“Why the melodrama, Viveka? I asked your sister if she was agreeable to this marriage. She said yes.”
“Do you think she would risk saying no to something Grigor wanted?” She pointed at the ache on her face.
Mikolas’s expression grew circumspect as he dropped his gaze into his drink, thumb moving on the glass. It was the only indication his thoughts were restless beneath that rock-face exterior.
“If she wants more time,” he began.
“She’s marrying someone else,” she cut in. “Right this minute, if all has gone to plan.” She glanced for a clock, but didn’t see one. “She knew Stephanos at school and he worked on Grigor’s estate as a landscaper.”
Trina had loved the young man from afar for years, never wanting to tip her hand to Grigor by so much as exchanging more than a shy hello with Stephanos, but she had waxed poetic to Viveka on dozens of occasions. Viveka hadn’t believed Stephanos returned the crush until Trina’s engagement to Mikolas had been announced.
“When Stephanos heard she was marrying someone else, he asked Trina to elope. He has a job outside of Athens.” One that Grigor couldn’t drop the ax upon.
“Weeding flower beds?” Mikolas swirled his drink. “She could have kept him on the side after we married, if that’s what she wanted.”
“Really,” Viveka choked.
He shrugged a negligent shoulder. “This marriage is a business transaction, open to negotiation. I would have given her children if she wanted them, or a divorce eventually, if that was her preference. She should have spoken to me.”
“Because you’re such a reasonable man—who just happens to trade women like stocks and bonds.”
“I’m a man who gets what he wants,” he said in a soft voice, but it was positively deadly. “I want this merger.”
He sounded so merciless her heart skipped in alarm. Gangster. She found a falsely pleasant smile.
“I wish you great success in making your dreams come true. Do you mind if I wear this robe to my boat? I can bring it back after I dress or maybe one of your staff could come with me?” She pushed her hand into the pocket and gripped her credit card, feeling the edge dig into her palm. Where was Grigor? she wondered. She had no desire to pass him on the dock and get knocked into the water again—this time unconscious.
Mikolas’s expression didn’t change. He said nothing, but she had the impression he was laughing at her again.
Something made her look toward the office and the view beyond the bow. The marina was tucked against a very small indent on the island’s coastline. The view from shore was mostly an expanse of the Aegean. But the boats weren’t passing in front of this craft. They were coming and going on both sides. The slant of sunlight on the water had shifted.
The yacht was moving.
“Are you kidding me?” she screeched.
MIKOLAS THREW BACK the last of his ouzo, clenched his teeth against the burn and set aside his glass with a decisive thunk. He searched for the void that he usually occupied, but he couldn’t find it. He was swirling in a miasma of lascivious need, achingly hard after the way Viveka had stared at his crotch and swallowed like her mouth was watering.
He absently ran a hand across his chest where his nipples were so sharp they pained him and adjusted himself so he wouldn’t pop out of his shorts, resisting the urge to soothe the ache with a squeeze of his fist.
His reaction to her was unprecedented. He was an experienced man, had a healthy appetite for sex, but had never reacted so immediately and irrepressibly to any woman.
This lack of command over himself disturbed him. Infuriated him. He was insulted at being thrown over for a gardener and unclear on his next move. Retreat was never an option for him, but he’d left the island to regroup. That smacked of cowardice and he pinned the blame for all of it on this woman.
While she stood there with her hand closed over the lapels of his robe, holding it tight beneath her throat. Acting virginal when she was obviously as wily and experienced as any calculating opportunist he’d ever met.
“Let’s negotiate our terms, Viveka.” From the moment she had admitted to being Trina’s sister he had seen the logical way to rescue this deal. Hell, by turning up in Trina’s gown she’d practically announced to him how this would play out.
Of course it was a catch-22. He wasn’t sure he wanted such a tempting woman so close to him, but he refused to believe she was anything he couldn’t handle.
Viveka only flashed him a disparaging look and spun toward the door.
He didn’t bother stopping her. He followed at a laconic pace as she scurried her way out to the stern of the mid-deck. Grasping the rail in one hand, she shaded her eyes with the other, scanning the empty horizon. She quickly threw herself to the port side. Gazing back to the island, which had been left well behind them, she made a distressed noise and glared at him again, expression white.
“Is Grigor on board?”
“Why would he be?”
“I don’t know!” Her shoulders relaxed a notch, but she continued to look anxious. “Why did you leave the island?”
“Why would I stay?”
“Why would you take me?” she cried.
“I want to know why you’ve taken your sister’s place.”
“You didn’t have to leave shore for that!”
“You wanted Grigor present? He seemed to be inflaming things.” Grigor hadn’t expected his departure, either. Mikolas’s phone had already buzzed several times with calls from his would-be business partner.
That had been another reason for Mikolas’s departure. If he’d stayed, he might have assaulted Grigor. The white-hot urge had been surprisingly potent and yes, that too had been provoked by this exasperating woman.
It wasn’t a desire to protect her, Mikolas kept telling himself. His nature demanded he dominate, particularly over bullies and brutes. His personal code of ethics wouldn’t allow him to stand by and watch any man batter a woman.
But Grigor’s attack on this one had triggered something dark and primal in him, something he didn’t care to examine too closely. Since cold-blooded murder was hardly a walk down the straight and narrow that was his grandfather’s expectation of him, he’d taken himself out of temptation’s reach.
“I had a boat hired! All my things are on it.” Viveka pointed at the island. “Take me back!”
Such a bold little thing. Time to let her know who was boss.
“Grigor promised this merger if I married his daughter.” He gave her a quick once-over. “His stepdaughter will do.”
She
