by Tara Pammi
“He chose to alienate me. He chose to get behind the wheel of that blasted car of yours and drive even though he was drunk.”
“Mia, I’m—”
“And you...you’ve never even had a girlfriend. You change models and actresses on your arm as if they were an accessory. How dare you judge me for wanting to give up on a toxic relationship. I’ve had enough of you and your stinking opinions.”
“Mia—”
She grappled for the handle of the door, the fierce knot of emotion rising from her chest to her throat. Damned man and his damned car! She felt the warmth of him caress her skin before she realized he had leaned over her to reach for the handle. Pure lean muscle grazed her heaving chest.
Her eyes closed; the whispers of her breath were like a drumbeat in her ears. Her lower belly felt molten, her entire body thrumming with tension. She willed her body to quiet down, to lose this painful awareness of his breath and breadth, of his compelling masculinity. Frustration to guilt to such deep want that it buckled her knees, she seesawed on emotions.
Finally, the handle clicked and she almost fell out.
There was a part of her that told her she was being irrational, that she couldn’t just walk away from him in the dead of night. That his opinion, far from what she’d claimed, was mattering too much. But she couldn’t grasp control over herself.
Had Brian told Nikandros everything? How Mia had stopped wanting to be near Brian, about how hard she’d found it to be touched by him once she’d learned of his first indiscretion?
Her trembling legs barely straightened when she heard him join her out on the dark road. Broad shoulders covered her. “You’re being ridiculous, Mia.”
The handle of the car pressed into her spine as she tried to melt into the door. Anything to avoid the scent of him from entrenching deep inside her. Anything to stifle the overriding need to fall apart in his arms. “Go away.”
He stretched his arms wide, jet-black hair falling forward onto his forehead. “I should not have spoken of Brian. Not tonight. Not when you’re dealing with—”
She poked him in the chest, vibrating from the force of her fury. “You’ve no right to talk about our relationship, now or ever. And if that was an apology, then it stinks.”
He caught hold of her wrist and crouched closer, his tall, lean body her entire world. Her belly dipped as he clasped her jaw, raising her chin to meet his gaze. “I’ve never apologized to a woman in my life. Except my maman.”
He said maman with a French accent, a lilt to it. Like caramel over dark chocolate. “Then I’m shocked at the number of women willing to put up with you, Your Highness.”
“Get back into the car. You can spend the entire night telling me how much I stink.”
“Why are you being kind to me all of a sudden?”
He blanched, as if he hadn’t realized it himself. The gleam of his blue eyes was mesmerizing in the moonlight. “I’m not an unkind man usually. I stayed back after that debacle at the press conference because I thought you...might need a friend.” He pushed a hand through his hair, a rough exhale leaving his mouth. “But like every other time... I lost track of what I intended.” His languid mouth curved in self-deprecation that made shock swirl through Mia. “Stay at my penthouse until this furor about Brian calms.”
“No.” Under the same roof with this man, and her emotions in a riot... A shiver snaked up her spine. “Thanks for the offer, but I... I need peace and quiet. Not Mr. Judgy looking down his nose at me when he knows zilch about relationships.”
“You know a lot about my relationships. Or the lack of.”
Her skin heated up, and she desperately prayed he couldn’t see it. “You’re not exactly known for your distance with the media. No wonder your poor aide looked like he had the worst job in the world.” She ran a hand over her nape, exhaustion slowly creeping in. “I just want to go home.”
“The press will be swarming there. My apartment has twenty-four-hour security and is a fortress against the media. You will be safe there.”
The thought of the media shoving their cameras in her face, those salacious details of Brian’s affairs—Mia sank back against the cold metal.
Hiding away in the Daredevil Prince’s lair seemed like salvation.
“Admit it, you’re tempted. This is not a situation either of us wants, but it was clear that I couldn’t leave you there.”
“Why were you at the press conference in the first place?”
After almost a year, her agent had convinced Mia that her fans needed closure, that she should announce her retirement from soccer publicly. Any contractual ties she’d had with Nik’s team had been severed months ago when she’d learned that the third injury she’d sustained would damage her knee irrevocably if she continued to play.
At least, her everyday life hadn’t been affected.
With that devastating blow and Brian’s accident, her life had been on a downward spiral. The announcement at the press conference—it was to be a new start. Only she’d been ambushed by the press about Brian’s affairs.
And Nikandros had been there.
Sweat beaded her brow. That nauseous feeling returned with a vengeance. “Did you know the news about Brian’s affairs? Why didn’t you warn me?” Her fingers bunched in his shirt, renewed betrayal coursing through her. “Or did you decide I deserved to be humiliated and turned into a spectacle for my alleged sins against Brian?”
His fingers clamped over her arms, the warmth from his body teasing her awake in more ways than one. “I did not know what was going to come out. Mia, I did not know what he...was doing with all those women. I... If nothing else, I would have told him he had a problem.”
“Somehow I doubt that the vows of marriage would mean anything to a serial womanizer like you.”
His chin drew back. “Who is drawing conclusions now?”
His eyes were hard, flat, his fingers tightening over her arms. He tensed, and then slowly the breath he’d been holding pushed out. She’d hurt him?
It was the most nonsensical thought on the most bizarre night of her life.
But then, the man she’d thought him to be would have never offered help tonight. He wouldn’t have even looked at her twice, especially since it was obvious that he’d made up his mind that she had driven Brian away.
But Nikandros had never pretended a friendship or even an acquaintance. Among Brian’s friends, he’d always maintained a polite, even wary, distance from her. As if she’d contaminate his pedigree if he got too close.
“Then why were you there? You sold the women’s team, I know. They said you were leaving Florida. Maybe even the States. You dumped your latest girlfriend.” She rattled off everything she had gathered about him from social media, a habit she hadn’t quite kicked from when he’d first appeared on the scene.
“You had to know... Don’t lie to me, Nikandros. God, please, no more lies.”
Mia closed her eyes. It made her face the one thing she’d been trying to deny—that something inside her had sparked into life tonight, inside the car. Because of the Daredevil Prince.
The sense of him around her amplified a thousand times. The scent of him—dark and delicious and so fundamentally different from her own, clung to her nostrils.
So when he spoke, when his breath feathered over her skin, when his hands descended on her shoulders and pulled her into his body, when the strength and heat of him teased her into a desperate, deep longing, she drowned in the sensations.
She felt his powerful body shudder around her, felt his sharp inhale as he buried his nose in her hair, felt the raw, shameful urge to press her body into his, vibrating through her like a quake.
“I came because I needed to say goodbye.”
A brittle laugh escaped her. “I don’t believe you. You’ve never even considered me a friend. You couldn’t stomach the idea of Brian marrying me. You—”
He pushed her away from him with a contained sort of violence that was far more terrifying than the
way Brian used to lash out at her. Roughly, he pushed his hair back, his mouth curled into that familiar curve. “I couldn’t stomach the idea of him with you because... I wanted you for myself.
“From that first moment when you came onto that field like a streak of lightning all those years ago, your joy on the field, your love of the game... I wanted all of that for myself.”
Falling back a step, Mia stared. “What?”
The debacle of her marriage, the horrible truth of Brian’s affairs, diluted as he spoke with a glittering challenge. “When he married you, I thought it would be done. That this infatuation with you...would die. All these years, I hated you for freezing him out, told myself I was lucky.
“Nothing helped.
“I came tonight because...even now, even after he’s gone, I can’t seem to stop.
“Stop thinking about you. Stop wanting you.” Gripping her arms, he pulled her toward him until their faces were mere inches from each other. The gleam of his blue eyes—Mia had never seen anything so beautiful. “I came because I needed to say goodbye to a decade-old obsession. To this madness.
“Is that honest enough for you, Mia?”
CHAPTER TWO
DROPLETS OF WATER dripped from the ends of her still-wet hair, dampening the thin cotton of the oversize T-shirt that fell to her thighs. Shivering, Mia twisted the damp ends with her palm and squeezed the water onto the towel. She rubbed her hair one more time and threw the towel in the hamper.
Drying her hair seemed to need more energy than she had. Which was funny because she had just swum for an hour, running away as if from the very devil.
I wanted you for myself...
For hours on end, she found herself going back over every interaction they had had over the years, and like he said, God, they’d known each other for a decade. So many memories to sift through, so many interactions that she now viewed afresh.
How she wished she could cling to disbelief, to the outrageous hope that he had said that because he’d felt sorry for her. But the fire in his eyes—as if she were the next challenge he was contemplating.
She had no idea how she’d turned away from him and returned to the car, or what she’d even said when he’d brought her here. When he’d pointed it out, she’d fled into a bedroom and then, like clockwork, to the pool when it had struck midnight.
The corridor stretched now into the endless marble-floored open lounge with incredible views of Biscayne Bay’s spectacular skyline on one side and Miami Beach on the other side. Tall palm trees and beach views told Mia she was in Miami and yet a world apart.
She wandered the penthouse, far too wired after the disastrous day she’d had.
There was a custom wine cellar, outdoor terrace, an indoor pool and an outdoor infinity pool, and four hot tubs with a bath deck overlooking the spectacular Brickell skyline.
Her feet sank deep into thick dark carpet as she walked into the media room. Colorful images moved soundlessly on the huge screen, and cast flashes of lightning into the vast, dome-like theater.
It was a recording of one of her own games—the championship game from three years ago when her team had won the World Cup.
A deep, shuddering ache went through her.
Heart steadily climbing, she found Nikandros seated on a step in the aisle. Arms leaning on his knees, his T-shirt highlighted the fluid line of his spine. Jet-black hair glinted with wetness every time the pictures moved on the giant screen. A half-empty, or rather a half-finished, bottle stood precariously on the carpet next to him, the liquid gleaming gold in it.
As if on cue came her powerful kick from the left field and the ball zoomed toward the net and past the flailing hands of the goalkeeper. The sound was on Mute, yet the applause roared in Mia’s ears as if she were standing there on the field, the Spanish sun kissing her face.
The camera zoomed on her, sweaty and delirious with joy, her grin splitting her mouth into a wide curve.
A spark of joy lit up within Mia now, a quiet jolt as if she were being kicked back into life. On the screen, she did the victory lap around the perimeter of the ground and then that stupidly ridiculous dance, shaking her bum...
And the screen stilled on that image.
Nikandros was watching the game with an intensity that spoke of madness, obsession. It didn’t matter that the Prince was known to be a hard-core fan of the sport, that it was the game that could have arrested his attention.
But no, he was watching her.
She walked down the few steps, heart pounding in her chest. “Turn off the game.”
His body bent at an angle, he looked up. Long lashes cast crescent shadows on his cheekbones. But even those envy-inducing lashes couldn’t hide the thorough way he stared at her, all the way from her wet hair to her bare feet. That same devilish half-amusement lingered around his mouth. “Don’t tell me it’s another eccentricity of yours, not watching yourself play?”
“Another one?”
“The midnight swim?” he added, gaze focused on the wet ends of her hair. “The isolation before a big game?”
Mia shrugged, the knowledge of how keenly he was aware of her every eccentricity touching a fragile, buried part of her. His interest in her soccer career, in her, was extremely addictive. And was going straight to her head and other parts. “Only in the last few months have I been able to accept that I’ll never play again.” She looked up at the screen, an ache that never went away settling deep into her. “That part of my life is over.”
Up the steps and into the corridor she went, something uncoiling within her.
Something had changed tonight, even in the past few minutes maybe—a line had been crossed, a line between existing and living. The numbness that had descended on her seemed to crack. A steely grip on her arm halted her.
“I did not realize—” a restless kind of energy seemed to radiate from him and it touched Mia like a spark to dry tinder “—what you have gone through this past year.”
Her back to him, she pressed her forehead against the wall, unable to catch her breath. Every inch of her trembled from the small contact, every muscle locked painfully against the impulse that was coursing through her. “I hate it when you put it like that,” she said into the wall. “Like I was a victim. Of fate first, and then Brian. I find this...that feeling unbearable. As if nothing was in my control.
“For a year, I wallowed in that self-pity. With Brian’s affairs coming out—” a bitter laugh escaped her “—strangely, I seem to have found myself again. I refuse to be still anymore, refuse to be a victim.”
The grip released on her arm. Now his fingers teased her skin with soft strokes. “You astound me, Mia.” His words were deep and low, with a longing that resonated with her own.
But he still didn’t make a move on her.
Mia was terrified that he would and desolate that he wouldn’t.
“I’m grateful that you were there today, Nikandros,” she said, uncaring at this point that her voice betrayed her. “I didn’t realize until now how much I needed a...familiar face.”
Barely had her breath settled when she felt his hands slide to her shoulders. Her front was pressed against the wall, and at her back, he was a wall of warmth and want. With gentleness that undid her, he pushed her hair to the front and kneaded the hard knots on her shoulders.
His thumbs traced the sensitive skin at her nape. Breathing became a shallow exercise, a cavern of longing opening up within her. And then, just like that, he released her. “I will say good-night...and good-bye then.”
She turned around fast.
Dark stubble gave him a grungy, roguish look. His swarthy skin, as always, contrasted with the glittering blue of his eyes, making the man knee-meltingly gorgeous. Blue shadows cradled his eyes. He looked different somehow.
Charm and looks had been a common enough combination in some of the male athletes Mia had known in her career. But all of it was blunted in Nikandros’s case. As if they were nothing but surface traits.
; It was the vitality that clung to his very pores, the sheer virility of a man who pitted himself against the extremes of nature and won, that made every cell in her ping with awareness.
The word good-bye sat like a boulder on her chest. She wasn’t prepared to say it. Not yet. “Where are you going?” she finally asked, carefully keeping her eyes away from the languid line of his mouth.
A self-deprecating smile carved a dimple in one cheek but left his eyes still far too intent on her. “To Drakon.”
That Nikandros had turned his back on his royal family years ago—it was a little gold nugget the media recycled every few months. With his daredevil stunts and extreme sport enthusiast career, Nikandros regularly courted the media, and like faithful little dogs, they went digging every single time. No one, however, knew the cause of the falling-out.
“You’re returning to your country?”
“For a visit, at least. My father’s dementia has become public knowledge. The Crown Prince has summoned me. My sister and my mother, even though she divorced my father a while ago, think my brother needs me. Desperately, according to them. Although I can’t imagine Andreas would know desperation if it smacked him in the face.”
“How long have you been away?”
“A decade, maybe.” The casual indifference couldn’t belie the torment in his eyes. “This is the first time my brother has sought me out.”
Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that. “I’m sorry, Nikandros,” she finally said, sensing the ache in him.
He bent so suddenly that her breath whooshed out. One hard muscled thigh grazed the side of her legs, leaving her quaking. “Pity is not something I could tolerate.”
“Did Brian’s death make you feel sorry for me?” she countered. “Make you change your judgment of me?”
“No,” he said without missing a beat.
“Honesty, honesty, my hide for honesty,” she quipped in a singsong voice, giving in to the abrupt, insane urge to laugh.
Arms locking on either side of her head, he smiled. It touched his eyes then, which were like the sky on a summer afternoon. Time seemed to fly away, seconds turning to minutes and she felt the most insane urge to stop it. To grab it with both hands and hold on to this moment. “When do you leave?”