The Secret Beneath the Veil

by Dani Collins

  “I can make myself available after lunch.”

  “It’s an exhibition of children’s art,” she clarified. “Is that something you’d want to see?” Now she felt like she was prying. Her belly clenched as she awaited rejection.

  He shrugged, indifferent. “Art galleries aren’t something I typically do, but if you want to see it, I’ll take you.”

  Which made her feel like she was imposing on his time, but he was already tapping it into his schedule. Later he paced around the place, not saying much, while she held back asking what he thought. She wanted to tell him about her early aspirations and point to what she liked and ask if he’d ever messed around with finger paints as a child.

  She actually found herself speaking more freely to strangers over cocktails than she did with him. He always listened intently, but she didn’t know if that was for show or what. If he had interest in her thoughts or ambitions, she kept thinking, he would ask her himself, but he never did.

  Tonight she was revealing her old fascination with art history and Greek mythology. It felt good to open up, so she shared a little more than she normally would.

  “I actually won an award,” she confided with a wrinkle of her nose. “It was just a little thing for a watercolor I painted at school. I was convinced I’d become a world-famous artist,” she joked. “I’ve always wanted to take a degree in art, but there’s never been the right time.”

  It was small talk. They were nice people, owners of a hotel chain whom she’d met more than once.

  Deep down, she was congratulating herself on performing well at these events, remembering the names of children and occasionally going on shopping dates. Tonight she had found herself genuinely interested in Adara Makricosta’s plans for her hotels. That’s how her own career goals had come up. Adara Makricosta was the CEO of a family-owned chain and had asked Viveka about her own work.

  Viveka sidestepped the admission she was merely a mistress whose job it was to create this warming trend Mikolas was enjoying among the world’s most rich and powerful.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Mikolas asked when Adara and Gideon had moved on. “About wanting to study art,” he prompted when she only looked at him blankly.

  Viveka’s heart lurched and she almost blurted out, Because you wouldn’t care. She swallowed.

  “It’s not practical. I thought about taking evening classes around my day job, but I always had Hildy to look after. And I knew once I was in this position, looking to my own future, I would need to devote myself to a proper career, not dabble in something that will never pay the bills.”

  She ought to be thinking harder about that, not using up all her brain space trying to second-guess the man in front of her.

  “You don’t have bills now. Sign up for something,” he said breezily.

  “Where? To what end?” Her throat tightened. “We’re constantly on the move and I don’t know how long I’ll be with you. No. There’s no point.” It would hurt to see that phoenix of a dream rise up from the ashes only to fly away.

  Or was he implying she would be with him for the long term?

  She did the unthinkable and searched his expression for some sign that he had feelings for her. That they had a future.

  He receded behind a remote mask, horribly quiet for the rest of the night and even while they traveled back to Greece, adding an extra layer of tension to their trip.

  * * *

  Viveka was still smarting over Mikolas’s behavior when she woke in his bed the next morning. They were sleeping late after arriving in the wee hours. She stayed motionless, naked in the spoon of his body, not wanting to move and wake him. She often fell asleep in his arms, but she never woke in them. This was a rare moment of closeness.

  It was the counterfeit currency that all women—like mother like daughter—too often took in place of real regard.

  Because, no matter how distanced she felt from Mikolas during the day, in bed she felt so integral to him it was a type of agony to be anywhere else. When he made love to her, it felt like love. His kisses and caresses were generous, his compliments extravagant. She warmed and tingled just thinking about how good it felt to join with him, but it wasn’t just physical pleasure for her. Lying with him, naked and intimate, was emotionally fulfilling.

  She was falling for him.

  His breathing changed. He hardened against her backside and she bit her lip, heartened by the lazy stroke of his hand and the noise of contentment he made, like he was pleased to wake with her against him.

  Such happiness brimmed in her, she couldn’t help but wriggle her butt into his hardness, inviting the only affection he seemed to accept, wanting to hold on to this moment of harmony.

  His mouth opened on her shoulder and his hand drifted down her belly into the juncture of her thighs. He made a satisfied noise when he found her wet and ready.

  She gasped, stimulated by his lazy touch. She stretched her arm to the night table, then handed a condom over her shoulder as she nestled back against him, eager and needy. He adjusted her position and a moment later thrust in, sighing a hot breath against her neck, setting kisses against her nape that were warm and soft. Caring. Surely he cared?

  She took him so easily now. It was nothing but pleasure, so much pleasure. She hadn’t known her body could be like this: buttery and welcoming. It was almost too good. She was so far ahead of him, having been thinking about this while he slept against her, she soared over the top in moments. She cried out, panting and damp with sweat, overcome and floating, speechless in her orgasmic bliss.

  “Greedy,” he said in a gritty morning voice, rubbing his mouth against her skin, inhaling and calling her beautiful in Greek. Exquisite. Telling her how much he enjoyed being inside her. How good she made him feel.

  He came up on his elbow so he could thrust with more power. His hand went between her legs again, ensuring her pleasure as he moved with more aggression.

  She didn’t mind his vigor. She was so slick, still so aroused, she reveled in the slap of his hips into her backside, hand knotting in the bottom sheet to brace herself to receive him, making noises close to desperation as she felt a fresh pinnacle hover within reach.

  “Don’t hold back,” he ground out. “Come with me. Now.”

  He pounded into her, the most unrestrained he’d ever been. She cried out as her excitement peaked. An intense climax rolled through her, leaving her shattered and quaking in ecstasy.

  He convulsed with equal strength, arms caging her, hoarse shout hot against her cheek. He jerked as she clenched, continuing to push deep so she was hit by wave after wave of aftershocks while he thrust firmly into her, like he was implanting his essence into her core.

  As the sensual storm battered them, he remained pressed over her, crushing her beneath his heavy body. Finally, the crisis began to subside and he exhaled raggedly as he slid flat, his one arm under her neck bending so he could cradle her into his front. They were coated in perspiration. It adhered her back to his front and she could feel his heart still pounding unsteadily against her shoulder blade. Their legs were tangled, their bodies still joined, their breaths slowing to level.

  It was the most beautifully imperfect moment of her life. She loved him. Endlessly and completely. But he didn’t love her back.

  * * *

  Mikolas had visited hell. Then his grandfather had accepted him and he had returned to the real world, where there were good days and bad days. Now he’d found what looked like heaven and he didn’t trust it. Not one little bit.

  But he couldn’t turn away from it—from her—either.

  Not without feeling as though he was peeling away his own skin, leaving him raw and vulnerable. He was a molting crab, losing his shell every night and rebuilding it every day.

  This morning was the most profound deconstruction yet. He alwa
ys tried to leave before Viveka woke so he wouldn’t start his day impacted by her effect on him, but the sweet way she’d rubbed herself into his groin had undone him. She had gone from a tentative virgin to a sensual goddess capable of stripping him down to nothing but pure sensation.

  How could he resist that? How could he not let her press him into service and give himself up to the joy of possessing her. It had been all he could do to hold back so she came with him. Because she owned him. Between the sheets, she completely owned him. Right now, all he wanted in life was to stay in this bed, with her body replete against his, her fingertips drawing light patterns on the back of his hand.

  Don’t want.

  He made himself roll away and sit up, to prove himself master over whatever this thing was that threatened him in a way nothing else could.

  She stayed inside him, though. In his body as an intoxicant, and in his head as an unwavering awareness. And because he was so attuned to her, he heard the barely discernible noise she made as he pushed to stand. It was a sniff. A lash. A cat-o’-nine-tails that scored through his thick skin into his soul.

  He swung around and saw only the bow of her back, still curled on her side where he’d left her. He dropped his knee into the mattress and caught her shoulder, flattening her so he could see her face.

  She gasped in surprise, lifting a hand to quickly try to wipe away the tears that stood in her eyes. Self-conscious agony flashed in her expression before she turned her face to hide it.

  His heart fell through the earth.

  “I thought you were with me.” He spoke through numb lips, horrified with himself. He could have sworn she had been as passionately excited as he was. He had felt her slickness, the ripples of her orgasm. Was he kidding himself with how well he thought he knew her?

  “You have to tell me if I’m being too rough,” he insisted, his usual command buried in a choke of self-reproach.

  “It’s not that.” Her expression spasmed with dismay. She pushed the back of her wrist across her eye, then brushed his hand off her shoulder so she could roll away and sit up. “I used to be so afraid of sex. Now I like it.”

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, the delicacy of her frame striking like a hammer between his eyes. Her nude body pimpled at the chill as she rose.

  “I’m grateful,” she claimed, turning to offer him a smile, but her lashes were still matted. “Take a bow. Let me know what I owe you.”

  Those weren’t tears of gratitude.

  His heart lurched as he found himself right back in that moment where he had impulsively told her to pursue her interests and she had searched for reassurance that she would be with him for the long haul.

  I don’t know how long I’ll be with you.

  It had struck him at that moment that at some point she would leave and he hadn’t been able to face it. He skipped past it now, only saying her name.

  “Viveka.” It hurt his throat. “I told you to keep your expectations low,” he reminded, and felt like a coward, especially when her smile died.

  She looked at him with betrayal, like he’d smacked her.

  “Don’t,” he bit out.

  “Don’t what? Don’t like it?”

  “Don’t be hurt.” He couldn’t bear the idea that he was hurting her. “Don’t feel grateful.”

  She made a choking noise. “Don’t tell me what to feel. That is where you control what I feel.” She pointed at the rumpled sheets he knelt upon, then tapped her chest and said on a burst of passion, “In here? This is mine. I’ll feel whatever the hell I want.”

  Her blue eyes glowed with angry defiance, but something else ravaged her. Something sweet and powerful and pure that shot like an arrow to pierce his breastbone and sting his heart. He didn’t try to put a name to it. He was afraid to, especially when he saw shadows of hopelessness dim her gaze before she looked away.

  “I’m not confusing sex with love, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She moved to the chair and pulled on his shirt from the night before, shooting her arms into it and folding the front across her stomach. She was hunched as though bracing for body blows. “My mother made that mistake.” Her voice was scuffed and desolate. “I won’t. I know the difference.”

  Why did that make him clench his fist in despair? He ought to be reassured.

  He almost told her this wasn’t just sex. When he walked into a room with her hand in his, he was so proud it was criminal. When she dropped little tidbits about her life before she met him, he was fascinated. When she looked dejected like that, his armored heart creaked and rose on quivering legs, anxious to show valor in her name.

  Instead he stood, saying, “I’ll send an email today. To ask how the investigation is coming along. On your mother,” he clarified, when she turned a blank look on him.

  She snorted, sounding disillusioned as she muttered, “Thanks.”

  * * *

  “Your head is not in the game today,” Erebus said, dragging Viveka’s mind to the távli board, where he was placing one of his checkers on top of hers.

  Were they at plakoto already? Until a few weeks ago, she hadn’t played since she and Trina were girls, but the rules and strategies had come back to her very quickly. She sat down with Erebus at least once a day if she was home.

  “Jet lag,” she murmured, earning a tsk.

  “We don’t lie to each other in this house, poulaki mou.”

  Viveka was growing fond of the old man. He was very well-read, kept up on world politics and had a wry sense of humor. At the same time, he was interested in her. He called her “my little birdie” and always had something nice to say. Today it had been, “I wish you weren’t leaving for Paris. I miss you when you’re traveling.”

  She’d never had a decent father figure in her life and knew it was crazy to see this former criminal in that light, but he was also sweetly protective of her. It was endearing.

  So she didn’t want to offend him by stating that his grandson was tearing her into little pieces.

  “I wonder sometimes what Mikolas was like as a child,” she prevaricated.

  She and Erebus had talked a little about her aunt and he’d shared a few stories from his earliest years. She was deeply curious how such a kind-seeming man could have broken the law and fathered an infamous criminal, but thought it better not to ask.

  He nodded thoughtfully, gesturing for her to shake the cup with the dice and take her turn.

  She did and set the cup within his reach, but he was staring across the water from their perch outside his private sitting room. In a few weeks it would be too hot to sit out here, but it was balmy and pleasant today. A light breeze moved beneath the awning, carrying his favorite kantada folk music with it.

  “Pour us an ouzo,” he finally said, two papery fingers directing her to the interior of his apartment.

  “I’ll get in trouble. You’re only supposed to have one before dinner.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” he said, making her smile.

  He came in behind her as she filled the small glasses. He took his and canted his head for her to follow him.

  She did, slowly pacing with him as he shuffled his cane across his lounge and into his bedroom. There he sat with a heavy sigh into a chair near the window. He picked up the double photo frame on the side table and held it out to her.

  She accepted it and took her time studying the black-and-white photo of the young woman on the one side, the boy and girl sitting on a rock at a beach in the other. They were perhaps nine and five.

  “Your wife?” she guessed. “And Mikolas’s father?”

  “Yes. And my daughter. She was... Men always say they want sons, but a daughter is life and light. A way for your wife to live on. Daughters are love in its purest form.”

  “That’s a beautiful thing to say.”
She wished she knew more about her own father than a few barely recollected facts from her mother. He’d been English and had dropped out of school to work in radio. He’d married her mother because she was pregnant and died from a rare virus that had got into his heart.

  She sat on the foot of Erebus’s bed, facing him. “Mikolas told me you lost your daughter when she was young. I’m sorry.”

  He nodded, taking back the frame and looking at it again. “My wife, too. She was beautiful. She looked at me the way you look at Mikolas. I miss that.”

  Viveka looked into her drink.

  “I failed them,” Erebus continued grimly. “It was a difficult time in our country’s history. Fear of communism, martial law, censorship, persecution. I was young and passionate, courting arrest with my protests. I left to hide on this island, never thinking they would go after my wife.”

  His cloudy gray eyes couldn’t disguise his stricken grief.

  “The way my son told me, my daughter was crying, trying to cling to their mother as the military police dragged her away for questioning. They knocked her to the ground. Her ear started bleeding. She never came to. Brain injury, perhaps. I’ll never know. My wife died in custody, but not before my son saw her beaten unconscious for trying to go back to our daughter.”

  Viveka could only cover her mouth, holding back a cry of protest.

  “By the time I was reunited with him, my son was twisted beyond repair. I was warped, too. The law? How could I have regard for it? What I did then, bribes, theft, smuggling... None of that sits on my conscience with any great weight. But what my son turned into...”

  He cleared his throat and set the photo frame back in its place. His hands shook and he took a long time to speak again.

  “My son lost his humanity. The things he did... I couldn’t make him stop, couldn’t bring him back from that. It was no surprise to me that he was killed so violently. It was the way he lived. When he died I mourned him, but I also mourned what should have been. I was forced to face my many mistakes. The things I had done caused me to outlive my children. I hated the man I had become.”