by Maisey Yates
“Only as an alternative to Alcatraz.”
Mak provided the private jet for the flight. It was a display of wealth that was beyond even her experience. Expansive and plush, with a seating area more suited to a hotel suite than a plane.
It was sort of surreal. And the beginning of real, concrete understanding about who he was. He was successful, she knew that, a billionaire as well, and she’d known that too. But suddenly, out of her father’s kingdom, thirty thousand feet above the ocean, she realized that Mak had more money and more power than the Drakos royal family.
Her family had tradition, power and their small island, but this went well beyond that. When she saw the way Mak’s staff treated him, saw the sheer opulence of their surroundings … well, it was clear she’d underestimated him a bit.
Yes, he was doing work for her father, but he wasn’t an employee. He wasn’t anyone’s subordinate.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked, from his position across the cabin.
“Yes, please. Champagne?”
“Of course.” He pressed a button on the seat and a steward came from behind the curtain, receiving the order in Russian and going back into the kitchenette area of the plane.
“So, this is your vacation home, then?” she asked.
“Something like that. My place where I go when I don’t want to be bothered.”
“Makes it sort of ironic that you’re bringing me, then,” she said, a giggle shaking up the last word. She didn’t know why she was laughing, because nothing about this was funny at all.
As far as the story in the news went, she felt humiliated beyond belief. The details in the tabloid were hideous. They’d said she’d done things she’d never even heard of. It was in print for all the world. And people would believe it. There would be nothing she could do to escape that. There would always be some people who thought of her as the princess who’d had sex with two men in a casino. Her claim to fame for the rest of her life.
Her drink arrived and she took it gratefully, lifting it to her lips and savoring the first sip.
“Are you all right?”
She lowered her glass. “Oh, never better. Naturally. I am officially ruined, which is fabulous. And now I’m going to Switzerland to spend some time with a man who really doesn’t like me.” A man who made her feel as if her skin was too tight for her body, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Fan-bloody-tastic now that you mention it.”
“You knew this could happen, Eva. You tempted it.”
“I know,” she bit out. “I know it. And that’s the worst part. I did this to myself, Mak, without really thinking … without understanding what it would mean. There will always be people who look at me and think of this. For the rest of my life. And yes, they lied. And that’s not my fault that they chose to do that, but I provided the pictures to go with the headline. I put myself in a bad situation, and I did it knowing full well the press would pick up on it and blow it out of proportion.”
“It doesn’t matter what people think.”
“Easy for you to say. Nobody cares what you do. The press hardly knows you exist, do they? You’re like a ghost. I could barely pull you up on an internet search.”
“Anonymity is important to my job. I need to be able to blend in.”
“Right. Of course.” She studied his profile. His straight nose, the strong line of his jaw. Mak was a man who didn’t answer to anyone but himself. “It must be so … you must feel so free.”
He laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Not entirely.”
“My own reaction is confusing me a little bit. If anything is going to make Bastian—and the others waiting in the wings—back out, it’s this. And I’m not happy about it.”
“No one wants to hear bad things said about them.”
“I suppose not. But still, you’d think I could focus on the victory.”
He turned his head, his eyes intent on hers, the gray in them as cold as steel. “You’re too soft, Eva. You feel too much.”
She looked down into her glass and watched the bubbles rise to the surface of the pale liquid. “You’ve said that to me once before.”
“Because it needs saying.”
“Do you really care? If I feel too much. If I’m hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He paused for a moment, his focus out the window. He spoke slowly, as though he was choosing his words with great care. “You remind me of someone. I’ve said that to you before, too.” He paused, looked down at his hands. “You remind me of my wife.”
“I didn’t think you were married anymore,” she said, her stomach getting tight. She wasn’t interested in harboring an attraction to a married man, even if neither of them had acted on anything. As long as one dance in a dimly lit garden didn’t count as “acting on” something.
“I’m not. My wife is dead.” He said the words so matter-of-factly. They sounded so naked in the silence of the cabin. So achingly sad.
“I’m …” Her throat constricted. “I’m sorry.” That made her feel foolish. Weak. She’d been complaining to him about getting married, whining about her fate, the headlines. Talking to him about love as though she were some sort of expert and the whole time she’d been talking to a man who had loved and lost.
While she had never truly loved anyone outside of her family. Though she’d had loss there. Tragic loss. Her mother … and then Xander leaving when she’d needed him so badly to stay.
“She was … ill. It was time when it happened. There was nothing more to be done.” His tone was flat, devoid of emotion. She could feel it, though, not in his tone, but coming from within. She wasn’t sure how, only that she did.
“I … my mother died,” she said. “Very suddenly. I don’t … really remember her, but I miss her anyway. I don’t think it’s ever easy.”
“No,” he said. “It never is. I’m sorry about your mother.”
“I’m sorry about your wife. Truly.”
“Thank you,” he said, in that same monotone as before.
“Will we land soon?” she asked. The subject of his wife was closed, she could feel that radiating from him. He didn’t want to go into detail, and she didn’t blame him. But she wanted to know. She wanted to help somehow, even if she knew it was impossible.
“Another hour. Hopefully the weather will be clear.”
She grimaced. “I don’t really like flying all that much. The rough-landing thing doesn’t appeal.”
“The chalet is up in the mountains. It’s very snowy and the winds can get intense. But don’t worry, if it’s bad we’ll circle, or we’ll get permission to land at the airport and take a helicopter up later.”
“I’m liking the helicopter idea even less.”
“I’ll put a word in with the one who controls the weather and see what I can do for you.”
“Now you really are making me feel silly.”
“I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, you aren’t.” He paused. “I would rather fly than drive, but driving is more practical for quick trips.”
“You didn’t seem to have a problem driving me around Thysius.”
“Yes. I do it anyway. But I don’t care for it. So I understand.”
That simple olive branch made her eyes sting. He was trying to understand her. Trying to make her feel that he cared, even if it was only because he was good at reading people and would rather have her soothed than edgy.
It was still more than she’d come to expect from people.
Stavros was wonderful, but he was distant. He ran a corporation that provided a huge portion of the funding for the national budget of Kyonos. And as hard as he worked, he played just as hard. Which left very little time for the two of them to see each other.
She was also thirteen years his junior, which had always made her far too young for him to relate to as a peer. Even if things were catching up now. And Xander was gone. His duty abandoned. Off doing whatever he pleased, not sparing a thought to his family.
So he didn’t do her any good either. “Thank you,” she said. “For that. For … making me feel better.”
“That’s just the champagne talking.”
She laughed. “No, I think it’s you.”
His expression changed, his face hardening. “Well, don’t get used to it. I can’t maintain any level of charm for an extended length of time.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“No, Eva,” he said. “It’s true. On that you can trust me. I’m not a nice man. The sooner you realize that the better.”
His words sent a shiver through her. “You say that. But you should know that I’m a very stubborn woman. I’m not going to believe that simply because you told me it was true.”
“You would be better off if you did.”
“And I think you’ll be better off if I challenge you.”
He shook his head and pushed the call button on his chair. “Now I need a drink. It’s going to be a long two weeks.”
The descent and landing went smoothly. Eva watched as the pristine white ground drew closer, and the plane touched down on the cleared landing strip.
The chalet’s property was in an open, shallow bowl on the side of a mountain, peaks rising up on all sides, dusted with evergreens and covered by a heavy layer of snow, smooth and perfect, like fondant on a wedding cake.
An ironic observation since she was so desperate to avoid having a wedding cake made in her honor. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. She would be happy to get married if she was in love.
That brought to mind thoughts of Mak’s wife. It made her heart squeeze tight.
“Your luggage will have been unloaded and put in the back of the car that’s waiting for us,” Mak said, standing and making his way to the door as it lowered, and a rush of cold, thin air flooded the cabin.
“Wow,” she said, grabbing the wool coat that she’d laid across the couch she was sitting on and shrugging it on as she stood. “Chilly here. Much colder than Kyonos ever gets.”
“Have you seen much snow?”
“Not a lot. We’ve gone on skiing vacations a few times, but nothing recently. I confess, I’ve never been a huge fan of it.”
“Why’s that?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Well, it’s cold. And then when it melts it’s wet. And then you’re cold and wet, so I fail to see the appeal.”
Mak put on a wool coat, black, like everything else he owned. “I’m used to it. But then, it snows a lot in Russia.”
“Of course,” she said, stepping out of the plane and descending the stairs, trying to take in the vastness of the scenery. It was all quiet, completely still, the only sound coming from snow sliding off tree limbs in the distance. “Did you play in the snow?”
“Sometimes. I worked from an early age. Not uncommon there. My family didn’t have a lot of money so I helped where I could.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Not at all. It was better. Better to have some control over the situation, over whether or not I got to eat dinner, rather than simply being at the mercy of my circumstances.”
“Oh. I didn’t … I didn’t realize.”
“I told you, printzyessa, there are other problems to have in life beyond having someone select your spouse for you.
There was compensation. I had a lot of freedom. That didn’t always turn out well.”
He opened the back door of a black SUV and she slid inside, Mak following and closing the door, shutting out the chill. At least the chill in the air. The chill between them seemed to have come back a bit.
Mak spoke to his driver in German and they started driving along the plowed roads. At least, she hoped they were sufficiently plowed.
“Don’t worry,” Mak said, “the car is well-equipped for the weather, and Hans will drive safely. It’s his job.”
“That’s right. You don’t like cars.”
“Not much,” he said, his voice tight.
“Is it a short drive?”
“Very, but you don’t want to hike up the side of the hill in these conditions, trust me. Your boots, fashionable though they may be, couldn’t handle it.”
She looked down at her knee-high leather boots, the ones she’d purchased recently. She held her foot up so that the slender heel was clearly visible. “Maybe not.”
“No, I think you’d find yourself tobogganing down to the village on your backside.”
“Not the best image.” She held her breath as the car wound up a road that ran with the shape of the mountain, taking turns that were extreme S-curves. She put her hand on the door handle and looked over at Mak, who was sitting with his posture straight, the only betrayals of his stress in the tightness of his jaw, the clenching of his fist.
It took all of her self-control not to put her hand over his. Not to try and soothe the tension in him. She couldn’t touch him. Because, for some reason, whenever she did, it felt as though a small spark popped between them. And if she did it too often, that spark might ignite.
She sucked in a breath and looked out the window.
The view from the side of the road was fabulous, clear, pale skies over glittering snow and deep green trees. But enjoying the view required her to be able to look down over the edge of the road and that was much less fabulous.
The car stopped at two heavy iron gates and Mak pulled out his phone, opening an app and entering his code on the touch screen. “Only myself and the manager of the property knows the code. And on the rare occasions when some of my employees have stayed over during long assignments, I’ve had the code changed afterwards,” he said as the gates swung open. “As I said, this is my place. It’s private.”
“I get that,” she said as they went around another S-curve and the huge log chalet came into view.
It was set into the side of the mountain, the front of it built up on supports, giant triangular windows, mirroring the lines of the roof, overlooking the incredible mountain vista.
The car pulled up in front of the home and Mak opened the door, sliding out and then holding it until she got out behind him. He rounded to the driver’s side and spoke to Hans for a moment, before handing the other man a thick roll of cash and stepping away from the vehicle.
Two staff members came out of the house to greet him and, she assumed, to collect their luggage.
Eva followed Mak through the large, square door and into the foyer of the chalet. The ceilings were high, the windows flooding the space with natural light. There was a huge fireplace with a stone hearth and chimney that dominated the center of the room, filling the room with warmth and a homey orange glow.
“I can see why this is your place,” Eva said, wandering to the staircase and running her hand over the natural wood railing. “It’s special.” It said something about Mak that the opulent jet had not. Spoke of his desire, his need, for solitude. Of his enjoyment of a simpler, more stripped-back existence.
“It’s quiet,” Mak said.
“And you like quiet.”
“I do. And you don’t.”
“I’m thinking of changing my opinion on that after the trouble I got myself into.”
“You didn’t act without intent, Eva. Stand by it, or abandon it.”
The harshness of his words struck her like a blow. The only reason they carried so much weight was because they were true. Even so, the reality of it was crushing.
She looked at the fire, watched the flames snake around the logs. “It went further than I intended it to. I mean I wanted … I wanted. Not this.” She’d wanted her father to ask her, just once, what she wanted. That had been nothing more than a foolish fantasy.
“As often happens. People typically don’t mean any harm. And those who don’t mean to … they’re usually the ones who cause the most damage.” His tone was rough, heavy. Then he paused, his demeanor changing, his face setting into a smooth granite mask. Unmoving. Unemotional. “Your room is up the stairs.”
She bit back a tart reply, something to bring back the moment o
f reality that had just passed between them. He’d been real there, even if it had been painful. She’d felt connected to him, at least.
Which was a pretty stupid thing to want. They didn’t really have anything in common. In point of fact, they wanted very different things since Mak was working for her father, and her father wanted things for her that she didn’t want for herself.
But somewhere, somehow, Mak had stopped seeming like the enemy. He felt more like an ally. Although, at the moment, he felt more like a cold stranger than the man she’d danced with in the garden.
The memory suffused her body with heat. Dancing with Mak, having him hold her so close, had transcended anything she’d ever felt before. She’d danced with men before, but it hadn’t burned her from the inside out. It hadn’t made her feel reckless and shaky, achy with a need she’d only ever felt in the privacy of her own room, late at night, with a fantasy lover’s hands on her body. A man who could be perfect because she’d created him to be.
But Mak, and the way he made her feel, had been very real.
Mak started up the staircase and Eva followed behind him. Trying, and not succeeding, not to check him out. But he was hot, and his very tempting, muscular rear was right in prime view.
If only she were half as audacious as the news story had made her out to be. That Eva wouldn’t blush when she looked at his body, when she thought of having his hands on her skin. No, that Eva would take what she wanted, when she wanted it.
In response, and defiance, to the thought, her cheeks heated.
Mak paused at the end of the hall, in front of closed double doors. “This is it.”
He didn’t make a move to open the doors, and she wondered why. Not because she needed him to open the doors, just because he usually displayed impeccable chivalry, deference to her position as a member of the royal family.
Or maybe it was a matter of the power shift that had happened the moment they’d left Kyonosian soil. She’d certainly felt it. There was no way he was oblivious to it.
