The Secret Beneath The Veil

She smelled of his shampoo, he noted, but there was an intriguing underlying scent that was purely hers: green tea and English rain. And that heady scent went directly into his brain, numbing him to everything but thoughts of being inside her.

Women were more subtle than men with their responses, but he read hers as clearly as a billboard. Not just the obvious signs like the way her nipples spiked against the pattern of her see-through bra cups, erotically abrading his chest and provoking thoughts of licking and sucking at them until she squirmed and moaned. A blush stained her cheeks and she licked her lips. There was a bonelessness to her. He could practically feel the way her blood moved through her veins like warm honey. He knew instinctively that opening his mouth against her neck would make her shiver and surrender to him. Her arousal would feed into his and they’d take each other to a new dimension.

Where did that ridiculous notion come from? He was no sappy poet. He tried to shake the idea out of his head, but couldn’t rid himself of the certainty that sex with her would be the best he’d ever known. They were practically catching fire from this light friction. His heart was ramping with strength in his chest, his body magnetized to hers.

He was incensed with her, he reminded himself, but he was also intrigued by this unique attunement they had. Logic told him it was dangerous, but the primitive male inside him didn’t give a damn. He wanted her.

“This is kidnapping. And assault,” she said, giving a little struggle against his grip. “I thought you didn’t hurt women.”

“I don’t let them hurt themselves, either. You’ll kill yourself jumping into the water out here.”

Something flickered in her expression. Her skin was very white compared with her sister’s. How had he not noticed that from the very first, veil notwithstanding?

“Stop behaving like a spoiled child,” he chided.

She swung an affronted look to him like it was the worst possible insult he could level at her. “How about you stop acting like you own the world?”

“This is my world. You walked into it. Don’t complain how I run it.”

“I’m trying to leave it.”

“And I’ll let you.” Something twisted in his gut, as if that was a lie. A big one. “After you fix the damage you’ve done.”

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“Marry me in your sister’s place.”

She made a choking noise and gave another wriggle of protest, heel hooking on the lower rung of the rail as if she thought she could lift herself backward over the rail.

All she managed to do was pin herself higher against him. She stilled. Hectic color deepened in her cheekbones.

He smiled, liking what she’d done. Her movement had opened her legs and brought her cleft up to nestle against his shaft. She’d caught the same zing of sexual excitement that her movement had sent through him. He nudged lightly, more of a tease than a threat, and watched a delicate shiver go through her.

It was utterly enthralling. He could only stare at her parted, quivering mouth. He wanted to cover and claim it. He wanted to drag his tongue over every inch of her. Wanted to push at his elastic waistband, press aside that virginal white lace and thrust into the heat that was branding him through the thin layers between them.

He had expected to spend this week frustrated. Now he began to forgive her for this switch of hers. They would do very nicely together. Very. Nicely.

“Let’s take this back to my stateroom.” His voice emanated from somewhere deep in his chest, thick with the desire that gripped him.

Her eyes flashed with fear before she said tautly, “To consummate a marriage that won’t happen? Did you see how Grigor reacted to me? He’ll never let me sub in for Trina. If anything would make him refuse your merger, marrying me would do it.”

* * *

Mikolas slowly relaxed his grip and stepped back, trailing light fingers over the seams at her hips.

Goose bumps rose all over her, but she ignored it, hoping her knickers weren’t showing the dampness that had released at the feel of him pressed against her.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t even do sex. Kissing and petting were about it.

She dipped to pick up the robe and knotted it with annoyance. How could she be this hot when the wind had cooled to unpleasant and the sky was thickening with clouds?

She sent an anxious look at the ever-shrinking island amid the growing whitecaps. It was way too far to swim. Mikolas might have done her a favor taking her out of Grigor’s reach, but being at sea thinned her composure like it was being spun out from a spool.

“You’re saying if I want Grigor to go through with the merger, I should turn you over to him?” he asked.

“What? No!” Such terror slammed into her, her knees nearly buckled. “Why would you even think of doing something like that?”

“The merger is important to me.”

“My life is important to me.” Tears stung her eyes and she had to blink hard to be able to see him. She had a feeling her lips were trembling. Where was the man who had saved her? Right now, Mikolas looked as conscienceless as Grigor.

Crushed to see that indifference, she hid her distress by averting her gaze and swallowed back the lump in her throat.

“This is nothing,” she said with as much calm as she could, pointing at her face, trying to reach through to the man who had said he didn’t hurt women. “Barely a starting point for him. I’d rather take my chances with the sharks.”

“You already have.” The flatness of his voice sent a fresh quake of uncertainty through her center.

What did it say about how dire her situation was that she was searching for ways to reach him? To persuade this shark to refrain from offering her giftwrapped to the other one?

“If—if—” She wasn’t really going to say this, was she? She briefly hung her head, but what choice did she have? She didn’t have to go all the way, just make it good for him, right? She had a little experience with that. A very tiny little bit. He was hard, which meant he was up for it, right? “If you want sex...”

He made a scoffing noise. “You want sex. I’ll decide if and when I give it to you. There’s no leverage in offering it to me.”

Sex was a basket of hang-ups for her. Offering herself had been really hard. Now she felt cheap and useless.

She pushed her gaze into the horizon, trying to hide how his denigration carved into her hard-won confidence.

“Go below,” he commanded. “I want to make some calls.”

She went because she needed to be away from him, needed to lick her wounds and reassess.

A purser showed her into a spacious cabin with a sitting room, a full en suite and a queen bed with plenty of tasseled pillows in green and gold. The cabinetry was polished to showcase the artistic grains in the amber-colored wood and the room was well-appointed with cosmetics, fresh fruit, champagne and flowers.

Her stomach churned too much to even think of eating, but she briefly considered drinking herself into oblivion. Once she noticed the laptop dock, however, she began looking for a device to contact...whom? Aunt Hildy wasn’t an option. Her workmates might pick up a coffee or cover for her if she had to run home, but that was the extent of favors she could ask of them.

It didn’t matter anyway. There was nothing here. The telephone connected to the galley or the bridge. The television was part of an onboard network that could be controlled by a tablet, but there was no tablet to be found.

At least she came across clothes. Women’s, she noted with a cynical snort. Mikolas must have been planning to keep his own paramour on the side after his marriage.

Everything was in Viveka’s size, however, and it struck her that this was Trina’s trousseau. This was her sister’s suite.

Mikolas hadn’t expected her sister to share his room? Did that make him more hard-hearted than she judged him? Or less?

Men never dominated her thoughts this way. She never let them make her feel self-conscious and second-guess every word that passed between them. This obsession with Mikolas was a horribly susceptible feeling, like he was important to her when he wasn’t.

Except for the fact he held her life in his iron fist.

Thank God she had saved Trina from marrying him. She’d done the right thing taking her sister’s place and didn’t hesitate to make herself at home among her things, weirdly comforted by a sense of closeness to her as she did.

Pulling on a floral wrap skirt and a peasant blouse—both deliberately light and easily removed if she happened to find herself treading water—Viveka had to admit she was relieved Mikolas had stopped her from jumping. She would rather take her chances with sharks than with Grigor, but she didn’t have a death wish. She was trying not to think of her near drowning earlier, but it had scared the hell out of her.

So did the idea of being sent back to Grigor.

Somehow she had to keep a rational head, but after leaving Grigor’s oppression and withstanding Aunt Hildy’s virulence, Viveka couldn’t take being subjugated anymore. That’s why she’d come back to help Trina make her own choices. The idea of her sister living in sufferance as part of a ridiculous business deal had made her furious!

Opening the curtains that hid two short, wide portholes stacked upon each other, she searched the horizon for a plan. At least this wasn’t like that bouncy little craft she’d dreaded. This monstrosity moved more smoothly and quietly than the ferry. It might even take her to Athens.

That would work, she decided. She would ask Mikolas to drop her on the mainland. She would meet up with Trina, Stephanos could arrange for her things to be delivered, and she would find her way home.

This pair of windows was some sort of extension, she realized, noting the cleverly disguised seam between the upper and lower windows. The top would lift into an awning while the bottom pushed out to become the railing on a short balcony. Before she thought it through, her finger was on the button next to the diagram.

The wall began to crack apart while an alarm went off with a horrible honking blare, scaring her into leaping back and swearing aloud.

Atop that shock came the interior door slamming open.

Mikolas had dressed in suit pants and a crisp white shirt and wore a terrible expression.

* * *

“I just wanted to see what it did!” Viveka cried, holding up a staying hand.

What a liability she was turning into.

Mikolas moved to stop and reverse the extension of the balcony while he sensed the engines being cut and the yacht slowing. As the wall restored itself, he picked up the phone and instructed his crew to stay the course.

Hanging up, he folded his arms and told himself this rush of pure, sexual excitement each time he looked at Viveka was transitory. It was the product of a busy few weeks when he hadn’t made time for women combined with his frustration over today’s events. Of course he wanted to let off steam in a very base way.

She delivered a punch simply by standing before him, however. He had to work at keeping his thoughts from conjuring a fantasy of removing that village girl outfit of hers. The wide, drawstring collar where her bra strap peeked was an invitation, the bare calves beneath the hem of her pretty skirt a promise of more silken skin higher up.

Those unpainted toes seemed ridiculously unguarded. So did the rest of her, with her hair tied up like a teenager and her face clean.

Some women used makeup as war paint, others as an invitation. Viveka hadn’t used any. She hadn’t tried to cover the bruise, and lifted that discolored, belligerent chin of hers in a brave stare that was utterly foolish. She had no idea whom she was dealing with.

Yet something twisted in his chest. He found her nerve entirely too compelling. He wanted to feed that spark of energy and watch it detonate in his hands. He bet she scratched in bed and was dismayingly eager to find out.

Women were never a weakness for him. No one was. Nothing. Weakness was abhorrent to him. Helplessness was a place he refused to revisit.

“We’ll eat.” He swept a hand to where the door was still open and one of the porters hovered.

He sent the man to notify the chef and steered her to the upper aft deck. The curved bench seat allowed them to slide in from either side, shifting cushions until they met in the middle, where they looked out over the water. Here the wind was gentled by the bulk of the vessel. It was early spring so the sun was already setting behind the clouds on the horizon.

She cast a vexed look toward the view. He took it as annoyance that the island was long gone behind them and privately smirked, then realized she was doing it again: pulling all his focus and provoking a reaction in him.

He forced his attention to the porter as he arrived with place settings and water.

“You’ll eat seafood?” he said to Viveka as the porter left.

“If you tell me to, of course I will.”

A rush of anticipation for the fight went through him. “Save your breath,” he told her. “I don’t shame.”

“How does someone influence you, then? Money?” She affected a lofty tone, but quit fiddling with her silverware and tucked her hands in her lap, turning her head to read him. “Because I would like to go to Athens—as opposed to wherever you think you’re taking me.”

“I have money,” he informed, skipping over what he intended to do next because he was still deciding.

He stretched out his arms so his left hand, no longer wearing the ring she’d put on it, settled behind her shoulder. He’d put the ring in his pocket along with the ones she had worn. Her returning them surprised him. She must have known what they were worth. Why wasn’t she trying to use them as leverage? Not that it would work, but he expected a woman in her position to at least try.

He dismissed that puzzle and returned to her question. “If someone wants to influence me, they offer something I want.”

“And since I don’t have anything you want...?” Little flags of color rose on her cheekbones and she stared out to sea.

He almost smiled, but the tightness of her expression caused him to sober. Had he hurt her with his rejection earlier? He’d been brutal because he wasn’t a novice. You didn’t enter into any transaction wearing your desires on your sleeve the way she did.

But how could she not be aware that she was something he wanted? Did she not feel the same pull he was experiencing?

How did she keep undermining his thoughts this way?

As an opponent she was barely worth noticing. A brief online search had revealed she had no fortune, no influence. Her job was a pedestrian position as data entry clerk for an auto parts chain. Her network of social media contacts was small, which suggested an even smaller circle of real friends.

Mikolas’s instinct when attacked was to crush. If Grigor had switched his bride on purpose, he would already be ruined. Mikolas didn’t lose to anyone, especially weak adversaries who weren’t even big enough to appear on his radar.

Yet Viveka had slipped in like a ninja, taking him unawares. On the face of it, that made her his enemy. He had to treat her with exactly as much detachment as he would any other foe.

But this twist of hunger in his gut demanded an answering response from her. It wasn’t just ego. It was craving. A weight on a scale that demanded an equal weight on the other side to balance it out.

The porter returned, poured their wine, and they both sipped. When they were alone again, Mikolas said, “You were right. Grigor wants you.”

Viveka paled beneath her already stiff expression. “And you want the merger.”

“My grandfather does. I have promised to complete it for him.”

She bit her bottom lip so mercilessly it disappeared. “Why?” she demanded. “I mean, why is this merger so important to him?”

“Why does it matter?” he countered.

“Well, what is it you’re really trying to accomplish? Surely there are other companies that could give you what you want. Why does it have to be Grigor’s?”

She might be impulsive and a complete pain in the backside, but she was perceptive. It didn’t have to be Grigor’s company. He was fully aware of that. However.

“Finding another suitable company would take time we don’t have.”

“A man with your riches can’t buy as much as he needs?” she asked with an ingenuous blink.

She was a like a baby who insisted on trying to catch the tiger’s tail and stuff it in her mouth. Not stupid, but cheerfully ignorant of the true danger she was in. He couldn’t afford to be lenient.

“My grandfather is ill. I had to call him to tell him the merger has been delayed. That was disappointment he didn’t need.”

She almost threw an askance look at him, but seemed to read his expression and sobered, getting the message that beneath his civilized exterior lurked a heartless mercenary.

Not that he enjoyed scaring her. He usually treated women like delicate flowers. After sleeping in cold alleys that stank of urine, after being tortured at the hands of degenerate, pitiless men, he’d developed an insatiable appetite for luxury and warmth and the sweet side of life. He especially enjoyed soft kittens who liked to be stroked until they purred next to him in bed.

But if a woman dared to cross him, as with any man, he ensured she understood her mistake and would never dream of doing so again.

“I owe my grandfather a great deal.” He waved at their surroundings. “This.”

“I presumed it was stolen,” she said with a haughty toss of her head.

“No.” He was as blunt as a mallet. “The money was made from smuggling profits, but the boat was purchased legally.”

She snapped her head around.

He shrugged, not apologizing for what he came from. “For decades, if something crossed the border or the seas for a thousand miles, legal or illegal, my grandfather—and my father when he was alive—received a cut.”

He had her attention. She wasn’t saucy now. She was wary. Wondering why he was telling her this.

“Desperate men do desperate things. I know this because I was quite desperate when I began trading on my father’s name to survive the streets of Athens.”

Their chilled soup arrived. He was hungry, but neither of them moved to pick up their spoons.

“Why were you on the streets?”

“My mother died. Heart failure, or so I was told. I was sent to an orphanage. I hated it.” It had been a palace, in retrospect, but he didn’t think about that. “I ran away. My mother had told me my father’s name. I knew what he was reputed to be. The way my mother had talked, as if his enemies would hunt me down and use me against him if they found me... I thought she was trying to scare me into staying out of trouble. I didn’t,” he confided drily. “Boys of twelve are not known for their good judgment.”

He smoothed his eyebrow where a scar was barely visible, but he could still feel where the tip of a blade had dragged very deliberately across it, opening the skin while a threat of worse—losing his eye—was voiced.

“I watched and learned from other street gangs and mostly stuck to robbing criminals because they don’t go to the police. As long as I was faster and smarter, I survived. Threatening my father’s wrath worked well in the beginning, but without a television or computer, I missed the news that he had been stabbed. I was caught in my lie.”

Her eyes widened. “What happened?”

“As my mother had warned me, my father’s enemies showed great interest. They asked me for information I didn’t have.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered, gaze fixed to his so tightly all he could see was blue. “Like...?”

“Torture. Yes. My father was known to have stockpiled everything from electronics to drugs to cash. But if I had known where any of it was kept, I would have helped myself, wouldn’t I? Rather than trying to steal from them? They took their time believing that.” He pretended the recollection didn’t coat him in cold sweat.

“Oh, my God.” She sat back, fingertips covering her faint words, gaze flickering over her shoulder to where his left hand was still behind her.

Ah. She’d noticed his fingernail.

He brought his hand between them, flexed its stiffness into a fist, then splayed it.

“These two fingernails.” He pointed, affecting their removal as casual news. “Several bones broken, but it works well enough after several surgeries. I’m naturally left-handed so that was a nuisance, but I’m quite capable with both now, so...”

“Silver lining?” she huffed, voice strained with disbelief. “How did you get away?”

“They weren’t getting anywhere with questioning me and hit upon the idea of asking my grandfather to pay a ransom. He had no knowledge of a grandson, though. He was slow to act. He was grieving. Not pleased to have some pile of dung attempting to benefit off his son’s name. I had no proof of my claim. My mother was one of many for my father. That was why she left him.”

He shrugged. Female companionship had never been a problem for any of the Petrides men. They were good-looking and powerful and money was seductive. Women found them.

“Pappoús could have done many things, not least of which was let them finish killing me. He asked for blood tests before he paid the ransom. When I proved to be his son’s bastard, he made me his heir. I suddenly had a clean, dry bed, ample food.” He nodded at the beautiful concoction before them: a shallow chowder of corn and buttermilk topped with fat, pink prawns and chopped herbs. “I had anything I wanted. A motorcycle in summer, ski trips in winter. Clothes that were tailored to fit my body in any style or color I asked. Gadgets. A yacht. Anything.”

He’d also received a disparate education, tutored by his grandfather’s accountant in finance. His real estate and investment licenses were more purchased than earned, but he had eventually mastered the skills to benefit from such transactions. Along the way he had developed a talent for managing people, learning by observing his grandfather’s methods. Nowadays they had fully qualified, authentically trained staff to handle every matter. Arm-twisting, even the emotional kind he was utilizing right now, was a retired tactic.

But it was useful in this instance. Viveka needed to understand the bigger picture.

Like his grandfather, he needed a test.

“In return for his generosity, I have dedicated myself to ensuring my grandfather’s empire operates on the right side of the law. We’re mostly there. This merger is a final step. I have committed to making it happen before his health fails him. You can see why I feel I owe him this.”

“Why are you being so frank with me?” Her brow crinkled. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll repeat any of this?”

“No.” Much of it was online, if only as legend and conjecture. While Mikolas had pulled many dodgy stunts like mergers that resembled money laundering, he’d never committed actual crimes.

That wasn’t why he was so confident, however.

He held her gaze and waited, watching comprehension solidify as she read his expression. She would not betray him, he telegraphed. Ever.

Her lashes quivered and he watched her swallow.

Fear was beginning to take hold in her. He told himself that was good and ignored the churn of self-contempt in his belly. He wasn’t like the men who had tormented him.

But he wasn’t that different. Not when he casually picked up his wineglass and mentioned, “I should tell you. Grigor is looking for your sister. You could save yourself by telling him where to find her.”

“No!” The word was torn out of her, the look on her face deeply anxious, but not conflicted. “Maybe he never hit her before, but it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t start now. And this?” She waved at the table and yacht. “She had these trappings all her life and would have given up all of it for a kind word. At least I had memories of our mother. She didn’t even have me, thanks to him. So no. I would rather go back to Grigor than sell her out to him.”