The tears came.
Huge, great, heaving sobs.
He moved his mouth from my wounded breast, his lips on my skin, my cheeks, discovering my tears.
"Ronan, my Grace," he whispered, his heart still beating in his chest.
The sobs grew.
I moved from him, crawling across the bed. Desperate to get away, to hide, not sure why this was happening, but knowing only that it wasn't bad. No. I was mourning, yes, but it was the heaviness in my heart I was saying goodbye to. The perpetual sadness of a disappointed, cruel love now gone.
He came after me, gently, catching me, drawing me close, holding me near.
"Yes," he whispered, his arms around me. "Cry. It is good, yes."
"I'm okay," I said.
And then more tears came.
"No, cry, my Grace. Let it go. Let the past die and let it go."
I looked up at him, to apologize, to assure him I was okay, to show him I was strong.
Tears ran down his cheeks as his lips trembled.
"We must let it die, the past," he said as he pressed his forehead to mine, the sobs catching in his throat.
And, together, sitting on my bedroom floor, our arms around each other, the room smelling of sex and sweat and requited lust, we did just that.
We let the past die.
Chapter Thirteen
He stretched his arms above his head.
The shades were now open, the sun growing quiet as it prepared to set. And he, finally satiated, was now in bed, watching me, the sheet not quite hiding the beauty of his tan, supple skin, the hair under his arms soft, the dark curls trailing down his stomach irresistible.
"Yes?" he asked me.
"Yes," I said for the millionth time. I'm fine. Thank you.
I just wanted to leave. Walk. Get some air.
Moving on.
Please.
"There is food, there is water, a nice pillow, and you. What else would I need?" he asked.
"We don't need anything," I answered, my hand once again running over his chest and down his stomach before resting somewhere in the middle. "But we should leave, shouldn't we? I just need some air."
"Take a breath," he said, looking at me before inhaling deeply.
I watched him.
"Do it," he insisted, teasing me.
I took a breath.
Exhaled.
"You see?" he asked.
"No, what."
"I think we have air in here. Why go out?"
He then laughed, snuggling close, his lips once again finding mine.
"This," he said between kisses, "this is what I need. Only this."
He paused.
"You are okay, no?"
I returned the kiss, inhaling his scent, my hands instinctively in his hair.
"Didn't we do this already?" I said with a grin as I left his embrace, eager to get out and leave the memory of my tears behind. "I need to be productive. Let's go."
I stood, suddenly aware I was naked. And it was daylight.
He could see me.
Mikalo's eyes drank me in, his grin slowly growing into a smile.
"You want I come, too?" he asked, removing the sheet as he prepared to stand.
He was excited. Again.
I turned away, determined to not slouch around all day, even if it was with a steamy slice of heaven.
"Of course I want you to come, too," I answered.
He was behind me, his arms around my waist, the warmth of his hardness pressed against the small of my back.
"Is that what you want?" he teased.
I turned to face him.
"Mikalo --"
His mouth was on me, his tongue tasting me, his hands grabbing me, his arms around me, pulling me close, his desire growing.
My knees grew weak.
I gripped him, one hand around him, the other cupping below.
He sighed, his lips still on mine.
"Ronan, my Grace," he whispered.
"My Mikalo" I answered as I fought temptation.
I removed my hand, my fingers rising to hold his face in my hands. "Come. Out. With me. Please?"
His shoulders lifted in a shrug.
"But shower, yes?"
"Go for it," I said as I reached for a robe and slipped it on. "I need to check my voicemail first."
He walked away, his ass absolutely amazing as he padded his way barefoot into the bathroom, the muscles in his back moving with each step.
"We will eat lunch," he called out as he ran the tap, steam rising to cloud the mirror and drift out the door.
I laughed.
"Try dinner," I called back.
He poked his head out the door.
"No, it's true? Dinner?"
I nodded, glancing out the window. Yep. The day almost gone. Still daylight, but almost gone.
"Then it is almost time for bed, yes?" he said with a wink as he ducked back into the bathroom and stepped into the shower.
Oh god, he was going to kill me.
Chapter Fourteen
He kissed her. The stranger with the red hair. His lips on her, me standing only feet away, my hands still damp from the quick wash they got in the restroom.
We were out to dinner. Finally. Dressed, showered, hungry, and out.
And he was kissing some girl.
She pulled away, laughing.
He smiled and snuggled in close, holding her by her tiny waist.
I was going to scream. Right there in the middle of this crowded restaurant. I was going to scream and there was going to be violence and there might even be blood.
Seeing me, he motioned me over, the red-haired stranger with the tall, skinny body and alabaster skin and perfect lips following his gaze and, smiling, resting her beautiful head against his.
Bitch.
I plastered my own smile on and, breathing deep, walked over.
"My Grace," he was saying, his hand out to me, the smiling bitch still on his lap, "you must meet Virginie. She's from Paris."
Virginie held out her slender hand and limply shook mine.
"It is nice to meet you," she said in heavily accented English. "My Mikalo has told me so much about you."
My Mikalo?
I could feel the color rise to my cheeks.
"Nice to meet you," I said, my voice calm. "Mikalo hasn't mentioned you at all."
"Why would he? I am but a friend and you, you are more," she answered. "You are all he talks about now, my Mikalo."
I started to relax.
But still. "My Mikalo."
Grrrrr.
"Come," he was saying. "Sit."
I sat next to him, his arm around me, this Virginie on his other side.
"Virginie just married and is now here in New York," he said. "And there is one more reason to be here, I think."
Okay, I could forgive her now.
Maybe.
Virginie watched him carefully.
She knew something. Something she wasn't telling me.
She spoke.
"Alberto would love for you to call him," she said to him.
"Yes?"
He looked quickly at me.
"Her new husband," he said.
I nodded.
Yes, go talk to him, I wanted to say. You don't need my permission.
He kissed her again and then, turning, kissed me.
And then he rose, cell phone in hand as he stepped outside away from the noise of the restaurant.
Virginie watched him go.
I turned to her.
"Okay, you can talk now," I said, my eyes catching and holding hers.
She sighed.
"You do not need to worry, my new friend," she said. "I love Mikalo, yes, but with my soul, with my heart. Not with my body. He is like a brother. I only wish to see him happy, truly happy, and safe."
"Then what aren't you telling me?"
"He talks about you a lot, you know."
"We've only just met. Days ago."
"I k
now, I know," she said, interrupting me. "This journey has only begun. And yet, there it is. 'My Grace' this and 'my Grace' that. And now, here, I meet finally 'my Grace'. And he was right. You're beautiful."
"Oh stop," I sighed, laughing.
"Ah, you do not believe he finds you beautiful?"
"No, I do. I think."
I stopped, unsure what to say next.
"And if I were to say he sees a beauty that is not just of the body, but also of the eyes, the soul, the smile? That the beauty he sees lingers in a laugh or in the fall of tears? Would you believe me then, my Grace?"
I watched her.
And then I nodded.
"I'm sorry," I said then. "He's so ... I don't know."
"You fear losing him, I know," she said, her hand suddenly on mine, comforting and cool, her smile gentle and easy. "But he is not someone you can lose, my Grace. Understand, if Mikalo gives you his heart, it is yours. He cannot give it to someone else. He will not. He is trusting. And you must be, too. His eyes do not wander and his hands do not stray. His kisses will be yours. If he gives you his heart."
"And will he?" I found myself asking, my eyes growing wet with tears.
She shrugged.
"It is wounded and raw. It hurts. Still."
"Claudia," I interrupted.
"Ah, he told you of Claudia. Then this is good. A good step, I think. But still, I know him and I know his pain. I know his heart. Perhaps he doesn't feel it is yet ready to give? That I do not know."
The door opened and Mikalo entered, heading back to the table, a large smile on his face.
Her hand still on mine,
"But he is worth the wait, my Grace. Wait and love. And trust. That is best."
Chapter Fifteen
"I hate you," Deni was saying.
She sat across from me, blonde and beautiful and effortlessly elegant. Dressed in couture, the opulence of her Park Avenue duplex all around her, balancing tea with lemon in fine china in one hand, and seething with jocular envy.
"Well, it's your fault," I said.
She sipped and placed the cup on the table beside her.
"And so the dead husband remains dead?" she asked.
I nodded.
It was Sunday. Mikalo was at his hotel getting a change of clothes and some quiet time. We had slept, deeply, and awoke, hungry for each other again. And we had made love, sweetly, tenderly, with no tears.
And now here I sat giving my best friend the blow-by-blow, so to speak.
"I wept, Deni. I mean, I literally sobbed and sobbed. And he sat there and held me and cried with me."
"It was that good?"
"Yes," I said, "it was. But it was more than that. And it wasn't that. It was, I don't know, that heaviness, that pain, that --"
"That mourning."
"Right. That mourning. That constant mourning I've been going through --"
"Putting yourself through," she interrupted, correcting me.
"Okay, yes. Putting myself through for the past who knows how many years that was finally gone. I just felt light and free. It's hard to explain."
"No, no," she said. "It makes sense. I've always said you needed a good roll in the hay and, well, there you go. All better now."
She paused, pursing her lips as she thought.
"What?" I asked.
Leaning back, she watched me.
"Are you sure?"
Oh god, I thought, what now? Is he married? Bisexual? A serial killer on the run? One of those handsome men who preys on the weak, the needy, the chunky and desperate? Just what was she going to say?
"He's not getting the job."
"Oh," I said, and then stopped.
Deni knew everyone, had her finger on the pulse of everything, and was better at gathering news than the best reporters in the field. If she said it was so, it was so. She triple checked her sources.
"Blazen isn't sure he's a fit and ..." she was saying.
She stopped and waited.
"And what?" I asked, well aware what the answer would be.
"He's afraid Mikalo might fraternize with other attorneys."
"In other words, Blazen doesn't want Mikalo fucking me."
"Something like that," she said, gently.
"So because of me, he doesn't get a job?"
"He doesn't need the job, Ronan."
Standing, she quickly walked across the room to her desk, returning with a glossy gossip magazine. One from Europe. Italy or France.
"Look," she said, sitting next to me and thumbing through, "Here's your boy."
Her perfectly manicured nail rested on a snapshot of Mikalo at some party looking impossibly handsome and happy surrounded by equally handsome men, all in black tie holding champagne flutes.
"Very handsome, by the way. One of Europe's most eligible bachelors. He's been chased by princesses and countesses and movie stars since he turned sixteen. Which, by the way, is the age he was when he inherited the bulk of his family's wealth.
"Pole vaulted squarely into the B Group with that one, he did," she continued, using her phrase for billionaires.
"He's an unbelievable, amazing catch. And that's why I hate you right now.
"And this," she then said, "is his baby brother."
The nail now rested on a different picture, this one of an angry looking man with a generous chin, his eyes lost in the folds of his pouting face, his gaudy silk shirt two sizes too small for his bulk.
"If Mikalo leaves Greece," she was saying, "Baby Brother has full rein to dismantle everything, sell off the businesses, and ... "
She paused, turning back a page or two, her nail pointing out yet another picture, this one of a hard looking woman with cold eyes and a sneering frown awkwardly dressed in an elaborate wedding dress gripping Baby Brother's arm.
"Piss it all away on this charming little buttercup," she said, finishing.
"There must be documents in place," I quickly said. "Trusts and wills and business contracts that can't be broken. Something that vast can't be dismantled in one fell swoop. It's often incredibly complicated. I doubt he can just sell it all and take it all."
"If Mikalo isn't there to watch him like a hawk, he will, legal or not.
"So, you see, basically what this article says -- in French, so I can get you a translation if you want -- is that there's a huge war building between the few who side with Baby Brother and want all that cash and the many who side with Mikalo and want to protect what his father and his mother built.
"In short, he knows he could never really leave Greece, move here and have a life, not if he wants to protect his family and their legacy.
"If you want him," she continued, "you have some stiff competition"
My cell phone rang.
Mikalo.
"Let me get this," I said to Deni.
Closing the gossip rag, she stood, returning to the desk.
"Hello," I said, the phone to my ear.
"And my Grace, you are well?"
"Yes, thank you."
A pause.
"You are thinking," came the response. "Is it not good?"
"No, it's fine," I said, the words feeling like a lie.
"Ah, then I see we will talk later.
"The Firm would like to see me tomorrow," he then said. "I got a phone call just now. We meet at three. Perhaps there is news."
"I think so."
Another pause.
"Tonight we will have dinner," he said. "And you will share your thoughts."
"Okay."
"Do not be sad, my Grace."
And then he hung up.
I looked at Deni.
"He meets with Blazen tomorrow at three."
"And?"
"I don't know," I said.
She came and sat next to me, her hand on mine.
"Use your head, Ronan. This is not your battle to fight, okay?
"It has taken years to build your career, so please don't do something stupid and rock that boat. Don't lose their respect, th
eir fear of your brilliance. Your talent. Don't throw all of that away without thinking very, very carefully about the consequences.
"Besides," she continued, "you don't even know if he would move here if they offered him the job. Or if he would even accept. You have no idea."
She was right.
I didn't.
Chapter Sixteen
Tomorrow's meeting hung over dinner like a ghost.
I picked at my salad, he at his fish, both of us sipping first one, then two glasses of wine.
The waiter cleared our plates and offered us the dessert menu.
We absentmindedly accepted, the slender sheath holding closed its promise of mouth-watering treats, destined to lay on the table between us, ignored.
He cleared his throat.
"This worry, it swims around your head like a fish," he then said. "If you have a question, ask. You know. I said before I am like the open book."
I couldn't bring up the failure that awaited him tomorrow or what it would certainly mean for whatever it was we were building.
Or, rather, the end of what we were building.
"Tell me about your family," I found myself asking.
"Ah," he said, glancing around the room, "my family. In Greece."
He stopped, pausing as he thought.
"Understand, my Grace, there is my family, my blood. And there is my family, those not of blood, but of soul. Those I love. Virginie, Claudio, Louis and Mathilde, and others. They are my family. My true family.
"But you ask of my blood family, yes?"
I nodded. Yes.
"There are many. Many I love. But my brother, Silvestro, he is a problem. And that is the story."
"How so?"
He lightly laughed.
"He has an unhappy life and this unhappiness, it drives him to do stupid things."
"Like?"
He shrugged, taking a sip of his wine.
"You have a quick interest in this?" he then asked, watching me.
"I've heard things. And it's important to know the truth. From you, I get the truth."
"Yes," he said. "This is true."
Sighing, he continued.
"My father works for many years to build something he loves, something that loves him in return. He joins his father in heaven, my mother takes over, protects it, cherishes it, loves it as he did. That is to be respected and honored, I believe.
Mikalo's Grace Page 5