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 him, filling him with anticipation for this pomp and circumstance to end.
The ceremony progressed at a glacial pace. Juvenile eagerness struck him when he was finally able to lift her veil. He didn’t celebrate Christmas, yet felt it had arrived early, just for him.
He told himself it was gratification at accomplishing the goal his grandfather had assigned him. With this kiss, the balance sheets would come out of the rinse cycle, clean and pressed like new. Too bad the old man hadn’t been well enough to travel here and enjoy this moment himself.
Mikolas revealed his bride’s face and froze.
She was beautiful. Her mouth was eye-catching with a lush upper lip and a bashful bottom one tucked beneath it. Her chin was strong and came up a notch in a hint of challenge while her blue, blue irises blinked at him.
This was no girl on the brink of legal age. She was a woman, one who was mature enough to look him straight in the eye without flinching.
She was not Trina Stamos.
“Who the hell are you?”
Gasps went through the crowd.
The woman lifted a hand to brush her veil free of his dumbfounded fingers.
Behind her, Grigor shot to his feet with an ugly curse. “What are you doing here? Where’s Trina?”
Yes. Where was his bride? Without the right woman here to speak her vows and sign her name, this marriage—the merger—was at a standstill. No.
As though she had anticipated Grigor’s reaction, the bride zipped behind Mikolas, using him like a shield as the older man bore down on them.
“You little bitch!” Grigor hissed. Trina’s father was not as shocked by the switch as he was incensed. He clearly knew this woman. A vein pulsed on his forehead beneath his flushed skin. “Where is she?”
Mikolas put up a hand, warding off the old man from grabbing the woman behind him. He would have his explanation from her before Grigor unleashed his temper.
Or maybe he wouldn’t.
Another round of surprised gasps went through the crowd, punctuated by the clack of the fire door and a loud, repetitive ring of its alarm.
His bride had bolted out the emergency exit.
What the hell?
VIVEKA RAN EVERY DAY. She was fit and adrenaline pulsed through her arteries, giving her the ability to move fast and light as she fled Grigor and his fury.
The dress and the heels and the spaces between planks and the floating wharf were another story. Bloody hell.
She made it down the swaying ramp in one piece, thanks to the rails on either side, but then she was racing down the unsteady platform between the slips, scanning for the flag of her vessel—
The train of her dress caught. She didn’t even see on what. She was yanked back and that was all it took for her to lose her footing completely. Stupid heels.
She turned her ankle, stumbled, tried to catch herself, hooked her toe in a pile of coiled rope and threw out an arm to snatch at the rail of the yacht in the slip beside her.
She missed, only crashing into the side of the boat with her shoulder. The impact made her “oof!” Her grasp was too little, too late. She slid sideways and would have screamed, but had the sense to suck in a big breath before she fell.
Cold, murky salt water closed over her.
Don’t panic, she told herself, splaying out her limbs and only getting tangled in her dress and veil.
Mom. This was what it must have been like for her on that night far from shore, suddenly finding herself under cold, swirling water, tangled in an evening dress.
Don’t panic.
Viveka’s eyes stung as she tried to shift the veil enough to see which way the bubbles were going. Her dress hadn’t stayed caught. It had come all the way in with her and floated all around her, obscuring her vision, growing heavier. The chill of the water penetrated to her skin. The weight of the dress dragged her down.
She kicked, but the layers of the gown were in the way. Her spiked heels caught in the fabric. This was futile. She was going to drown within swimming distance to shore. Grigor would stand above her and applaud.
The back of her hand scraped barnacles and her foot touched something. The seabed? Her hand burned where she’d scuffed it, but that told her there was a pillar somewhere here. She tried to scrabble her grip against it, desperately thinking she had never held her breath this long and couldn’t hold it any longer.
Don’t panic.
She clawed at her veil with her other hand, tried to pull it off her hair. She would never get all these buttons open and the dress off in time to kick herself to the surface—
Don’t panic.
The compulsion to gasp for air was growing unstoppable.
A hand grabbed her forearm and tugged her.
Yes, please. Oh, God, please!
Viveka blew out what little air she still had, fighting not to inhale, fighting to kick and help bring herself to the blur of