The Secret Beneath the Veil

by Dani Collins

  “I do want sex,” she said, flailing a frustrated hand. “I just don’t want it to hurt.” She finally turned and set his plate of toast on the island, avoiding his gaze.

  The kettle boiled, giving her breathing space as she moved to make the tea. When she sat down, she went around the far end of the island and took the farthest stool from where he stood ignoring the toast and tea she’d made for him.

  She couldn’t make herself take a bite. Her body was hot and cold, her emotions swinging from hope to despair to worry.

  “You’re afraid I wouldn’t stop if we tried.” His voice was solemn as he promised, “I would, you know. At any point.”

  A tentative hope moved through her, but she shook her head. “I don’t want to be a project.” Her spoon clinked lightly as she stirred the sugar into her tea. “I can’t face another humiliating attempt. And yes, I’ve been to a doctor. There’s nothing wrong. I’m just...unusually...” She sighed hopelessly. “Can we stop talking about this?”

  He only pushed his hands into his pockets. “I wasn’t trying to talk you into anything. Not tonight. Unless you want to,” he said in a wry mutter, combing distracted fingers through his hair. “I wouldn’t say no. You’re not a project, Viveka. I want you rather badly.”

  “Do you?” She scoffed in a strained voice, reminding him, “You said you would decide if and when. That I was the only one who wanted sex. I can’t help the way I react to you, you know. I might have tried with you tonight if I’d thought it would go well, but...”

  Tears came into her eyes. It was silly. She was seriously dehydrated from her crying jags earlier. There shouldn’t be a drop of moisture left in her.

  “I wanted you to like it,” she said, heart raw. “I wanted to know I could, you know, satisfy a man, but no. I didn’t even get that right. You were still hard and—”

  He muttered something under his breath and said, “Are you really that oblivious? You did satisfy me. You leveled me. Blew my mind. Reset the bar. I don’t have words for how good that was.” He sounded aggrieved as he waved toward the lounge. “My desire for you is so strong I was aroused all over again just thinking about doing the same to you. That’s why I was hard again.”

  If he didn’t look so uncomfortable admitting that, she might have disbelieved him.

  “When we were on the yacht, you said you thought it was exciting that I respond to you.” Her chest ached as she tried to figure him out. “If the attraction is just as strong for you, why don’t you want me to know? Why do you keep—I mean, before we went out tonight, you acted as if you could take it or leave it. It’s not the same for you, Mikolas. That’s why I don’t think it would work.”

  “I never like to be at a disadvantage, Viveka. We had been talking about some difficult things. I needed space.”

  “But if we’re equal in feeling this way...? Attracted, I mean, why don’t you want me to know that?”

  “That’s not an advantage, is it?”

  His words, that attitude of prevailing without mercy, scraped her down to the bones.

  “You’ll have to tell me sometime what that’s like,” she said, dabbing at a crumb and pressing it between her tight lips. “Having the advantage, I mean. Not something I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Not something I should want to go to bed with, frankly. So why do I?”

  He did laugh then, but it was ironic, completely lacking any humor.

  “For what it’s worth, I feel the same.” He walked out, leaving his toast and tea untouched.

  * * *

  Mikolas was trying hard to ignore the way Viveka Brice had turned his life into an amusement park. One minute it was a fun house of distorted mirrors, the next a roller coaster that ratcheted his tension only to throw him down a steep valley and around a corner he hadn’t seen.

  Home, he kept thinking. It was basic animal instinct. Once he was grounded in his own cave, with the safety of the familiar around him, all the ways that she’d shaken up his world would settle. He would be firmly in control again.

  Of course he had to keep his balance in the dizzying teacup of her trim figure appearing in a pair of hip-hugging jeans and a completely asexual T-shirt paired with the doe-eyed wariness that had crushed his chest last night.

  He couldn’t say he was relieved to hear the details of her sexual misadventures. The idea of her lying naked with other men grated, but at least she hadn’t been scarred by the horrifying brutality he’d begun to imagine.

  On the other hand, when she had finally opened up, the nakedness in her expression had been difficult to witness. She was tough and brave and earnest and too damned sensitive. Her insecurity had reached into him in a way that antagonism couldn’t. The bizarre protectiveness she already inspired in him had flared up, prompting him to assuage her fears, reassure her. He had wound up revealing himself in a way that left him mistrustful and feeling like he’d left a flank unguarded.

  Not a comfortable feeling at all.

  He hadn’t been able to sleep. Much of it had been the ache in his body, craving release in hers. He yearned to show her how it could be between them. At the same time, his mind wouldn’t stop turning over and over with everything that had happened since she had marched into his life. At what point would she quit pulling the rug out from under him?

  “Are you taking me back in time? What is that?” She was looking out the window of the helicopter.

  He leaned to see. They were approaching the mansion and the ruins built into the cliff below it.

  “That is the tower where you will be imprisoned for the rest of your life.” There was a solution, he thought.

  “Don’t quit your day job for comedy.”

  Her quick rejoinder made humor tug at the corner of his mouth. He was learning she used jokes as a defense, similar to how he was quick to pull rank and impose his control over every situation. The fact she was being cheeky now, when he was in her space, told him she was shoring up her walls against him. That niggled, but wasn’t it what he wanted? Distance? Barriers?

  “The Venetians built it.” He gazed at her clean face so close to his, her naked lips. She smelled like tea and roses and woman. He wanted to eat her alive. “See where the stairs have been worn away by the waves?”

  * * *

  Viveka couldn’t take in anything as she felt the warmth off the side of his face and caught the smell of his aftershave. She held herself very still, trying not to react to his closeness, but her lips tingled, longing to graze his jaw and find his mouth. Lock with him in a deep kiss.

  “We preserved the ruins as best we could. Given the fortune we spent, we were allowed to build above it.”

  She forced her gaze to the view, instantly enchanted. What little girl hadn’t dreamed of being spirited away to an island castle like in a fairy tale?

  The modern mansion at the top of the cliff drew her eye unerringly. The view was never-ending in all directions and the ultracontemporary design was unique and fascinating, sprawling in odd angles that were still perfectly balanced. It was neither imposing nor frivolous. It was solid and sophisticated. Dare she say elegant?

  She noticed something on the roof. “Are those solar panels?”

  “Naí. We also have a field of wind turbines. You can’t see them from here. We’re planning a tidal generator, too. We only have to finalize the location.”

  “How ecologically responsible of you.” She turned her face and they were practically nose to cheekbone.

  He sat back and straightened his cuff.

  “I like to be self-sufficient.” A tick played at the corner of his mouth.

  Under no one’s power but his own. She was seeing that pattern very clearly. Should she tell him it made him predictable? she wondered with private humor.

  A few minutes later, she followed him into an interior she hadn’t expected despite a
ll she’d seen so far of the way he lived. The entrance should have struck her as over the top, with its smooth marble columns and split staircase that went up to a landing overlooking, she was sure, the entire universe.

  The design remained spare and masculine, however, the colors subtle and golden in the midday light. Ivory marble and black wrought iron along with accents of Hellenic blue made the place feel much warmer than she expected. As they climbed the stairs, thick fog-gray carpet muffled their steps.

  The landing looked to the western horizon.

  Viveka paused, experiencing a strange sensation that she was looking back toward a life that was just a blur of memory, no longer hers. Oddly, the idea slid into her heart not like a blade that cut her off from her past, but more like something that caught and anchored her here, tugging her from a sea of turbulence to pin her to this stronghold.

  She rubbed her arms at the preternatural shiver that chased up her entire body, catching Mikolas’s gaze as he waited for her to follow him up another level.

  The uppermost floor was fronted by a lounge that was surrounded by walls of glass shaded by an overhang to keep out the heat. They were at the very top of the world here. That’s how it felt. Like she’d arrived at Mount Olympus, where the gods resided.

  There was a hot tub on the veranda along with lounge chairs and a small dining area. She stayed inside, glancing around the open-plan space of a breakfast nook, a sitting area with a fireplace and an imposing desk with two flat monitors with a printer on a cabinet behind it, obviously Mikolas’s home office.

  As she continued exploring, she heard Mikolas speaking, saying her name. She followed to an open door where a uniformed young man came out. He saw her, nodded and introduced himself as Titus, then disappeared toward the stairs.

  She peered into the room. It was Trina’s boudoir. Had to be. There were fresh flowers, unlit candles beside the bucket of iced champagne, crystal glasses, a peignoir set draped across the foot of the white bed, and a box of chocolates on a side table. The exterior walls were made entirely out of glass and faced east, which pleased her. She liked waking to sun.

  Don’t love it, she cautioned herself, but it was hard not to be charmed.

  “Oh, good grief,” she gasped as Mikolas opened a door to what she had assumed was a powder room. It was actually a small warehouse of prêt-à-porter.

  “Did you buy all of Paris for her?” She plucked at the cuff of a one-sleeved evening gown in silver-embroidered lavender. The back wall was covered in shoes. “I hate to tell you this, but my foot is a full size bigger than Trina’s.”

  “One of your first tasks will be to go through all of this so the seamstress can alter where necessary. The shoes can be exchanged.” He shrugged one shoulder negligently.

  The closet was huge, but way too small with both of them in it.

  She tried to disguise her self-consciousness by picking up a shoe. When she saw the designer name, she gently rubbed the shoe on her shirt to erase her fingerprint from the patent leather and carefully replaced it.

  “Change for lunch with my grandfather. But don’t take too long.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, poking her head out to watch him cross to a pair of double doors on the other side of her room, not back to the main part of the penthouse.

  “My room.” He opened one of the double doors as he reached it, revealing what she thought at first was a private sitting room, but that white daybed had a towel rolled up on the foot of it.

  Drawn by curiosity, she crossed to follow him into the bathroom. Except it was more like a high-end spa. There was an enormous round tub set in a bow of glass that arched outward so the illusion for the bather was a soak in midair.

  “Wow.” She slowly spun to take in the extravagance, awestruck when she noted the small forest that grew in a rock garden under a skylight. A path of stones led through it to a shower area against the back wall. Nozzles were set into the alcove of tiled walls, ready to spray from every level and direction, including raining from the ceiling.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth, laughing.

  The masculine side of the room was a double sink and mirror designed along the black-and-white simplistic lines Mikolas seemed to prefer, bracketed by a discreet door to a private toilet stall that also gave access to his bedroom. Her side was a reflection of his, with one sink removed to make way for a makeup bench and a vanity of drawers already filled with unopened cosmetics.

  “You live like this,” she murmured, closing the drawer.

  “So do you. Now.”

  Temporarily, she reminded herself, but it was still like trying to grasp the expanse of the universe. Too much to comprehend.

  A white robe that matched the black ones she’d already worn hung on a hook. She flipped the lapel enough to see the monogram, expecting a T and finding an M. She sputtered out another laugh. He was so predictably possessive!

  “Can you be ready in twenty minutes?”

  “Of course,” she said faintly. “Unless I get lost in the forest on the way back to my room.”

  My room. Freudian slip. She dropped her gaze to the mosaic in the floor, then walked through her water closet to her room.

  It was only as she stood debating a pleated skirt versus a sleeveless floral print dress that the significance of that shared bathroom struck her: he could walk in on her naked. Anytime.

  CHAPTER TEN

  VIVEKA WASN’T SURE what she expected Mikolas’s grandfather to look like. A mafia don from an old American movie? Or like many of the other retired Greek men who sat outside village kafenions, maybe wearing a flat cap and a checked shirt, face lined by sun and a hard life in the vineyard or at sea?

  Erebus Petrides was the consummate old-world gentleman. He wore a suit as he shared a drink with them before they dined. He had a bushy white mustache and excellent posture despite his stocky weight and the cane he used to walk. He and Mikolas didn’t look much alike, but they definitely had the same hammered silver eyes and their voices were two keys of a similar strong, commanding timbre.

  Erebus spoke English, but preferred Greek, stretching her to recall a vocabulary she hadn’t tested in nine years—something he gently reproached her over. It was a pleasant meal that could have been any “Meet the Parents” occasion as they politely got to know each other. She had to keep reminding herself that the charismatic old man was actually a notorious criminal.

  “He seems very nice,” she said after Erebus had retired for an afternoon rest.

  Mikolas was showing her around the rest of the house. They’d come out to the pool deck where a cabana was set up like a sheikh’s tent off to the side and the Ionian Sea gleamed into the horizon.

  Mikolas didn’t respond and she glanced up to see his mouth give a cynical twitch.

  “No?” she prompted, surprised.

  “He wouldn’t have saved me if I hadn’t proven to be his grandson.”

  Her heart skipped and veered as she absorbed that none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t be here and neither would he. They never would have met. What would have become of that orphaned boy?

  “Do you wish that your mother had told your father about you?”

  “She may have. My father was no saint,” he said with disparagement. “And there is no point wishing for anything to be different. Accept what is, Viveka. I learned that long ago.”

  It wasn’t anything she didn’t see in a pop philosophy meme on her newsfeed every day, but she always resisted that fatalistic view. She took a few steps away from him as though to distance herself from his pessimism.

  “If I accepted what I was given, I would still be listening to Grigor call me ugly and useless.” She didn’t realize her hands became tight fists, or that he had come up behind her, until his warm grip gently forced her to bend her elbow as he lifted her hand.
r />   He looked at her white knuckles poking like sharp teeth. His thumb stroked along that bumpy line.

  “You’ve reminded me of something. Come.” He smoothly inserted his thumb to open her fist and kept her hand as he tugged her into the house.

  “Where?”

  He only pulled her along through the kitchen and down the service stairs into a cool room where he turned on the lights to reveal a gym.

  Perhaps the original plans had drawn it up as a wine cellar, but it was as much a professional gym as any that pushed memberships every January. Bike, tread, elliptical. Every type of weight equipment, a heavy bag hanging in the corner, skipping ropes dangling from a hook and padded mats on the floor. It was chilly and silent and smelled faintly of leather and air freshener.

  “You’ll meet me here every morning at six,” he told her.

  “Pah,” she hooted. “Not likely.”

  “Say that again and I’ll make it five.”

  “You’re serious?” She made a face, silently telling him what she thought of that. “For heaven’s sake, why? I do cardio most days, but I prefer to work out in the evening.”

  “I’m going to teach you to throw a punch. This—” he lifted the hand he still held and reshaped it into a fist again “—can do better. And this—” he touched under her chin, lifting her face and letting his thumb tag the spot on her lip where Grigor’s mark had been “—won’t happen again. Not without your opponent discovering very quickly that he has picked a fight with the wrong woman.”

  She had been trying to pretend she wasn’t vitally aware of her hand in his. Now he was touching her face, looking into her eyes, standing too close.

  Somehow she had thought that giving him pleasure would release some of this sexual tension between them. Now everything they’d confessed made it so much worse. The pull was so much deeper. He knew things about her. Intensely personal things.

  She drew away, breaking all contact, trying to keep a grip on herself as she took in what he was saying.