by Annie West
‘Finished?’ Those malachite eyes glinted more brightly than any faceted gem.
‘Almost.’ Mina read his impatience, sensed his arousal and strove for something to distract him. ‘You didn’t tell me how your parents met.’
‘At the Olympics. He was an athlete and she was a physio travelling with the Russian team. They fell in love and eloped the day before the closing ceremony.’
‘Wow! That’s fast. They must have been head over heels.’
‘They were. Completely and utterly in love. When my father died, my mother was devastated. It was almost too hard for her to go on.’ His mouth twisted and Mina felt a thud of pain in her middle. ‘That’s why she remarried. She couldn’t face the loneliness.’
Mina watched emotions play across Alexei’s face. He looked angry, as if he blamed his mother. She’d made his life miserable with her rotten choice of second husband.
Yet things were rarely black and white. ‘Maybe she wanted someone to take your father’s place, for your sake. So you’d have a dad.’
The spasm of pain across his face lasted only a moment but it told her so much.
He felt guilty about his mother’s choice?
And maybe for blaming her?
‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘How did your parents meet?’
Mina felt a flutter in her chest. A battle between innate honesty and her need to cover for Carissa. Mina was increasingly uncomfortable with these lies. Surely Carissa was safe. The elopement was supposed to happen this weekend. She wanted so badly to blurt the truth but couldn’t risk it.
Because you don’t want this to end, do you? You want to stay here with Alexei and dream of impossible things.
She closed her sketchbook. She wouldn’t give Carissa away, nor would she pretend to have lived Carissa’s life.
‘They didn’t know each other before the engagement.’
‘It was an arranged marriage?’ He looked stunned.
‘It’s a tradition in my family.’ Mina suppressed a pained smile. As far as she knew, her sister was the only woman in a long line of ancestors to find love in marriage. It wasn’t something either of them had believed possible, having been bred as dynastic bargaining chips.
Now finding happiness with the man you loved, and who loved you, seemed incredibly alluring.
Mina put her sketchbook down, ignoring the drag of unhappiness. Her time with Alexei was limited. She refused to mar it. Instead she stood and stretched, forcing her attention away from if onlys.
‘I’ve sat too long. I need exercise. How about another archery contest?’ She’d been delighted to find it was a sport Alexei enjoyed, and one of the few she was proficient in, since it was Jeirut’s national sport. ‘Or a swim?’ Her gaze turned towards the pristine beach. She’d had no qualms about using the brand-new swimsuit Carissa had packed. An errant thread of heat circled her womb at the thought of dispensing with the swimsuit and swimming naked with Alexei. If he knew the truth about her maybe they could...
Suddenly he was beside her. The fine hairs on her arms and neck prickled and her insides melted.
‘If it’s exercise you want—’ his voice was an earthy growl that tumbled down her backbone and drew her belly tight ‘—I know just the thing.’ His green eyes darkened and she swayed towards him.
Then, abruptly, he stepped back and groaned, shaking his head. ‘You’ll be the death of me yet.’ But his lips curved in a smile as he reached for her hand. ‘Come on, we need to work off some of this surplus energy.’ He tugged her hand and she followed.
That was the problem. She was long past resisting Alexei. She wanted to be with him, all the time.
She was headed for disaster and couldn’t pull back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PHONE TO HIS EAR, Alexei sat back in his desk chair, grinning. Ralph Carter had been found in a casino in southern Switzerland. Either through cunning or sheer luck, he’d led the investigators a merry dance, but now there was no escape. Carter would face the consequences of his theft.
Satisfaction warmed Alexei.
Until Carissa’s face swam in his mind. He recalled her sparkling eyes, the throaty husk of her voice as she cried his name in ecstasy, her decadently addictive mouth.
How would she react when he made her father pay for his crimes?
Doubt stirred Alexei’s gut. He’d learned this week that she was anything but a selfish social butterfly. He admired her honest, generous spirit, even her obstinacy. This would hurt her.
He stiffened his resolve. She couldn’t expect him to forget her father’s crime. She knew it was coming. She hadn’t asked for mercy on Carter’s behalf. Though now Alexei considered that odd, surely.
Carissa was passionate and unafraid of ruffling his feathers, yet she’d never tried to intercede for her father.
As he listened to his PA, Alexei reached idly for Carissa’s sketchbook and flipped it open. She’d left it by the pool and he’d brought it inside when he took this call. Clearly she’d forgotten it, focused instead on the fact it was her turn to cook.
Tomorrow Henri and Marie returned and the food would be restaurant quality again. But Alexei would far rather have another week alone with Carissa, sharing responsibility for chores, than any amount of exquisite dishes.
His insides twisted. Alexei told himself it was from eagerness to face Carter. Not concern as he anticipated Carissa’s reaction.
‘Excellent. See to those arrangements and we’ll wrap this up.’
‘There’s one more thing.’ His PA sounded unexpectedly tentative. ‘A woman has been ringing, insisting she speak with you.’
Alexei frowned. He paid his PA an excellent salary. In return he didn’t expect to be bothered by importunate strangers. Obviously this woman was out of the ordinary. ‘And?’
‘She gave her name as Carissa Carter.’
Arrested, Alexei sat straighter. ‘Say that again.’
‘She claims to be Carissa Carter, daughter of Ralph Carter.’
Alexei looked at the sketch before him. It was one he hadn’t seen before and there was something incredibly intimate about it. Not just the fact that he was asleep on a sun lounger. He felt tenderness in the way Carissa had drawn the rumpled hair shadowing his forehead, and the lines of his mouth.
Was that really how she saw him?
A curious buzz started up in his ears.
‘Obviously the woman is lying.’
‘That’s what I thought. But she gave enough detail to be very convincing.’
The fact his PA pressed the point was significant. She was not only loyal but intelligent. She must have good reason for pursuing this. ‘Very well. Give me her number.’
Minutes later Alexei made the call.
‘Hello? Carissa speaking.’ Her voice was high and breathy and slightly familiar.
Alexei leaned forward, hand splayed on the desk, pulse quickening.
‘Carissa Carter?’
‘Yes, I... Who is this?’ Her voice wobbled and Alexei felt the blood drain from his face. He recognised the voice now. It was the woman he’d spoken to a week ago. The woman he’d arranged to have collected in Paris. He’d assumed the line had distorted her voice because she sounded different in person.
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s Alexei Katsaros.’
He heard a gasp, then a noise as if she’d dropped the phone. Adrenalin shot through him and his stomach lurched.
‘Are...are you there?’
‘I’m here. What do you want?’ The person responsible for this elaborate hoax would pay. Alexei was in no mood for games.
‘I rang to tell you I got married. I know my father led you to believe I was...available but he was wrong. A match between us isn’t possible.’ Her words were rushed, her breathing so uneven the words slurred together. ‘I should have
told you my plans sooner. I’m sorry. But I was too... That is, I wasn’t thinking clearly when you rang. Pierre said I should have told you straight, and so did Mina, but I was too...’ She hiccupped as if holding back a sob. ‘I’ve tried and tried to call Mina but I can’t reach her. Is she all right?’
Alexei’s head spun. His pulse throbbed so hard it felt like a hammer against his temple.
He wanted to tell this stranger to quit wasting his time. But something stopped him. The suspicion this was no joke. That the impossible was about to become possible.
Twenty minutes later Alexei stared unseeingly across his desk, the phone silenced.
He’d got to the bottom of the situation all right. He’d taken some convincing, and more checking, but he was absolutely sure the woman on the phone was Carissa Carter.
He reeled at learning the truth. All this time he’d thought his guest was his employee’s daughter when she was Princess Mina of Jeirut, sister of the country’s Queen. A rich royal who’d played the part of Carissa, duping him.
Making a fool of him.
Alexei imagined the field day the press would have with this. What impact would that have on his business? He screwed his eyes shut and tried to focus his scrambled brain on damage limitation.
But focus was impossible. It was all he could do to accept the preposterous truth. The two women had conned him. And he, so wrapped up in the pursuit of vengeance and the need to act decisively, had made it easy, not bothering to check details.
This wasn’t business. It was far more personal. Briefly he acknowledged he’d made it so when he’d brought Carter’s daughter to his private retreat. But his actions didn’t sink to these depths of deception.
Alexei’s gaze drifted to the abandoned sketchbook on his desk. He turned it over, opening it at the very beginning, to the images he hadn’t viewed before. Why? Was he so desperate to believe, even now, that the woman in his kitchen was genuine? That the woman he’d come to care for was real, not some pretend persona adopted to dupe him?
Alexei stopped on the second page, on a series of intricate designs for a flask. They were exquisite. But it wasn’t the design’s beauty that caught his eye, it was the stylised calligraphy around the base. Calligraphy in Arabic. A talented artist could have copied the flowing script. Except there were also what looked like scribbled notes on the edge of the page in the same language.
Alexei turned the page. There was another bottle, again with scrawled notes in Arabic.
His mouth tightened. If he’d only taken the time to look, instead of being so caught up in that blaze of attraction for Carissa. For Mina, he corrected himself.
Despite Carissa Carter’s breathless, half-defiant, half-apologetic explanations, Alexei knew they’d made a fool of him.
He looked down to see he’d again reached the page where she, Mina, had drawn him sleeping. With new eyes Alexei realised it wasn’t tenderness revealed in the portrait. That wasn’t vulnerability in his sleeping features but weakness. She’d been laughing at him.
She’d sashayed in, daring him to make a pass at her, teasing him till he didn’t know which way was up. Pretending to be someone else, pretending to be honest and open and vulnerable. Had her virginity also been a lie?
Alexei shoved the book so hard it toppled off the desk as he surged to his feet and stalked to the window. It wasn’t the view he saw. It was himself, laughing with...Mina. Telling Mina about his past, his stepfather, because he’d actually considered extending their relationship into something else.
Relationship!
He snorted. They had no relationship beyond sex and lies.
The sex he could cope with, but not the lies.
He’d been conned as a kid and that had brought disaster.
He’d trusted Carter, had actually liked him, believing he and the older man shared an understanding. Till Carter knifed him in the back and stole his money.
Now Alexei found himself tricked again. By a slip of a woman with big brown eyes and a devious mind. A woman who’d burrowed her way into his—
Alexei yanked his thoughts to safer ground. To the blaze of anger searing his gut.
She’d made him reconsider his single status. She’d made him think about babies and belonging and all the while...
He swore, a mix of Greek and Russian that was far more potent for cursing than English.
Only when he had himself under control did he turn towards the door.
* * *
Mina hummed as she took the casserole from the oven. The aromas were mouth-watering. This was the one meal she could cook well, a traditional spicy vegetable dish from her homeland. It had been worth the extra time and effort.
For once Mina would be able to present Alexei with something delicious. There was a spring in her step and a smile on her face as she crossed to put it on the counter.
Alexei never complained about her culinary efforts. Nor did she aim to become a domestic goddess. Yet there was something deeply satisfying about cooking something nice for your man.
Mina blinked, staring down at the fragrant meal in astonishment.
Your man. Where had that come from?
This was temporary. Alexei Katsaros wasn’t her man and never would be. Yet some tremulous, defiant voice inside disagreed.
He felt like her man.
She wanted him to be hers.
Mina stumbled back against the big island bench and slumped there, her mind racing at the enormity of the revelation.
She crossed her arms over her chest as if she could contain the swelling sensation inside. The rising demand that she face the truth.
What she felt with Alexei was more profound than sexual attraction. She’d spent her time on the island studiously ignoring that, pretending this was animal magnetism and no more. Because the truth of what she felt was too enormous, too life-changing. Too preposterous.
She’d imagined herself immune to romance, to dreams of being with one special man. No one had come close to distracting her from her drive to make art. But Alexei did that, even though they hadn’t had sex in days. No one had ever made her feel, made her want to be part of a couple.
Mina put her hand to her breastbone. Her heart pounded high and hard.
A noise on the other side of the room made her look up. Instantly the tightness in her chest eased, and something inside her soared.
Alexei stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest in a way that accentuated the curves of well-developed biceps and pectorals.
Desire throbbed through her. And more, far more. When he was with her she no longer worried that she was out of her depth. With Alexei she felt utterly right. It should be crazy to feel this way after a mere week, but there was no avoiding her feelings.
Mina smiled, not bothering to hide her delight. ‘Smells good, doesn’t it?’ She leaned over the dish, inhaling the aroma that reminded her of Jeirut. What would Alexei make of her homeland? She’d love to take him there. ‘And I promise it’s not charred or undercooked. I’ll get the plates.’
‘Surely you shouldn’t be waiting on me, Princess.’
Mina’s head jerked up as if yanked on a string. It wasn’t just Alexei’s words but his tone that shook her. She looked into that searing green gaze, registered the flaring nostrils and savagely flattened mouth. Her stomach plummeted.
He knew.
And he was livid.
* * *
Alexei watched the laughter and the blood drain from her face, leaving her features pale and proud.
In that moment his last hope that this was a mistake died. And with it the foolish desires he’d entertained.
He waited for her to show embarrassment or guilt. There would have been some satisfaction in that. He might even have listened to an explanation if she’d shown regret and shame.
Instead,
she drew herself up, shoulders straight and pushed back. Her neck lengthened as her chin came up. The welcome in her eyes died, replaced with a hauteur Alexei recognised from her arrival on the island.
It was like watching an actress don another persona. Except instead of seeing a make-believe character, the woman confronting him with that cool stare and regal bearing was the real woman. A conniving, lying woman.
The enthusiastic, caring person he’d known was a chimera. She’d been created to hold his attention long enough to distract him from the fact he was being fooled. How much of her had been real? Any of it?
He slammed the lid on such thoughts. He refused to search for pitiful fragments of a woman who didn’t exist beyond his imagination.
The anger that had been brewing since the phone calls bubbled over. ‘You must be used to having servants scurrying to do everything.’
Her face changed even more, shutters coming down behind her eyes, making her unapproachable. No wonder he’d likened her to that Russian ballerina. Both could project regal hauteur fit for a queen.
But no blue-blooded princess would play a part for public entertainment like a dancer. How much had her role-playing been for personal entertainment? Had she laughed at how easily she’d fooled him?
A knife twisted in his chest.
‘You’re wrong, Alexei. I have no servants.’
Maybe it was the way she said his name, her voice husky and low, reminding him of her throaty purrs as she climaxed, that fuelled his ire to spilling point. More probably it was the unblinking gaze that revealed the barriers she erected between herself and the hoi polloi.
After all, despite his wealth, Alexei had spent most of his early years living in slums. Whereas she was descended from generations of royalty.
This was the woman he’d wanted in his bed, his home, his life. She’d laugh if she knew exactly how much of a fool she’d made him.
* * *
‘Quit lying, Princess. The pretence is over.’
He spoke like a stranger. A looming, ice-cold stranger. Shock made Mina shuffle back a step.
