The Prince's Scandalous Wedding Vow. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ the cove of her tiny island, Khronos, for two days, and after forty-eight hours of endless partying, blaring music, and shrill laughter, she’d had enough.

      The revelers had even come onto the island earlier in the day, their testosterone-fueled speedboat racing them to shore. Jo had hidden behind the cliffs and trees above, watching as the dozen hedonists descended on her beach.

      The young women were stunning—tan, lithe, and beautiful in tiny, barely-there bikinis—and the men were lean, chiseled, and handsome. While the women splashed in the surf and then lounged on the beach, the men sprawled on chairs and towels in the sun, looking like indolent princes. They were there to party, too, and there was plenty of alcohol and other things that made Josephine wrinkle her nose in disgust. Only one of them didn’t drink, or smoke, or make love on the beach. Sometimes he sat on his own, but other times, people surrounded him. He was clearly the center of the group, the one with the wealth, the sun around which all the others orbited.

      She watched the revelers out of curiosity and with a sprinkling of disdain, telling herself not to judge, but the interlopers on her beach clearly enjoyed a pampered, decadent lifestyle, a lifestyle for those born of privilege, or those lucky enough to be invited into the elite circle. Her dad used to say she was critical of such people because she’d never be one of them, and maybe there was some truth in that. But she liked to use her brain, and she enjoyed her work assisting her father, who was one of the world’s leading volcanologists, which was why they lived in the middle of the Aegean Sea, taking advantage of Greece’s volcanic arc.

      Her work included documenting her father’s findings, and she’d proved indispensable to his research. He was the first to admit that he wouldn’t have his enormous body of work without her assistance. But late in the day, she’d turn to her passion—drawing, sketching, painting. She had run low on paper and canvas again, but her father would be returning in ten days, and he always brought back fresh supplies for her.

      This afternoon she carried her sketch pad with her to the rocks overlooking the sheltered beach cove, thinking she’d draw the scene below—well, not everyone, but the one who’d caught her attention. The one man she thought was by far the most fascinating. He appeared otherworldly with his thick dark hair and straight black brows over light-colored eyes—blue or gray she didn’t know. But even from a distance the lines of his face appealed to the artist in her: his jaw was square, cheekbones high, his mouth full, firm, unsmiling.

      Her charcoal pencil hovered over the page as she studied the face she’d drawn. His features were almost too perfect, his lower lip slightly fuller than his upper lip, and she just wished she was closer so she could see the color of his eyes.

      Even more intriguing was the way he sat in his chair, broad shoulders level, chin up, body still, exuding power and control. Josephine glanced up from the sketch to compare her work to the real man, and yes, she’d captured the sinewy, muscular frame as well as the hard set of his jaw and chin, but his expression wasn’t quite right. It was his expression that intrigued her and made her want to keep looking at him and trying to understand him. Was he bored, or unhappy? Why did he look as if he wanted to be anywhere but on that beach, with these people?

      He was a mystery, and she enjoyed a good puzzle. It gave her mind something to focus on, but now he was rising, and everyone else was rising, gathering their things and heading to the boat.

      Good, she told herself, closing her sketchbook, and yet she couldn’t help feeling a stab of disappointment as the speedboat whisked her mystery man back to the massive yacht anchored outside her cove, because he was, without a doubt, the most interesting man she’d ever seen, and now he was gone.

      Later that evening, Josephine was returning from doing her last check of the equipment in the cottage when she heard loud voices, as if in argument, from just outside the cove. She crossed to the beach, listening intently, but this time she heard nothing, just the sound of the yacht engine humming. Was the yacht finally leaving?

      As usual, it was brightly lit and pulsing with music. On the top deck she could see couples lounging and drinking. There were others on a deck below and then others at the far end of the yacht, in the shadows.

      The yacht was moving. She could see the moonlight reflecting off the white wake. She was sorry to see her mystery man leave, but glad the noise would be gone. The music was terrible. She was still standing there when she heard a muffled shout and then saw someone go overboard. It was at the back of the yacht, where people had been on a lower deck in the shadows.

      She rushed closer to the water’s edge, attention fixed on the point where the person had gone into the water, but no one resurfaced. Sick, panicked, Josephine worried that someone could be drowning. She couldn’t just stand idle while someone died.

      She yanked off her sundress and dived between the waves to swim out to where the yacht had been anchored for the past two and a half days. Diving beneath the surface of the water, she struggled to see in the gloom, but all was dark, so dark, and the reef dropped off dramatically not far from her, the coral giving way to deep water. Josephine swam with her hands in front of her, searching, reaching, lungs burning, bursting, and just when she was going to push back to the surface, she felt fabric, and then heat. A chest. Shoulders. Big, thick shoulders. A man.

      She prayed for help as she circled his neck with her arm, hoping for divine strength because she needed superpowers in that moment, her own lungs seizing, desperate for air.

      With a groan, she pulled up and he rose with her. Not quickly, but he was floating as she swam, his huge body heavy, but she’d never swum with such resolve. She’d grown up in the ocean. She’d spent her life swimming, deep, exploring caves and the reef, and even though spots danced before her eyes she told herself she could do this because she wasn’t alone. She had faith that she was meant to be there when the body fell overboard, and she was meant to find him, and she was meant to save him.

      And she did.

      She surfaced and, gasping for air, towed him to shore. Once she’d dragged him out of the waves, she kept pulling, hoping she wasn’t hurting him as she wrestled him onto the firm damp sand. Once she knew they were out of the surf, she rolled him onto his side, allowing water to drain from his mouth and nose, before settling him onto his back. It was only then she realized it was him.

      The beautiful brooding man.

      The one who’d barely seemed to tolerate the others.

      The one who suffered no fools.

      She’d never had to resuscitate anyone before, but her father had taught her years ago, and she remembered the basics, although guidelines kept changing every year or two. She pinched his nose closed and then breathed into his mouth with five strong breaths, followed by thirty chest compressions. She put her ear near his mouth and listened. Nothing. She heard nothing. She repeated the cycle with two strong breaths into his mouth and another thirty compressions. After each cycle, she listened and watched his chest, checking for signs of life.

      She wouldn’t give up. Breathe, breathe, breathe, she chanted in her head, repeating the cycle, praying as she did, asking for divine help, not at all prepared to lose him.

       Breathe, breathe, breathe.

       Live, live, live.

      Just when she was sure her efforts were pointless, his chest lifted—not much, but it moved, and it was enough to give her hope. Determined, Jo breathed into his mouth, those two strong breaths, and this time she felt air exhale from his lips and saw a definite rise and fall of his chest. His breath was rough and raspy, but it was a breath. It wasn’t her imagination. He was СКАЧАТЬ