very different in Clair’s circle, where she was nodding at whoever was speaking, smiling and fully engaged in the conversation. Her husband was looking their way and she pressed a brief smile onto her mouth.
Nothing.
Mikolas had been right about invisible barriers.
“This must be your new bride if the merger has gone through,” one of the other men broke in to say, frowning with confusion as he jumped his gaze between her and Mikolas.
I have a name, Viveka wanted to remind the man, but apparently on this side of the room, she was a “this.”
“No,” Mikolas replied, offering no further explanation.
Viveka wanted to roll her eyes. It was basic playground etiquette to act friendly if you wanted to be included in the games. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Was this what he had meant when he had said it was her task to change how he was viewed?
“I stopped the wedding,” she blurted. “He was supposed to marry my sister, but...” She cleared her throat as she looked up at Mikolas, laughing inwardly at the ridiculous claim she was about to make. “I fell head over heels. You weren’t far behind me, were you?”
Mikolas wore much the same incredulous expression he had when he’d lifted her veil.
“Your sister can’t be happy about that,” one of the women said, perking up for the first time.
“She’s fine with it,” Viveka assured with a wave. “She’d be the first to say you should follow your heart, wouldn’t she?” she prodded Mikolas, highly entertained with her embellishment on the truth. Laugh with me, she entreated.
“Let’s dance.” His grip on her hand moved to her elbow and he turned her toward the floor. As he took her in his arms seconds later, he said, “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“Oh, come on. You said we should appear long-term. Now they think we’re in love and by the way, your friends are a pile of sexist jerks.”
“I don’t have friends,” he growled. “Those are people whose names I know.”
His touch on her seemed to crackle and spark, making her feel sensitized all over. At the same time, she thought she heard something in his tone that was a warning.
Dancing with him was easy. They moved really well together right out of the gate. She let herself become immersed in the moment, where the music transmitted through them, making them move in unison. He held her in his strong arms and the closeness was deliciously stimulating. Her heart fluttered and she feared she really would tumble into deep feelings for him.
“They should call it heels over head,” she said, trying to break the spell. “We’re head over heels right now. It means you’re upright.”
He halted their dance, started to say something, but off to her right, Clair said, “Vivi. Let me introduce you properly. My husband, Aleksy Dmitriev.”
* * *
Mikolas pulled himself back from a suffocating place where his emotions had knotted up. She’d been joking with all that talk of love, he knew she had, but even having a falsehood put out there to those vultures had made him uncomfortable.
He had been pleased to feel nothing for Trina. He would have introduced her as his wife and the presumption of affection might have been made, but it wouldn’t have been true. It certainly wouldn’t have been something that could be used to prey on his psyche, not deep down where his soul kept well out of the light.
Viveka was different. Her blasé claim of love between them was an overstatement and he ought to be able to dismiss it. But as much as he wanted to feel nothing toward her, he couldn’t. Everything he’d done since meeting her proved to himself that he felt something.
He tried to ignore how disarmed that made him feel, concentrating instead on finding himself face-to-face with the man who’d been evading him for two years.
Dmitriev looked seriously peeved, mouth flat and the scar on his face standing out white.
It’s the Viveka effect, Mikolas wanted to drawl.
Dmitriev nodded a stiff acknowledgment to Viveka’s warm smile.
“Did you think you were being robbed?” Viveka teased him.
“It crossed my mind.” Dmitriev lifted a cool gaze to Mikolas. When I realized she was with you, he seemed to say.
Mikolas kept a poker face as Viveka finished the introduction, but deep down he waved a flag of triumph over Dmitriev being forced to come to him.
It was only an introduction, he reminded himself. A hook. There was no reeling in this kind of fish without a fight.
“We have to get back to the children,” Clair was saying. “But I wanted to thank you again for your help.”
“My pleasure. I hope we’ll run into each other in future,” Viveka said. Mikolas had to give her credit. She was a natural at this role.
“Perhaps you can add us to your donor list,” Mikolas said. I do my homework, he told Dmitriev with a flick of his gaze. Clair ran a foundation that benefited orphanages across Europe. Mikolas had been waiting for the right opportunity to use this particular door. He had no scruples about walking through it as Viveka’s plus one.
“May I?” Clair brightened. “I would love that!”
Mikolas brought out one of his cards and a pen, scrawling Viveka’s details on the back, mentally noting he should have some cards of her own printed.
“I’d give you one of mine, but I’m out,” Clair said, showing hands that were empty of all but a diamond and platinum wedding band. “I’ve been talking up my fund-raising dinner in Paris all night—oh! Would you happen to be going there at the end of next month? I could put you on that list, too.”
“Please do. I’m sure we can make room,” Mikolas said smoothly. We, our, us. It was a foreign language to him, but surprisingly easy to pick up.
“I’m being shameless, aren’t I?” Clair said to her husband, dipping her chin while lifting eyes filled with playful culpability.
The granite in Dmitriev’s face eased to what might pass for affection, but he sounded sincere as he contradicted her. “You’re passionate. It’s one of your many appealing qualities. Don’t apologize for it.”
He produced one of his own cards and stole the pen Mikolas still held, wordlessly offering both to his wife.
I see what you’re doing, Dmitriev said with a level stare at Mikolas while Clair wrote. Dmitriev was of similar height and build to Mikolas. He was probably the only man in the room whom Mikolas would instinctively respect without testing the man first. He emanated the same air of self-governance that Mikolas enjoyed and had more than demonstrated he couldn’t be manipulated into doing anything he didn’t want to do.
He provoked all of Mikolas’s instincts to dominate, which made getting this man’s contact details that much more significant.
But even though he wasn’t happy to be giving up his direct
