascha’s legendary temper.

      “You want to keep yourself chaste,” he said evenly. “Yet for twelve months you slept in Zachary Harmon’s bed. Surely you see that we have a contradiction in terms here.”

      Kristin retreated another step. Jascha had never used this tone with her before; it had to be the stresses of his precarious political situation. “The time I spent with Zachary was a mistake,” she answered evenly. “If I could go back and change it, I would.”

      Jascha advanced toward her, trapping her between himself and the bed. “You will find me a more than satisfactory lover,” he said in a low voice, pulling the tails of her cotton shirt from her jeans.

      Panic wrapped itself around Kristin like a lash, sudden and strange. Where once she had burned to give herself to this man, now she was frightened, even repulsed, by his touch. “Jascha, no,” she whispered, crossing her forearms in front of her chest and struggling to stay upright.

      He flung her onto the bed and held her wrists together high above her head. With his free hand, he began unbuttoning her shirt.

      Kristin twisted, trying vainly to break away, filled with fear and rage. The warnings she’d heard from her parents and friends screamed in her mind. He’ll have absolute control over you—in his culture, women are property—you’ve only seen the Jascha he wanted you to see….

      Just as Jascha bared one of Kristin’s breasts and closed his hand over it, the door of the bedroom opened and Mai entered, carrying tea. Although her eyes were downcast, as became a lowly servant in the presence of her prince, she obviously knew what was going on. And she wasn’t about to leave.

      Jascha muttered a curse and released Kristin, storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

      Too mortified to meet Mai’s gaze, Kristin sat up, righted her bra and buttoned her shirt. Because she didn’t know what to say, she was silent.

      Mai busied herself laying out the tiny bowls in which tea was served, along with the small sweet cakes she knew Kristin loved. “Weather is hot. Perhaps Miss Kristin like to bathe in swimming pool,” she said, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

      Kristin felt sick. Something was wrong with Jascha—terribly wrong. In all the years she’d known him, he’d never mistreated her in any way, though she had to admit he’d been damnably arrogant on occasion. Yet only moments before, he’d been bent on raping her. Ignoring the tea, she made for the telephone at her bedside.

      “I’m in no mood to swim,” she muttered, while silently cursing herself for every kind of romantic fool. She should have seen this coming. She should have known she’d only been trying to revive her old feelings for Jascha because she couldn’t bear the pain of grieving for Zachary. “I want to call my father.”

      “Line’s cut,” Mai said succinctly.

      Kristin felt the color drain out of her face as she lifted the ornate receiver and put it to her ear. Sure enough, there was no dial tone, only an ominous silence.

      But Jascha had offered to send her home to the United States before he’d gotten so angry and thrown her onto the bed. She had to find him, tell him she’d changed her mind.

      She strode to the door and wrenched it open, her rising ire lending her courage as she marched along the elegantly carpeted hallway, down the curving stairs that led to the great entryway with its glittering crystal chandeliers.

      A guard was posted by the front door. “Where is the prince?” she demanded, heedless of her untucked shirt and mussed hair.

      The guard’s expression didn’t change. “There,” he said in Cabrizian, pointing toward the towering double doors of Jascha’s study with the barrel of his rifle.

      Kristin knocked briskly, then marched inside without waiting for an invitation. Jascha was in hushed conference with one of his generals, and his glowering expression said he did not appreciate the interruption.

      “I’ve changed my mind about everything,” Kristin announced. “The wedding is off. I want to go home right now.”

      For a moment she saw the old tenderness in Jascha’s eyes, but then they turned hard as ebony. “It is too late,” he bit out, while the general looked on unabashedly. “Go to your room, Kristin, and do not come out again until you are told.”

      Kristin’s mouth fell open, and she stood rooted to the center of the study floor. She was twenty-seven years old, and she hadn’t been sent to her room in two decades. She wasn’t about to set a new precedent.

      “Go!” Jascha said with a dismissive wave of one hand.

      Instead, Kristin stepped closer to him. “What’s happened to you?” she whispered. “Why are you behaving like this?”

      “This is Cabriz, not America,” Jascha pointed out. “Things are different here. Now, do as I say before I decide you must be disciplined.”

      “Disciplined?” Kristin’s fury was so great that it rose into her throat and swelled, making it impossible for any more words to pass.

      Jascha was livid. He called out a word Kristin couldn’t translate, and the guard from the entryway appeared. A rapid conversation passed between them, of which Kristin caught only a few words. Then the guard took her arm and dragged her roughly toward the door.

      Kristin struggled, but it was no use. “Jascha!” she cried, in an angry plea for reason, as she was propelled out of the study and up the stairs.

      Minutes later, Kristin was flung unceremoniously into a large room and the door was locked behind her.

      Wildly, she looked around. The place was huge, and sumptuously furnished. The chairs and sofas were all upholstered in colorful silk, and heavy damask curtains surrounded the enormous bed, which stood on a dais. There was an ivory fireplace, even though the temperature in that part of Cabriz never dipped low enough for a fire, and a beautiful Louis XIV desk stood in front of the windows.

      Kristin’s anger reached ferocious proportions when she realized that this was Jascha’s room, and she’d been sent here, like a mischievous concubine, to await the prince’s convenience. She hurled herself at the giant door, hammering at it with both fists and screaming, “Let me out! Damn you, Jascha, let me out!”

      After a while Kristin sagged against the wood, exhausted. It was hopeless; no one in the palace, not even Mai, would dare to flout Jascha’s authority by releasing her. She was going to have to find her own means of escape.

      She went to the terrace doors. For a moment Kristin had hope, but then she looked over the stone railing. It was at least a thirty-foot drop to the courtyard below, and there were no trees or trellises to climb down.

      Momentarily defeated, she went back inside, out of the blazing midafternoon sun.

      She searched the desk drawers for a key, but found nothing other than

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