A sharp memory of asking her mother if she could cut up her sister’s pancakes and pour the petimezi came to her. Nothing tasted quite like grape molasses. Her heart panged, while her mouth watered and her stomach contracted with hunger.
“Have you eaten?” she called, hoping he didn’t hear the break in her voice. She glanced out to see he didn’t have a plate going.
“Óchi akóma.” Not yet.
She gave him a large helping of the smoked pork omelet along with pancakes and topped up his coffee, earning a considering look as she served him.
Yes, she was trying to soften him up. A woman had to create advantages where she could with a man like him.
“Efcharistó,” he said when she joined him.
“Parakaló.” She was trying to act casual, but she had chosen to start with yogurt and thyme honey. The first bite tasted so perfect, was such a burst of early childhood happiness, when her mother had been alive and her sister a living doll she could dress and feed, she had to close her eyes, pressing back tears of homecoming.
* * *
Mikolas watched her, reluctantly fascinated by the emotion that drew her cheeks in while she savored her breakfast. Pained joy crinkled her brow. It was sensual and sexy and poignant. It was yogurt.
He forced his gaze to his own plate.
Viveka was occupying entirely too much real estate in his brain. It had to stop.
But even as he told himself that, his mind went back to last night. How could it not, with her sitting across from him braless beneath her long-sleeved nightshirt? The soft weight of her breast was still imprinted on his palm, firm and shapely, topped with a sensitive nipple he’d longed to suck.
Instantly he was primed for sex. And damn it, she’d been as fully involved as he had been. He wasn’t so arrogant he made assumptions about women’s states of interest. He took pains to ensure they were with him every step of the way when he made love to them. She’d been pressing herself into him, returning his kiss, moaning with enjoyment.
Fine, he could accept that she thought they were moving too fast. Obviously she was a bit of a romantic, flying across the continent to help her sister marry her first love. But sex would happen between them. It was inevitable.
When he had opened the passageway between their rooms, however, it hadn’t been for sex. He had wanted to ease her anxiety. She had been nothing less than a nuclear bomb from the moment he’d seen her face, but he’d found himself searching out the catch in the wall, giving her access to his space, which had never been his habit with any woman.
He didn’t understand his actions around her. This morning, he’d actually begun second-guessing his decision to keep her, which wasn’t like him at all. Indecision did not make for control in any situation. He certainly couldn’t back down because he was scared. Of being around a particular woman.
Then the news had come through that Grigor was, indeed, hiding debts in two of his subsidiaries. There was no room for equivocating after that. Mikolas had issued a few terse final orders, then notified Grigor of his intention to take over with or without cooperation.
Grigor had been livid.
Given the man’s vile remarks, Mikolas was now as suspicious as Viveka that her stepfather had killed her mother. Viveka would stay with him whether he was comfortable in her presence or not.
Whether she liked it or not. At least until he could be sure Grigor wouldn’t harm her.
She opened her dreamy blue eyes and looked like she was coming back from orgasm. Sexual awareness shimmered like waves of desert heat between them.
Yes. Sex was inevitable.
Her gaze began to tangle with his, but she seemed to take herself in hand. She sat taller and cleared her throat, looking out to the water and lifting a determined chin, cheekbones glowing with pink heat.
He mentally sighed, too experienced a fighter not to recognize she was preparing to start one.
“Mikolas.” He mentally applauded her take-charge tone. “I have to go back to London. My aunt is very old. Quite ill. She needs me.”
He absorbed that with a blink. This was a fresh approach at least.
She must have read his skepticism. Her mouth tightened. “I wish I was making it up. I’m not.”
If he expected her trust—and he did—he would have to trust her in return, he supposed. “Tell me about her,” he invited.
She looked to the clear sky, seeming to struggle a moment.
“There’s not much to tell. She’s the sister of my grandmother and took me in when Grigor kicked me out, even though she was a spinster who never wanted anything to do with children. She had a career before women really did. Worked in Parliament, but not as an elected official. As a secretary to a string of them. She had some kind of lofty clearance, served coffee to all sorts of royals and diplomats. I think she was in love with a married man,” she confided with a wrinkle of her nose.
Definitely a sentimentalist.
She shrugged, murmuring, “I don’t have proof. Just a few things she said over the years.” She picked up her coffee and cupped her hands around it. “She was always telling me how to behave so men wouldn’t think things.” She made a face. “I’m sure the sexism in her day was appalling. She was adamant that I be independent, pay my share of rent and groceries, know how to look after myself.”
“She didn’t take her own advice? Make arrangements for herself?”
“She tried.” Her shoulder hitched in a helpless shrug. “Like a lot of people, she lost her retirement savings with the economic crash. For a while she had an income bringing in boarders, but we had to stop that a few years ago and remortgage. She has dementia.” Her sigh held the weight of the world. “Strangers in the house upset her. She doesn’t recognize me anymore, thinks I’m my mother, or her sister, or an intruder who stole her groceries.” She looked into her cooling coffee. “I’ve begun making arrangements to put her into a nursing home, but the plans aren’t finalized.”
* * *
Viveka knew he was listening intently, thought about leaving it there, where she had stopped with the doctors and the intake staff and with Trina during their video chats. But the mass on her conscience was too great. She’d already told Mikolas about Grigor’s abuse. He might actually understand the rest and she really needed it off her chest.
“I feel like I’m stealing from her. She worked really hard for her home and deserves to live in it, but she can’t take care of herself. I have to run home from work every few hours to make sure she hasn’t started a fire or caught a bus to who knows where. I can’t afford to stay home with her all day and even if I could...”
She swallowed, reminding herself not to feel resentful, but it still hurt. Not just physically, either. She had tried from Day One to have a familial relationship with her aunt and it had all been for naught.
“She started hitting me. I know she doesn’t mean it to be cruel. She’s scared. She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. But I can’t take it.”
She
