The Secret That Can't Be Hidden (Rich, Ruthless & Greek, Book 1)

by Caitlin Crews

  Kendra knew her mother expected her to do as she had done. Marry to consolidate assets, then live a life of leisure as a reward that she could make meaningful in whatever way suited her. Charities. Foundations. If she wanted, she could even hare off to the Continent like her black sheep of a great-aunt and “forget” to come home again.

  If she thought about it that way, Kendra supposed becoming a mistress to a man like Balthazar Skalas would be much the same thing, if of shorter duration.

  The reward was the point, not the relationship.

  No one seemed to care that Kendra wanted to make her own reward.

  The elevator rose so fast the leaden ball that was her stomach stayed behind, buried beneath the ground. She saw a security camera with its red light blinking at her from one corner and was happy that it was there. It reminded her to remain composed. She was here for a business meeting, in sensible heels with her pencil skirt and a dark, silky blouse that made her feel like the vice president of the family business that she intended to become one day.

  I do not look like a secretary, she told herself, eyeing her reflection.

  But she also did not look like a woman auditioning to be the mistress of a man like Balthazar Skalas.

  A man she kept assuring herself would not remember her. He must attend a thousand parties, and if that flash of heat that sometimes woke her in the night was any guide, affected at least a thousand women in precisely the same way.

  As she watched, her cheeks grew red.

  It didn’t matter what her father or Tommy said, because she was the one who had to do this thing. And she had to believe that a cool, measured approach, neither denying Tommy’s transgressions nor attempting to find a better side to a man who she already knew had only hard edges, was a reasonable course of action.

  Unless he remembers you, a treacherous voice inside her whispered.

  When the elevator doors opened again, she walked out briskly. And if she’d been in any doubt as to where she was, the lobby she found herself in reminded her. It was all sleek marble with the company name etched into stone. Skalas & Sons. Almost as if theirs was a quaint little family enterprise, when, in fact, the late Demetrius Skalas had been the richest man on earth at one time.

  When he died, his two sons had taken the reins of the multinational corporation that sprawled about into different industries. Everyone had predicted they would run the business into the ground. Instead, the two of them had doubled their father’s wealth within the first two years of their ownership. Each one of them was now far richer than their father had ever been.

  Something no article she’d ever read about the Skalas family—and she’d read them all—failed to trumpet.

  Balthazar was the eldest son. He split his time between the company’s headquarters in Athens and important satellite offices like this one and was considered the more serious of the two brothers. Constantine was the flashier of the two, thanks to his penchant for race cars and models, and he spent more time in the London office.

  The rumor was they detested each other.

  But neither Skalas brother ever responded to rumors about their personal lives.

  Kendra had expected the office to be empty as it was coming up on eight o’clock that night—the only time the great Balthazar had found in his tightly packed schedule. Instead, she could hear the hum of activity, and as she walked toward the reception area, could see people hurrying back and forth as if it was eight in the morning.

  The woman waiting behind the reception desk offered a perfunctory smile. “Ms. Connolly, I trust?” When Kendra nodded, because she seemed to have lost her voice somewhere on the trip from her car, the woman pressed a few buttons. “Mr. Skalas is on a call, but will be with you shortly.”

  She stood and led Kendra through the great glass doors behind her desk into the rest of the office. Then walked briskly on heels that were not the least bit sensible, making it look as if she was gliding on air.

  It made Kendra instantly feel inadequate.

  Still, there was nothing to do but follow the woman where she led. Instead of turning toward the noise and people, the receptionist took her in the other direction. Where there was only a long, gleaming, marble hallway with one side dedicated to an art collection so fine it made Kendra’s head spin. On the other side, floor-to-ceiling windows showed Manhattan laid out at her feet. She couldn’t help but feel as if she was walking along the ramparts of an ancient castle, forced to sacrifice herself before a terrible king for the good of her village—

  But imagining that she was in the Dark Ages didn’t make this any better.

  At the end of the hall the receptionist led her into another room, this one clearly also a waiting area, but far more elegant. And hushed.

  “This is Mr. Skalas’s private waiting area,” the woman told her. “Please make yourself comfortable. If you require assistance, you may step across the hall, where the secretarial staff will be happy to help in any way they can.”

  Then she was gone.

  Leaving Kendra alone with her mounting panic.

  She couldn’t bear to sit, afraid she might come out of her own skin. She stood and stared out the windows instead.

  “There’s nothing to fear,” she told herself firmly, if under her breath. “He won’t remember anything about you.”

  The real trouble was that she remembered all too well.

  She didn’t recall what charity event her mother had used as an excuse that summer. Kendra had only just graduated from Mount Holyoke, certain it would be a matter of months before she could take her rightful place in the family company. She’d figured it was her job, then, to act the part of the businessperson she intended to become. She might not have taken naturally to the world of business—far preferring a good book and a quiet place to read it to the endless rounds of deals and drinks and men in their golf togs—but who ever said life was about what felt good? Surely it was about what a person did, not what they dreamed about. Accordingly, she’d been putting herself out there. She might not have felt sparkling and effervescent, the way her mother always told her she ought to, but she could pretend.

  And so she had, waving a cocktail around as she’d laughed and mingled and exhausted herself so thoroughly that after dinner, she’d sneaked off for a few moments’ break. The dancing was about to begin beneath the grand tent that sprawled over the part of her parents’ lawn that offered the best views of Long Island Sound.

  She paid no mind to the distraught woman who passed her in a rush of tears and silk on the trellis path that led to her favorite gazebo, set up above the rocky shoreline. It was a pretty evening and the air was warm with scents of salt, grass, and flowers. She could hear the band playing behind her as she walked, and she welcomed the dim light of the evenly spaced lanterns along her way because they were far less intrusive than the brightness inside the tent. She could drop her smile. She could breathe.

  It was only when she climbed the steps to the gazebo that she saw him standing against the far rail, almost lost in the shadows.

  And then wondered how she could possibly not have felt his presence, so intense was he. The punch of him.

  Kendra had felt winded.

  He wore a dark suit that should have made him indistinguishable from every other man at that party. But instead she found herself stunned by the width of his shoulders, his offhanded athletic grace. His mouth was a stern line, his eyes deep set and thunderous. His hair was thick and dark and looked as if he had been running his fingers through it—though it occurred to her, with a jolt, that it had probably not been his fingers.

  It had been a clear, bright evening, but she suddenly felt as if a summer storm had rolled in off the Sound. As if the clouds were thick and low. Threatening.

  And all he did was lift a brow, arrogant and ruthless at once. “I don’t believe I sent for a replacement.”

  It had made no
sense. Later, she would tell herself it was something about the way he’d gazed at her as if he’d brought her into being. She’d never seen anything like it before. All that fire. All that warning. And other things she couldn’t define.

  He’d lifted two fingers and beckoned her near.

  It hadn’t occurred to her to disobey. Kendra drifted closer, aware of herself in a way she never had been before. Her breasts felt thick and heavy in the bodice of her dress when she usually forgot they were there. Her thighs seemed to brush against each other, rich whispers. And between her legs, she felt herself heat, then melt.

  But this spellbinding man gazed at her in stark command, and she could do nothing at all but go to him.

  “So eager,” he murmured when she drew near.

  Kendra hadn’t known what that meant, either. His words didn’t make any sense, and yet the sound of them soared inside of her. She felt as if she was a fluttering, desperate, small thing that he could easily hold in the palm of his hand—

  Then he did.

  He wrapped a hand around the nape of her neck and hauled her those last few, thrilling inches toward him. She found her hands on his chest and the sheer heat of him seemed to wallop her, making her knees go weak.

  “Very well,” he’d said. “You’ll do.”

  Then he’d set his mouth to her neck.

  And Kendra had died.

  There was no other explanation for what happened to her. His mouth against her skin, toying with her, tasting her. She felt her mouth open wide as if on a silent scream, but all she did was let her head fall back in delicious, delirious surrender.

  The hand that gripped her neck dropped like a band of steel around her hips, drawing her even harder against him.

  It was too much. She could hear the sound of the party in the distance, laughter and the clinking of glasses, but she was on fire.

  And then she felt his hand move beneath the hem of her dress, volcanic and impossible.

  She didn’t like to remember any of this. It had been three years and it was as if it had only just happened. She could feel everything as if it was happening now, high above Manhattan with her hands pressed to the glass that was all that separated her from stepping out into air.

  A fall that seemed tame in comparison to Balthazar Skalas in a darkened gazebo on a summer night.

  She had opened her mouth again, that time to stop the madness—or so she liked to tell herself now—but nothing came out. His mouth continued to toy with her skin, chasing fire along her clavicle and sucking gently on the pulse at the base of her neck.

  And meanwhile, his hand, huge and utterly without hesitation, skimmed its way up the inside of one thigh to the edge of her panties. Then, before she could even find the words to protest—or encourage him, more like—he stroked his way beneath.

  Her whole life, Kendra had considered herself remarkably self-possessed. It came from being raised like an only child, so much younger was she than her brother. Always in the company of adults. Always expected to act far older than she was. Her friends in boarding school and college had always allowed impetuousness to lead them down questionable roads, but never Kendra. Never.

  But that night, none of that mattered.

  Because Balthazar stroked his way into her melting heat, and Kendra...disappeared.

  There was only that strong arm at her back, his mouth on her neck, his fingers between her legs as he played with her. He murmured something she didn’t understand, rough and low against the tender skin in the crook of her neck, that only later it would occur to her was likely Greek.

  But she didn’t have to understand the words to know that whatever he said, it was filthy.

  It had shot through her like a lightning bolt.

  She’d made a noise then, a sob, and he’d growled something in reply. And then he’d pinched her. Not hard, but not gently, either. That proud little peak that already throbbed—

  Kendra had bucked against him, lost and wild and heaving out another kind of sob, high-pitched and keening.

  How had the whole of the East Coast not heard her?

  When she finally stopped shaking, she’d found him staring down at her, a kind of thunder on that face of his, so harsh that it was almost sensual. Brutally masculine and connected, somehow, to all the places where she’d still quivered. To where his hand still cupped her, so that all her molten heat was flooding his hand.

  A notion that made another shudder rip through her.

  “You are surprising,” he’d said, rough and low. “I am not usually surprised. Come.”

  He’d pulled his hand from her panties, and she’d thought that harsh line of his mouth almost curved when she’d swayed, unable to stand on her own once he released her.

  “Come?” she repeated.

  “You’re more of a meal than a snack,” he had told her then, too much heat in his dark gaze. “And I prefer to savor my meals. I have a house not far from here.”

  Reality had reasserted itself with a sickening thud. What on earth did she think she was doing?

  A question she still couldn’t answer, three years later.

  The back of her neck prickled then. She sucked in a breath as she turned, then froze.

  It was as if she’d summoned him. He stood in a door she hadn’t known was there, that must have opened soundlessly, because she had no idea how long he had been watching her.

  He was just as she remembered. Balthazar Skalas, the devil himself, his deep dark eyes alive with mockery and that cruel twist to his mouth.

  And she could tell, instantly, that he remembered her perfectly.

  “Kendra Connolly,” he said, as if he was tasting her name. His dark eyes glittered and she felt it. Everywhere. “Your brazenness is astonishing, truly. Have you finally come to finish what you started?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  BALTHAZAR SKALAS DETESTED the Connolly family.

  He had long despised Thomas Connolly, who considered himself far more charismatic than he was and acted as if that supposed charisma made him a force to be reckoned with. When the only thing it had truly made him was appealing to the vulnerable and therefore a sworn enemy to Balthazar and his brother. His son had always been useless at best and otherwise wholly laughable.

  Balthazar had been waiting for the time to deal with the elder Connolly for years. He might have forgiven the younger’s nonsense—or at least ignored it, the way he did all things beneath his notice—had foolish Tommy Connolly not believed he could steal from Balthazar with impunity.

  In the grand scheme of things, overcharging Skalas & Sons and pocketing the difference mattered little to Balthazar. It was the principle that offended him. It was the noxious Tommy Connolly’s clear belief that he could cheat Balthazar that he could not allow.

  Still, he could admit that sending the daughter to handle her family’s sins was an inspired choice. He would have refused to see the father or the son.

  “I was certain my secretarial staff was mistaken when they told me you kept calling.” He watched her closely as she stood there, framed by the gleaming city behind her, yet seeming to glow the brighter. “Begging for an appointment when, last I saw you, you were far more interested in running away.”

  Kendra had fooled him back then, when no one fooled him. Him. And in the privacy of his own mind, he could admit that it had been more than her brother’s theft that had made him detest her family. That her brother’s behavior had merely confirmed what he had already concluded. Because of that night long ago, with her.

  Balthazar was not accustomed to wanting things he could not have.

  Instantly.

  “I’m here on behalf of my family,” Kendra Connolly said, her voice cool. Something like professional, when he could see the heat he remembered on her cheeks and in her gleaming, golden eyes.

  A liar, then. He should not have felt even the
faintest inkling of surprise.

  Much less something that veered a little too close to disappointment for his taste.

  “They consider you the most appropriate weapon, do they?” he asked smoothly. “I think your family is misreading this situation.”

  She blinked at that, but didn’t collapse. Or shrink in on herself. Both reactions he’d seen in puffed-up male CEOs who stood before him and risked his displeasure.

  Unlike them, Kendra...bothered him. Balthazar could remember too well the heat of her in his hand—though he still couldn’t understand why she should affect him so. When women blurred in his recollection, becoming one grand and glorious smear of sensation and release. Yet he could recall her taste in his mouth. The silk of her skin.

  The way she’d come fully in his grip.

  To say that Balthazar resented that was a vast understatement.

  “I appreciate you seeing me,” Kendra said in the same collected way, folding her hands before her in a manner that might have seemed polite and calm had he not also seen the evidence that she was gripping her own fingers much too hard. Why did he find that...soothing? “I’m not here to excuse my brother’s actions.”

  “I should hope not. He stole. From me. And worse still, believed that he could get away with it.” He smiled. Thinly. “It is the arrogance I cannot abide.”

  He had tasted that pulse in her neck. Perhaps that was why he could not seem to look away from it now. Particularly not when he could see how hard and wild it beat.

  He blamed her for that, too.

  “I don’t expect you to forgive him. Or even think kindly on him. Why would you?”

  “Why, indeed?”

  “What I’m hoping is that you and I can come to some kind of agreement. If there’s a way that I might convince you that notifying the authorities isn’t necessary, I would love to find it.”

  Balthazar laughed at that, though there was little mirth in it. He pushed himself away from the doorjamb and made his way into his actual office, a sprawling affair that shouted out his wealth and consequence from every possible angle. There were walls of glass on two sides, making it seem as if they floated over Manhattan. Steel and granite everywhere, gleaming as much with quiet menace as with wealth.