The Secret Beneath The Veil. Dani Collins

the streak of light between the curtains. She folded her arms in self-protection and kept him in her periphery.

      This was really stupid, letting him bring her into his bedroom like this. A single woman who lived in the city knew to be more careful.

      “Use the ice,” he said with what sounded like a hint of dry laughter in his tone. He nodded toward a side table where an ice pack sat on a small bar towel.

      “It’s not that bad,” she dismissed. She’d had worse. Her lip might be puffed a little at the corner, but it was nothing like the time she’d walked around with a huge black eye, barely able to see out of it, openly telling people that Grigor had struck her. You shouldn’t talk back to him, her teacher had said, mouth tight, gaze avoiding hers.

      Grigor shouldn’t have called her a whore and burned all her photos of her mother, she had retorted, but no one had wanted to hear that.

      Mikolas didn’t say anything, only came toward her, making her snap her head around and warn him off with a look.

      Putting his glass down, he lifted his phone and clicked, taking a photo of her, surprising her so much she scowled.

      “What are you doing?”

      “Documenting. I assume Grigor will claim you were hurt falling into the water,” he advised with cool detachment.

      “You don’t want me to try to discredit your business partner? Is that what you’re saying? Are you going to take a photo after you leave your own mark on the other side of my face?” It was a dicey move, daring him like that, but she was so sick of people protecting Grigor. And she needed to know Mikolas’s intentions, face them head-on.

      Mikolas’s stony eyes narrowed. “I don’t hit women.” His mouth pulled into a smile that was more an expression of lethal power than anything else. “And Grigor has discredited himself.” He tilted the phone to indicate the photo. “Which may prove useful.”

      Viveka’s insides tightened as she absorbed how cold-blooded that was.

      “I didn’t know Grigor had another daughter.” Mikolas moved to take up his drink again. “Do you want one?” he asked, glancing toward the small wet bar next to the television. Both were inset against the shiny wood-grain cabinetry.

      She shook her head. Better to keep her wits.

      “Grigor isn’t my father.” She always took great satisfaction in that statement. “My mother married him when I was four. She died when I was nine. He doesn’t talk about her, either.”

      Or the boating accident. Her heart clenched like a fist, trying to hang on to her memories of her mother, knotting in fury at the lack of a satisfactory explanation, wanting to beat the truth from Grigor if she had to.

      “Do you have a name?” he asked.

      “Viveka.” The corner of her mouth pulled as she realized they’d come this far without it. She was practically naked, wearing a robe that had brushed his own skin and surrounded her in the scent of his aftershave. “Brice,” she added, not clarifying that most people called her Vivi.

      “Viveka,” he repeated, like he was trying out the sound. They were speaking English and his thick accent gave an exotic twist to her name as he shaped out the Vive and added a short, hard ka to the end.

      She licked her lips, disturbed by how much she liked the way he said it.

      “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.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      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