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desire no attention in any way.”
    Lars took a moment to digest this strange speech. Translating it wasn’t hard. She was the driving mind behind her father, although he’d undoubtedly been brilliant too. She’d subjugated her life to his reputation because she wanted it that way. Or had her father insisted? Doubtless she’d done everything she could to mask her beauty as well as her brains. He should have entered her mind a long time ago and found out the truth, but perhaps it was better to have her volunteer her trust. Sighing inwardly, he thought he could hardly pounce on her right at this minute, although he longed to take her in his arms and caress away her doubts.
    “Can you tell me how you came to be a slave?”
    He already knew most of this, but he wanted her to tell him of her own accord.
    “Of course. Stephen Mallory is my father’s chief rival and has been jealous of him for years. He called on Father when I wasn’t home. I don’t know what started the quarrel, but I walked in on them just as Mallory stabbed him and he fell to the ground, motionless. I knew instantly my father was dead. I started to scream, I think, and remember rushing at the monster. The next thing I knew I woke up with a dreadful headache in a small cabin on a filthy ship. My captor was the slave trader you saw at the auction when he led me in. I tried not eating or drinking, but they’d force me to take in enough to stay alive. Come to think of it, I’ve never had such a nice thin figure, so it wasn’t all bad.”
    He struggled with a blazing anger that left him incoherent. This beautiful, brilliant and innocent girl, subjected to weeks of despair and degradation, all for the ambition of one miserable bastard. A bastard who’d pay to the fullest. Lars would see to it personally.
    He’d known it was something like that, and there was only one path for him to take. Now he needed to track down a murderer. Who was also a depraved pimp of the worst kind.
    He shut his eyes to concentrate on his self-control and only opened them when he felt a soft hand pat his face.
    “Lars, don’t look so. It’s over, thanks to you. I’ll be forever grateful for your kindness.”
    Lars opened his eyes, seeing her beautiful eyes showing deep concern for him, with no trace of pity for herself. He grabbed her to him, taking her lovely face in his hands and kissing her as he’d long wanted to do. Not as the father-figure he feared she was beginning to think him, but as a lover in almost frantic haste to claim his love. A lover bent on taking some of the pleasure she alone could give him, while showing her how deeply he felt.
    He cupped his hands around her expectant face, glorying as she looked at his with wide eyes, not knowing what came next but not at all reluctant to find out. He almost groaned aloud with the knowledge he’d be the first to touch her in the secret places that could yield her pleasure she’d not imagined. He’d be the first to see her quivering as she neared her woman’s ecstasy, as he caressed every beautiful curve and then touched her in her most intimate places. He’d neglect no part of her body, not her perfectly formed arms, not her lovely legs, not even the tips of her toes. And then he’d enter her and take her to a paradise she’d never imagined.
    Her eyes flared, he hoped with pleasure as well as surprise, and she leaned into his kiss. Inexpertly, as he’d suspected. Trying to match his movements but knowing none of her own. Had all the men surrounding her father been blind? Or hadn’t she even seen the glances she must have attracted wherever she went?
    He kissed her one last lingering time and took her reluctant arms from around his neck. Holding her hands and smiling at her expression of disappointment, he kissed her fingers.
    “Sophia, you are pure delight. There’s nothing in this world I’d like better than to continue this to its enchanting end.”
    “Then why don’t you, Lars? I much liked what you