The Secret Beneath The Veil. Dani Collins

lives by carrying out their sworn duties. She had learned that bitter lesson years ago.

      And this brute wouldn’t let her go to do anything!

      He was really strong. He carried her in arms that were so hard with steely muscle it almost hurt to be held by them. She could tell it wasn’t worth wasting her energy trying to escape. And he wore a mask of such controlled fury he intimidated her.

      She instinctively drew in on herself, stomach churning with reaction while her brain screamed at her to swim out to her hired boat.

      “Let me go,” she insisted in a more level tone.

      Mikolas only bit out orders for ice and bandages to a uniformed man as he carried her up a narrow gangplank, boarding a huge yacht of aerodynamic layers and spaceship-like rigging. The walls were white, the decks teak, the sheer size and luxury of the vessel making it more like a cruise liner than a personal craft.

      Greek mafia, she thought, and wriggled harder, signaling that she sincerely wanted him to put her down. Now.

      Mikolas strode into what had to be the master cabin. She caught only a glimpse of its grand decor before he carried her all the way into a luxurious en suite and started the shower.

      “Warm up,” he ordered and pointed to the black satin robe on the back of the door. “Then we’ll bandage your hand and ice your face while you explain yourself.”

      He left.

      She snorted. Not likely.

      Folding her arms against icy shivers, she eyed the small porthole that looked into the expanse of open water beyond the marina. She might fit through it, but even as the thought formed, a crewman walked by on the deck outside. She would be discovered before she got through it and in any case, she wasn’t up for another swim. Not yet. She was trembling.

      Reaction was setting in. She had nearly drowned. Grigor had hit her. He’d do worse if he got his hands on her again. Had he come aboard behind them?

      She wanted to cry out of sheer, overwhelmed reaction.

      But she wouldn’t.

      Trina was safe, she reminded herself. Never again did she have to worry about her little sister. Not in the same way, anyway.

      The steaming shower looked incredibly inviting. Its gentle hiss beckoned her.

      Don’t cry, she warned herself, because showers were her go-to place for letting emotion overcome her, but she couldn’t afford to let down her guard. She may yet have to face Grigor again.

      Her insides congealed at the thought.

      She would need to pull herself together for that, she resolved, and closed the curtain across the porthole before picking herself free of the buckles on her shoes. She stepped into the shower still wearing her bra and undies, then took them off to rinse them and— Oh. She let out a huff of faint laughter as she saw her credit card stuck to her breast.

      The chuckle was immediately followed by a stab of concern. Her bags, passport, phone and purse were on the hired boat. Was the captain waiting a short trot down the wharf? Or bobbing out in the harbor, wondering if she’d drowned? Grabbing this credit card and shoving it into her bra had been a last-minute insurance against being stuck without resources if things went horribly wrong, but she hadn’t imagined things would go this far wrong.

      The captain was waiting for her, she assured herself. She would keep her explanations short and sweet to Mikolas and be off. He seemed like a reasonable man.

      She choked on another snort of laughter, this one edging toward hysteria.

      Then another wave of that odd defenselessness swirled through her. Why had Mikolas saved her? It made her feel like— She didn’t know what this feeling was. She never relied on anyone. She’d never been able to. Her mother had loved her, but she’d died. Trina had loved her, but she’d been too young and timorous to stand up to Grigor. Aunt Hildy had helped her to some extent, but on a quid-pro-quo basis.

      Mikolas was a stranger who had risked his life to preserve hers. She didn’t understand it.

      It infused her with a sense that she was beholden to him. She hated that feeling. She had had a perfect plan to get Hildy settled, bring Trina to London once she was eighteen and finally start living life on her own terms. Then Grigor had ruined it by promising Trina to this...criminal.

      A criminal who wasn’t averse to fishing a woman out of the sea—something her stepfather hadn’t bothered doing with her mother, leaving that task to search and rescue.

      She was still trembling, still trying to make sense of it as she dried off with a thick black towel monogrammed with a silver M. She stole a peek in his medicine chest, bandaged her hand, used some kind of man-brand moisturizer that didn’t have a scent, rinsed with his mouthwash, then untangled her hair with a comb that smelled like his shampoo. She used his hair dryer to dry her underwear and put both back on under his robe.

      The robe felt really good, light and cool and slippery against her humid skin.

      She felt like his lover wearing something this intimate.

      The thought made her blush and a strange wistfulness hit her as she worked off his rings—both the diamond that Trina had given her and the platinum band he’d placed on her finger himself—and set them on the hook meant for facecloths. He was not the sort of man she would ever want to marry. He was far too daunting and she needed her independence, but she did secretly long for someone to share her life with. Someone kind and tender who would make her laugh and maybe bring her flowers sometimes.

      Someone who wanted her in his life.

      She would not grow maudlin about her sister running off with Stephanos, seemingly choosing him over Viveka, leaving her nursing yet another sting of rejection. Her sister was entitled to fall in love.

      With a final deep breath, she emerged into the stateroom.

      Mikolas was there, wearing a pair of black athletic shorts and towel-dried hair, nothing else. His silhouette was a bleak, masculine statue against the closed black curtains.

      The rest of the room was surprisingly spacious for a boat, she noted with a sweeping glance. There was a sitting area with a comfortable-looking sectional facing a big-screen TV. A glass-enclosed office allowed a tinted view of a private deck in the bow. She averted her gaze from the huge bed covered with a black satin spread and came back to the man who watched her with an indecipherable expression.

      He held a drink, something clear and neat. Ouzo, she assumed. His gaze snagged briefly on the red mark on her cheek before traversing to her bare feet and coming back to slam into hers.

      His expression still simmered with anger, but there was something else that took her breath. A kind of male assessment that signaled he was weighing her as a potential sex partner.

      Involuntarily, she did the same thing. How could she not? He was really good-looking. His build was amazing, from those broad, bare shoulders to that muscled chest to those washboard abs and soccer-star legs.

      She was not a woman who gawked at men. She considered herself a feminist and figured if it was tasteless for men to gaze at pinup calendars, then women shouldn’t objectify men, either, but seriously. Wow. He was muscly without being overdeveloped. His skin was toasted a warm brown and that light pattern of hair on his chest looked like it had been sculpted by the loving hand of Mother Nature, not any sort of waxing specialist.

      An urge to touch him struck her. Sexual desire wasn’t something that normally hit her out of the blue like this, but she found herself growing warm with more than embarrassment. She wondered what it would be like to roam her mouth over his torso, to tongue his nipples and lick his skin. She felt an urge to splay her hands over his muscled waist and explore lower, push aside his waistband and possess.

      Coils of sexual need tightened in her belly.

      Where was the lead-up? The part where she spent ages kissing and nuzzling before she decided maybe she’d like to take things a little further?