she’d had to grow up fast and become more practical once her mother died. She had worked here at this yacht club, lying about her age so they’d hire her, washing dishes and scrubbing floors.
She had wanted to be independent of Grigor as soon as possible, away from his disparaging remarks that had begun turning into outright abuse. He had helped her along by kicking her out of the house before she’d turned fifteen. He’d kicked her off this island, really. Out of Greece and away from her sister because once he realized she had been working, that she had the means to support herself and wouldn’t buckle to his will when he threatened to expel her from his home, he had ensured she was fired and couldn’t get work anywhere within his reach.
Trina, just nine, had been the one to whisper, Go. I’ll be okay. You should go.
Viveka had reached out to her mother’s elderly aunt in London. She had known Hildy only from Christmas cards, but the woman had taken her in. It hadn’t been ideal. Viveka got through it by dreaming of bringing her sister to live with her there. As recently as a few months ago, she had pictured them as two carefree young women, twenty-three and eighteen, figuring out their futures in the big city—
“I, Mikolas Petrides...”
He had an arresting voice. As he repeated his name and spoke his vows, the velvet-and-steel cadence of his tone held her. He smelled good, like fine clothes and spicy aftershave and something unique and masculine that she knew would imprint on her forever.
She didn’t want to remember this for the rest of her life. It was a ceremony that wasn’t even supposed to be happening. She was just a placeholder.
Silence made her realize it was her turn.
She cleared her throat and searched for a suitably meek tone. Trina had never been a target for Grigor. Not just because she was his biological daughter, but also because she was on the timid side—probably because her father was such a mean, loudmouthed, sexist bastard in the first place.
Viveka had learned the hard way to be terrified of Grigor. Even in London his cloud of intolerance had hung like a poison cloud, making her careful about when she contacted Trina, never setting Trina against him by confiding her suspicions, always aware he could hurt Viveka through her sister.
She had sworn she wouldn’t return to Greece, certainly not with plans that would make Grigor hate her more than he already did, but she was confident he wouldn’t do more than yell in front of all these wedding guests. There were media moguls in the assemblage and paparazzi circling the air and water. The risk in coming here was a tall round of embarrassed confusion, nothing more.
She sincerely hoped.
The moment of truth approached. Her voice thinned and cracked, making her vows a credible imitation of Trina’s as she spoke fraudulently in her sister’s place, nullifying the marriage—and merger—that Grigor wanted so badly. It wasn’t anything that could truly balance the loss of her mother, but it was a small retribution. Viveka wore a grim inner smile as she did it.
Her bouquet shook as she handed it off and her fingers felt clumsy and nerveless as she exchanged rings with Mikolas, keeping up the ruse right to the last minute. She wouldn’t sign any papers, of course, and she would have to return these rings. Darn, she hadn’t thought about that.
Even his hands were compelling, so well shaped and strong, so sure. One of his nails looked... She wasn’t sure. Like he’d injured it once. If this were a real wedding, she would know that intimate detail about him.
Silly tears struck behind her eyes. She had the same girlish dreams for a fairy-tale wedding as any woman. She wished this were the beginning of her life with the man she loved. But it wasn’t. Nothing about this was legal or real.
Everyone was about to realize that.
“You may kiss the bride.”
* * *
Mikolas Petrides had agreed to this marriage for one reason only: his grandfather. He wasn’t a sentimental man or one who allowed himself to be manipulated. He sure as hell wasn’t marrying for love. That word was an immature excuse for sex and didn’t exist in the real world.
No, he felt nothing toward his bride. He felt nothing toward anyone, quite by conscious decision.
Even his loyalty to his grandfather was provisional. Pappoús had saved his life. He’d given Mikolas this life once their blood connection had been verified. He had recognized Mikolas as his grandson, pulling him from the powerless side of a brutal world to the powerful one.
Mikolas repaid him with duty and legitimacy. His grandfather had been born into a good family during hard times. Erebus Petrides hadn’t stayed on the right side of the law as he’d done what he’d seen as necessary to survive. Living a corrupt life had cost the old man his son and Mikolas had been Erebus’s second chance at an heir. He had given his grandson full rein with his ill-gotten empire on the condition Mikolas turn it into a legal—yet still lucrative—enterprise.
No small task, but this marriage merger was the final step. To the outside observer, Grigor’s world-renowned conglomerate was absorbing a second-tier corporation with a questionable pedigree. In reality, Grigor was being paid well for a company logo. Mikolas would eventually run the entire operation.
Was it irony that his mother had been a laundress? Or appropriate?
Either way, this marriage had been Grigor’s condition. He wanted his own blood to inherit his wealth. Mikolas had accepted to make good on his debt to his grandfather. Marriage would work for him in other ways and it was only another type of contract. This ceremony was more elaborate than most business meetings, but it was still just a date to fix signatures upon dotted lines followed by the requisite photo op.
Mikolas had met his bride—a girl, really—twice. She was young and extremely shy. Pretty enough, but no sparks of attraction had flared in him. He’d resigned himself to affairs while she grew up and they got to know one another. Therein might be another advantage to marriage, he had been thinking distantly, while he waited for her to walk down the aisle. Other women wouldn’t wheedle for marriage if he already wore a ring.
Then her approach had transfixed him. Something happened. Lust.
He was never comfortable when things happened outside his control. This was hardly the time or place for a spike of naked hunger for a woman. But it happened.
She arrived before him veiled in a waterfall mist that he should have dismissed as an irritating affectation. For some reason he found the mystery deeply erotic. He recognized her perfume as the same scent she’d worn those other times, but rather than sweet and innocent, it now struck him as womanly and heady.
Her lissome figure wasn’t as childish as he’d first judged, either. She moved as though she owned her body, and how had he not noticed before that her eyes were such a startling shade of blue, the kind that sat as a pool of water against a glacier? He could barely see her face, but the intensity of blue couldn’t be dimmed by a few scraps of lace.
His heart began to thud with an old, painful beat. Want. The real kind. The kind that was more like basic necessity.
A flicker of panic threatened, but he clamped down on the memories of deprivation. Of denial. Terror. Searing pain.
He got what he wanted these days. Always. He was getting her.
Satisfaction rolled through
