The Secret Beneath the Veil

by Dani Collins

  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.”

  She spoke with brave vehemence, but her eyes grew wet. It wasn’t bravado. It was loyalty that would cost her, but she was willing to pay the price.

  “I believe you,” he pressed with quiet lack of mercy. “That Grigor would resort to violence. The way he spoke when I returned his call—” Mikolas considered himself immune to rabid foaming at the mouth. He knew firsthand how depraved a man could act, but the bloodlust in Grigor’s voice had been disturbing. Familiar in a grim, dark way.

  And educational. Grigor wasn’t upset that his daughter was missing. He was upset the merger had been delayed. He was taking Viveka’s involvement very personally and despite all his posturing and hard-nosed negotiating in the lead-up, he was revealing impatience for the merger to complete.

  That told Mikolas his very thorough research prior to starting down this road with Grigor may have missed something. It wasn’t a complete surprise that Grigor had kept something up his sleeve. Mikolas had chosen Grigor because he hadn’t been fastidious about partnering with the Petrides name. Perhaps Grigor had thought the sacrifice to his reputation meant he could withhold certain debts or other liabilities.

  It could turn out that Viveka had done Mikolas a favor, giving him this opportunity to review everything one final time before closing. He could, in fact, gain more than he’d lost.

  Either way, Grigor’s determination to reach new terms and sign quickly put all the power back in Mikolas’s court, exactly where he was most comfortable having it.

  Now he would establish that same position with Viveka and his world would be set right.

  “Even if he finds her, what can he do to her?” she was murmuring, linking her hands together, nail beds white. “She’s married to Stephanos. His boss works for a man who owns news outlets. Big ones. Running her to ground would accomplish nothing. No, she’s safe.” She seemed to be reassuring herself.

  “What about you?” He was surprised she wasn’t thinking of herself. “He sounded like he would hunt you down no matter where you tried to hide.” It was the dead-honest truth.

  Dead.

  Honest.

  “So you might as well turn me over and save him the trouble? And close your precious deal with the devil?” So much fire and resentment sparked off her it was fascinating.

  “This deal is important to me. Grigor knows Pappoús is unwell, that I’m reluctant to look for another option. He wants me to hand you over, close the deal and walk away with what I want—which is to give my grandfather what he wants.”

  “And what I want doesn’t matter.” She was afraid, he could see it, but she refused to let it overtake her. He had to admire that.

  “You got what you wanted,” he pointed out. “Your sister is safe from my evil clutches.”

  “Good,” she insisted, but her mouth quivered before she clamped it into a line. One tiny tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.

  Poor, steadfast little kitten.

  But that depth of loyalty pleased him. She was passing her test.

  He reached out to stroke her hair even though it only made her flinch and flash a look of hatred at him.

  “Are you enjoying terrorizing me?”

  “Please,” he scoffed, taking up his glass of wine to swirl and sip, cooling a mouth that was burning with anticipation as he finalized his decision. “I’m treating you like a Fabergé egg.”

  He ignored the release of tension inside him as what he really wanted moved closer to his grasp.

  “Grigor makes an ugly enemy. You understand why I don’t want to make him into one of mine,” he said.

  “Is it starting to grate on your conscience?” she charged. “That he’ll beat me to a pulp and throw me into the nearest body of water? I thought you didn’t shame.”

  “I don’t. But I need you to see very clearly that the action I’m taking comes at a cost. Which you will repay. I will not be leaving you in Athens, Viveka. You are staying with me.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  VIVEKA’S VISION GREW grainy and colorless for a moment. She thought she might pass out, which was not like her at all. She was tough as nails, not given to fainting spells like a Victorian maiden.

  She had been subtly hyperventilating this whole time Mikolas had been tying his noose around her neck. Now she’d stopped breathing altogether.

  Had she heard him right?

  He looked like a god, his neat wedding haircut finger-combed to the side, his mouth symmetrical and unwavering after smiting her with his words. His gray eyes were impassive. Just the facts.

  “But—” she started to argue, wanting to bring up Aunt Hildy.

  He shook his head. “We’re not bargaining. Actions have consequences. These are yours.”

  “You,” she choked, trying to grasp what he was saying. “You are my consequence?”

  “It’s me or Grigor. I’ve already told you that I won’t allow you to hurt yourself, so yes. I have chosen your consequence. We should eat. Before it gets warm,” he said with a whimsical levity that struck her as bizarre in the middle of this intense, life-altering conversation.

  He picked up his spoon, but she only stared at him. Her fingers were icicles, stiff and frozen. All of her muscles had atrophied while her heart was racing. Her mind stumbled around in the last glimmers of the bleeding sun.

  “I have a life in London,” she managed. “Things to do.”

  “I’m sure Grigor knows that and has men waiting.”

  Her panicked mind sprang to Aunt Hildy, but she was out of harm’s reach for the moment. Still, “Mikolas—”

  “Think, Viveka. Think hard.”

  She was trying to. She had been searching for alternatives this whole time.

  “So you’re abandoning the merger?” She hated the way her voice became puny and confused.

  “Not at all. But the terms have changed.” He was making short work of his soup and waved his spoon. “With your sister as my wife, Grigor would have had considerable influence over me and our combined organization. I was prepared to let him control his side for up to five years and pay him handsomely for his trouble. Now the takeover becomes hostile and I will push him out, take control of everything and leave him very little. I expect he’ll be even more angry with you.”

  “Then don’t be so ruthless! Why aggravate him further?”

  His answer was a gentle nudge of his bent knuckle under her chin, thumb brushing the tender place at the corner of her mouth.

  “He left a mark on my mistress. He needs to be punished.”

  Her heart stopped. She jerked back. “Mistress!”

  “You thought I was keeping you out of the goodness of my heart?”

  Her vision did that wobble again, fading in and out. “You said you didn’t want sex.” Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

  “I said I would decide if and when I gave it to you. I have decided. Are you not going to eat those?” He had switched to his fork to eat his prawns and now stabbed one from her bowl, hungrily snapping it between his teeth, but his gaze was watchful when it swung up to hers.

  “I’m not having sex with you!”

  “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “
You did,” she pointed out tartly, wishing she was one of those women who could be casual about sex. She’d been anxious from the get-go, which was probably why it had turned into this massive issue for her. “I’m not something you can buy like a luxury boat with your ill-gotten gains,” she pointed out.

  “I haven’t purchased you.” He gave her a frown of insult. “I’ve earned your loyalty the same way my grandfather earned mine, by saving your life. You will show your gratitude by being whatever I need you to be, wherever I need you to be.”

  “I’m not going to be that! If I understand you correctly, you want to live within the law. Well, pro tip, forcing women to have sex is against the law.”

  “Sex will be a fringe benefit for both of us.” He was flinty in the face of her sarcasm. “I won’t force you and I won’t have to.”

  “Keep. Dreaming,” she declared.

  His fork clattered into his empty bowl and he shifted to face her, one arm behind her, one on the table, bracketing her into a space that enveloped her in masculine energy.

  She could have skittered out the far side of the bench, but she held her ground, trying to stare him down.

  His gaze fell to her mouth, causing her abdominals to tighten and tremble.

  “You’re not thinking about it? Wondering? Dreaming,” he mocked in a voice that jarred because he did not sound angry. He sounded amused and knowing. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  His hand shifted to cup her neck. The caress of his thumb into the hollow at the base of her throat unnerved her. If he’d been forceful, she would have reacted with a slap, but this felt almost tender. She trusted this hand. It had dragged her up to the surface of the water, giving her life.

  So she didn’t knock that hand away. She didn’t hit him in the face as he neared, or pull away to say a hard No.

  Somehow she got it into her head she would prove he didn’t affect her. Maybe she even thought she could return to him that rejection he’d delivered earlier.

  Maybe she really did want to know how it would be with him.

  Whatever the perverse impulse that possessed her, she sat there and let him draw closer, keeping her mouth set and her gaze as contemptuous as she could make it.

  Until his lips touched hers.

  If she had expected brutality, she was disappointed. But he wasn’t gentle, either.

  His hold firmed on her neck as he plundered without hesitation, opening his mouth over hers in a hot, wet branding that caused a burn to explode within her. His tongue stabbed and her lips parted. Delicious swirls of pleasure invaded her belly and lower. Her eyes fluttered closed so she could fully absorb the sensations.

  She had wondered. Intrigue had held her still for this kiss and she moaned as she basked in it, bones dissolving, muscles weakening.

  He kissed her harder, dismantling her attempt to remain detached in a few short, racing heartbeats. He dragged his lips across hers in an erotic crush, the rough-soft texture of his lips like silken velvet.

  All her senses came alive to the heat of his chest, the woodsy spice scent on his skin, the salt flavor on his tongue. Her skin grew so sensitized it was painful. She felt vulnerable with longing.

  She splayed her free hand against his chest and released a sob of capitulation, no longer just accepting. Participating. Exploring the texture of his tongue, trying to compete with his aggression and consume him with equal fervor.

  He pulled back abruptly, the loss of his kiss a cruelty that left her dangling in midair, naked and exposed. His chest moved with harsh breaths that seemed triumphant. The glitter in his eye was superior, asserting that he would decide if and when.

  “No force necessary,” he said with satisfaction deepening the corners of his mouth.

  This was how it had been for her mother, Viveka realized with a crash back to reality. Twenty years ago, Grigor had been handsome and virile, provoking infatuation in a lonely widow. Viveka’s earliest memories of being in his house had been ones of walking in on intimate clinches, quickly told to make herself scarce.

  As Viveka had matured, she had recognized a similar yearning in herself for a man’s loving attention. She understood how desire had been the first means that Grigor had used to control his wife, before encumbering her with a second child, then ultimately showing his ugliest colors to keep her in line.

  Sex was a dangerous force that could push a woman down a slippery slope. That was what Viveka had come to believe.

  It was doubly perilous when the man in question was so clearly not impacted by their kiss the way she was. Mikolas’s indifference hurt, inflicting a loneliness on her that matched those moments in her life that had nearly broken her: losing her mother, being banished from her sister to an aunt who should have loved her, but hadn’t.

  She had to look away to hide her anguish.

  The porter arrived to bring out the next course.

  Mikolas didn’t even look up from his plate as he said, “What is the name of the man who has your things? I would like to retrieve your passport before Grigor realizes it’s under his nose.”

  * * *

  Viveka needed to tell him about Aunt Hildy, but didn’t trust her voice.

  Mikolas said little else through the rest of their meal, only admonishing her to eat, stating at the end of it, “I want to finish the takeover arrangements. You have free run of the yacht unless you show me you need to be confined to your room.”

  “You seriously think I’ll let you keep me like some kind of pirate’s doxy?”

  “Since I’m about to stage a raid and appoint myself admiral of Grigor’s corporate fleet, I can’t deny that label, can I? You call yourself whatever you want.”

  She glared at his back as he walked away.

  He left her to her own devices and there must have been something wrong with her because, despite hating Mikolas for his overabundance of confidence, she was viciously glad he was running Grigor through.

  At no point should she consider Mikolas her hero, she cautioned herself. She should have known there’d be a cost to his saving her life. She flashed back to Grigor calling her useless baggage. To Hildy telling her to earn her keep.

  She wasn’t even finished repaying Hildy! That hardly put her in a position to show “gratitude” to Mikolas, did it?

  Oh, she hated when people thought of her as some sort of nuisance. This was why she had been looking forward to settling Hildy and striking out on her own. She could finally prove to herself and the world that she carried her own weight. She was not a lodestone. She wasn’t.

  A rabbit hole of self-pity beckoned. She avoided it by getting her bearings aboard the aptly named Inferno. The top deck was chilly and dark, the early night sky spitting rain into her face as the wind came up. The hot tub looked appealing, steaming and glowing with colored underwater lights. When the porter appeared with towels and a robe, inviting her to use the nearby change room, she was tempted, but explained she was just looking around.

  He proceeded to give her a guided tour through the rest of the ship. She didn’t know what the official definition for “ship” was, but this behemoth had to qualify. The upper deck held the bridge along with an outdoor bar and lounge at the stern. A spiral staircase in the middle took them down to the interior of the main deck. Along with Mikolas’s stateroom and her own, there was a formal dining room for twelve, an elegant lounge with a big-screen television and a baby grand piano. Outside, there was a small lifeboat in the bow, in front of Mikolas’s private sundeck, and a huge sunbathing area alongside a pool in the stern.

  The extravagance should have filled her with contempt, but instead she was calmed by it, able to pretend this wasn’t a boat. It was a seaside hotel. One that happened to be priced well beyond her reach, but whatever.

  It wasn’t as easy to pretend on the lower deck, which was mostly galley, engine room, less extravag
ant guest and crew quarters. And, oh, yes, another boat, this one a sexy speedboat parked in an internal compartment of the stern.

  Her long journey to get to Trina caught up to her at that point. She’d left London the night before and hadn’t slept much while traveling. She went back to her suite and changed into a comfortable pair of pajamas—ridiculously pretty ones in peacock-blue silk. Champagne-colored lace edged the bodice and tickled the tops of her bare feet, adding to the feeling of luxuriating in pure femininity.

  She hadn’t won a prize holiday, she reminded herself, trying not to be affected by all this lavish comfort. A gilded cage was still a prison and she would not succumb to Mikolas’s blithe expectation that he could “keep” her. He certainly would not seduce her with his riches and pampering.

  I won’t force you and I won’t have to.

  She flushed anew, recalling their kiss as she curled up on the end of the love seat rather than crawl into bed. She wanted to be awake if he arrived expecting sex. When it came to making love, she was more about fantasy than reality, going only so far with the few men she’d dated. That kiss with Mikolas had shaken her as much as everything else that had happened today.

  Better to think about that than her near-drowning, though.

  Her thoughts turned for the millionth time to her mother’s last moments. Somehow she began imagining her mother was on this boat and they were being tossed about in a storm, but she couldn’t find her mother to warn her. It was a dream, she knew it was a dream. She hadn’t been on the other boat when her mother was lost, but she could feel the way the waves were battering this one—

  Sitting up with a gasp, she sensed they’d hit rough waters. Waves splashed against the glass of her porthole and the boat rocked enough she was rolling on her bed.

  How had she wound up in bed?

  With a little sob, she threw off the covers and pushed to her feet.

  Fear, Aunt Hildy would have said, was no excuse for panic. Viveka did not consider herself a brave person at all, but she had learned to look out for herself because no one else ever had. If this boat was about to capsize, she needed to be on deck wearing a life jacket to have a fighting chance at survival.