The Disgraced Princess by Robyn Donald

coastline.
    â€˜I can do that,’ she said at one stage, scrambling to haul in a jib sheet after they went about.
    He watched her pull it in until the sail stopped flapping. ‘Thanks. Although you don’t need to—it’s set up for single-handed sailing.’
    Which meant he sailed it by himself.
    Or that the other women he brought here to visit the love goddess’s temple weren’t sailors, she thought realistically.
    That hurt, but she ignored it. Live for the moment was her new mantra, and she intended to follow it without obsessing about what had gone before, or regretting what would come after.
    Even though living for the moment meant living dangerously.
    But she’d lived safely for years, and it had got her nothing but emptiness.

CHAPTER SIX
    T HE temple took Rosie’s breath away. Still creamy-white after more than two thousand years on the headland, its perfect proportions and clean lines were as elegant as they had been when it was first built.
    â€˜It’s—truly sublime,’ she breathed.
    Gerd gave a final tug to the anchor chain, and turned. She hadn’t actually been talking to him; the words had come unconsciously. She was perched on the cockpit seat so that her legs were displayed to their best advantage, and a surge of lust gripped him so that he had to turn away to hide his physical response.
    Although the top of her head barely reached his shoulder, she was strong; every cell in his body recalled the clamp of those legs around his hips, and he wanted her with a fierceness that clenched his hands by his sides. As elegantly curved as Aphrodite herself, her skin gleaming ivory-gold in the sunlight, she could have posed for a statue of the goddess.
    Hell, he wanted to take her there and then. Perhaps the goddess was having a sly joke at his expense?
    Leashing his unslaked appetite, he told her abruptly, ‘They built her temple here because Aphrodite was born of the sea.’
    Her upwards glance held a certain restraint that echoed in her tone. ‘She’s certainly got a great view of it from there. Can we climb up from the beach?’
    â€˜If you don’t mind scrambling in the heat.’
    â€˜Will my shoes be suitable?’
    Gerd checked her slender feet, sensibly enclosed in boat shoes. ‘They’ll be fine.’
    The path wound up from the bay, steep but mostly shaded by the silvery leaves of ancient olives. Before they started Gerd said, ‘If you think it will be too steep we can come here in the car one day.’
    â€˜No,’ she said, looking amused. ‘I’m sure I can cope, but if I can’t then you can carry me. Although perhaps it would be a bit much to expect.’
    He laughed, eyes gleaming as he said, ‘If you can’t get there I’ll be more than happy to carry you.’
    Her look sizzled with invitation, but she went on, ‘I forgot to bring my camera, and I’d like to photograph this, so yes, it would be great to come again.’
    And cope she did, scrambling up in front of him so that he was tormented by the sight of golden legs and the seductive sway of her hips.
    â€˜You’re fit,’ he observed.
    She cast him a sly, laughing glance over her shoulder. ‘So you don’t need to stay behind me in case I fall or fade. My landlady has a dog—a fairly large mutt. Mrs Harley is elderly and although she takes him for a nice, gentle walk to the shops every day he needs more than that, so I do a morning and evening shift, and we walk up One Tree Hill and back down again.’
    He recalled the extinct volcano, one of many that dotted Auckland. High and grass-covered, its terracedslopes revealing its past as a Maori fortress—it reared above the city, an excellent workout for both dog and handler.
    Gerd asked casually, ‘Do you ever think of leaving Auckland?’
    She sent him a startled glance. ‘If I had a good enough reason I would,’ she said after a