Pia backed away. ‘Don’t.’ Or I’ll beg you to hold me and I refuse to crumble, especially in front of you.
He clenched his hands into fists and then raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Okay, but let me come along in the morning. I’d love to see the land. I promise no more talk of your father—the past is out of bounds. I just want to spend some time with you. Okay?’
She said nothing.
‘Okay?’ he repeated, this time adding a touch of concern and a dash of despair to his act. And that was the final nail in his coffin.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE’D GONE WITHOUT HIM. The beautiful, obstinate, control freak that she was.
Nic let go of a sigh, heavy with annoyance and frustration.
One step forward, two steps back. For every tiny piece of information he squeezed from her she retreated farther away from him and he only had himself to blame. Pushing, pushing, pushing her to talk about her father, her past. Clearly that cool, calm composure had cracked under the strain.
The virtue of patience had been a blessing to him in the past few years. He’d had little choice but to bide his time. Until now. Now he wanted her surrender. Needed it to get to Zeus and destroy Q Virtus, he told himself for the millionth time. And yet...he did want to spend time with her.
The hell of it was, she intrigued him. He wanted to know how her mind ticked. How she juggled so many balls. What drove her. Why she hadn’t known her father for the first seventeen years of her life.
So many questions that had nothing to do with taking Zeus to Hades and everything to do with the invisible rope that pulled him towards her when she was near. Like the femme fatale she was. Spell-binding him, luring him in, toying with him like a cat would a mouse.
His mouth twisted at the ridiculous notion. Nic knew what he was doing, had a firm grip on the reins of his control, and no woman had the power to beguile him in deceit.
The log burner crackled, popped and hissed as he peered out of the window at the heavy grey skies, wondering how long she’d been gone and if she’d make it back in time before those laden clouds wept snow over the packed ice. An idyllic picture that struck him as nature’s trick to disguise peril.
Nic smiled wryly and shook his head. Granted, he didn’t feel like himself this morning, but now even the weather was duplicitous? What was more, the slosh and churn of worry inside him was a surprise he hadn’t foreseen. Nor was the thought of her cosying up to her friend Jovan on a wooden slatted bench, covered in heavy fur rugs, being hauled by huskies across the snowy plains. A scene from some dreary romantic chick flick that likely flicked her switch. And why did that idea drive him to drink like a crazy pessoa?
Ah, careful, Nic. Jealousy will take you into the realms of obsession and beyond.
Like hell it would.
The irony of the situation knocked him sideways with the heft of a midfield striker. To anyone looking in there he was, waiting for the little wife to come home, and just like that he was staring at his father pacing the floors, fists clenched, waiting for Nic’s mother to return from some shopping trip with friends, or lunch with her clique, or—worse—a night dancing about town. Always obsessing. Possessive. Angry when she wasn’t home. Furious when she ignored him. Unstable. Erratic. Unnatural in Nic’s eyes.
Narciso had asked him why he was considering marrying Eloisa Goldsmith. Truth was, while he’d loved his parents, after years of witnessing their volatile marriage he refused to sign up for the same fate.
Such love. Such passion. Such a hideous disaster.
His mood now a mire of filth, sucking him into the dangerous quicksand of the past, he slammed his feet into his boots and shoved his arms into the puffy warmth of his ski jacket. The thought of standing here waiting around for Olympia Merisi to grace him with her presence was taking him from vile to hostile.
Nic pulled the cabin door closed behind him and negotiated the packed ice, his feet crushing the thin dusting of new-fallen snow as he tramped down the path towards the main lodge. Huge white puffs of his breath formed in front of his face as he cursed the lack of Wi-Fi in his room. ‘Going back to nature’ translated to revisiting the Dark Ages as far as he was concerned.
The lodge greeted him with a warm blast of air and the sharp tang of espresso, but that, amazingly, wasn’t the source of his overwhelming surge of relief. In the far corner of the main room sat Pia’s sidekick, talking animatedly with another man, and he hated how the sight mollified him beyond measure. For pity’s sake! He was not jealous. Or obsessed. He wasn’t anything of the sort.
By the time he’d settled in front of his laptop and fired off a few e-mails to encourage the ruckus and fan the flames at Q Virtus he craved a long drink and his sanity. So he did what any sensible person would do in this situation. Rang his grandfather. To remind himself exactly why he’d chased a woman across Europe.
‘Nicandro!’ Instantly that gruff voice eased the tension that threatened to spiral out of control.
‘Avô, how are you, old man?’
‘Fine, fine, my boy. Just whooping Oscar here at Gin Rummy. Man doesn’t know how to lose gracefully. Spat his teeth out twice in the last five minutes.’
Nic laughed out loud. ‘You’re a shark, Avô.’
‘How was Zanzibar?’
‘Hot.’ In every way imaginable. Shocking. Satisfying. Frustrating. Nic condensed twenty-four hours of breaking and entering, gun-wielding, being tied to a chair and meeting the most stunning woman in the world to, ‘Nothing to write home about.’ Else the man would have heart failure and it was Nic’s turn to look after him.
‘Are you on your way back? I have a date with Lily tonight but I can put her on the back burner.’
Nic pictured that old Cary Grant style movie star face and silver hair. ‘No, old man. No need. Go see Lily—enjoy yourself. I’ve stopped off in Finnmark, Norway. Minus fifteen if we’re lucky.’
‘What? Who the devil wants to go to Norway?’
Nic grinned, thinking they’d been almost his exact words.
‘Forgot your origins, boy? Brazil—land of soccer and samba. A Santos needs heat. What’s in Norway? A woman?’
Nic could hear the usual cacophony of chortles and chatter in the background and his heart ached. Dios, he missed this man. ‘Sim, Avô. A woman.’
‘A special woman if Nicandro Carvalho traipses after her.’
Special? Yeah, she probably was. Not that it mattered.
‘A necessary woman.’ If I’m to restore your glory. Place Santos Diamonds back in your hands before I lose you.
The mere thought made Nic press his lips together and fight the sting at the back of his eyes. The fact that his grandfather had only a few good years left had kicked him into high gear, and he wouldn’t downshift or stamp on the brakes until he’d reached the end of the road. A gift for the man who’d cradled him as a baby when his mother could not. Or maybe would not. What did it matter? Nic had still loved her like crazy. Her stunning face and her million-dollar sassy smile. She’d been zest and spirit and fiery heart and, yes, a big ol’ handful of trouble—but there’d been something endearing about that. At least to him.
The one time she’d attended a football match she’d stood in seven-inch stilettos, a long cigarette in her hand, huge sunglasses covering half her face, yelling at the referee to ‘Get that dirty brute off my son’s back!’ After that Nic had appealed to her well-deserved vanity, told her she distracted the players—no lie: her figure had stopped traffic—and asked her to stay away, else his reputation would have gone to the dogs.
His reflection in the window gazed back at him, wistful and nostalgic, and like a freight train another image rolled over him, just as vivid.
Himself at fourteen, when she’d picked him up from school—two hours late—raised a perfectly plucked brow and asked if he’d lost his virginity yet. He’d blushed and stammered and told her to shut up.
Hopeless in the maternal stakes, truly the farthest thing from a tree-hugging, celery-crunching
supermom, but what she had been was a glorious, fun-loving woman who hadn’t deserved to die. Certainly not with a cry lodged in her throat and a bullet in her head. Triggered by the man who—
Pain so acute it set his heart on fire made him gasp sharply, and he tried to cover the choking noise with a cough.
‘Nic, my boy? What’s wrong? Is there something you’re not telling me?’
The concern in his grandfather’s voice yanked him back to the here and now, just as it had done thirteen years ago and then continued for endless harrowing months as he’d harangued him to stand, then to walk—one small step, then two, then four. While Nic had bathed in a vile pit of despair and rage, wishing he’d just died in the same red river as his parents and the dreams of his youth.
There he’d been, dubbed the next Brazilian football sensation, destined to play with the best team in the world, lying with a bullet in his back. Game over.
Nic squeezed his eyes shut and cleared his throat. ‘Non, Avô. Everything is well. Everything is going to be just fine. As it should have always been.’
The sound of aged breathing, heavy from Cuban cigars and cognac told Nic he hadn’t quite managed to disguise his turmoil.
‘What have I always told you, Nicandro? Stand up, walk forward. Do not turn and look back or you will fall.’
Impossible. He was so at rock-bottom there was no void beneath him in which to plunge. You also told me there were answers to be found, people to repay, legends to restore. So I stood and I walked forward to do just that.
‘Worry not, Avô. We’ll talk again soon.’
‘No, Nicandro, my boy, wait. Promise me you will return safe.’
‘Always. Tchau, Avô.’
Nic’s thumb pressed the ‘end call’ button and he gripped the handset as he stared beyond the glass. Beyond the cobwebs of frost glistening on the panes. Beyond the thick pelts of snow driving from the east. To the dark clouds laden with the promise of a continuous storm. Nature at its most dangerous.
By the time he’d sobered up he was frowning at the darkness. Where are you, querida? Don’t disappear on me now. I need you. To quench this lust. To incinerate this incongruous need. To get him to Paris for the next step in his end game.
Sensing Jovan shift at his side, Nic shoved his fists inside his jacket pockets. ‘She should’ve been back hours ago.’
Black eyes glared at him. ‘Like you care. Or maybe you just care for the wrong reasons. I am on to you, Carvalho. You are not what you seem and I am watching you.’
The poor attempt to intimidate Nicandro Carvalho made him smile coldly. ‘How does it feel to want a woman who doesn’t want you back?’
‘You tell me,’ Jovan sneered, before walking away.
Nic’s fists clenched with murderous intent as fire raged behind his ribs. Had she told her friend their chemistry was one-sided? Told him not to fret because she felt nothing but ice inside? Yet what really bothered him, he realised, was that the man might be right, and Nic felt his heart sink with the thought that she didn’t desire him at all. That those seductively coy glances and the burning heat in her violet-blue eyes was all an act.
But what was seriously disturbing was that right now he couldn’t care less. Either way, he wanted her back here. With him.
* * *
The striking solitary landscape was tinged with blue from the cold and deep orange from the sun’s struggle towards the horizon and Pia breathed deeply, trying to ease the anxiety knotting her insides. Or was it guilt that she’d left without Nic?
‘I’d love to see the land...spend time with you...’
He’d seemed so sincere, but every time she wanted to think the best of him she napalmed the idea.
‘The storm is coming in, Miss Merisi. I vote we take a shortcut back to the Castle early. Either through the forest or across the lake.’
‘One moment,’ Pia told her guide, Danel, as she snapped another shot of the clearing. ‘This land is perfect—especially with the salmon river close by for cold sea fishing.’
She’d taken enough photos. He knew it. She knew it. Problem was, she didn’t want to go back. Not yet. She only wanted to ignore Nic’s magnetic pull a while longer, to enjoy the beauty and tranquillity before he dragged her into another whirlwind of unwanted memories, unfathomable need and sleep deprivation.
‘Miss Merisi, please. We must head back.’
Pia closed her eyes, inhaled a lungful of cleansing air and trudged back towards the sled. ‘I don’t mind which way—your call.’
‘We’ll cut across the lake. Much quicker.’
Once she’d settled in her seat the silence was broken by the panting of the huskies and the soft whoosh of the sled gliding over crisp white snow. As they skirted the dense woodland of towering spruce the scent of pine infused her mind and the rhythmic rocking lulled her tired, sore eyes to close. As long as she didn’t dream of her mother again—anything but that...
She must have dozed, because the next thing she knew the sled had jolted sharply to the left and the sound of spooked huskies filled her ears with piercing whimpers.
Pia bolted upright. ‘What’s wrong?’ Then she shivered violently as streaks of icy water ran down her face, soaked her hair. God, she must have been out of it.
Danel struggled with the reins as snow thrashed against his face. ‘Storm came out of nowhere. Hold on—we’ll take cover in the forest.’
Fear lodged in her chest and she gripped the edge of the bench until her knuckles screamed. Don’t panic. You’ve been through worse, far worse than this.
The sled veered right, the movement holding her on a knife-edge. Visibility was virtually non-existent, and then it all happened so fast her head spun.
The sled tipped. The sound of grinding wood tore through her ears. As did the distinct crack of ice.
Danel yelled over the furious howl of the wind, his words muffled. Obscured. Then she was tossed up into the air like a ragdoll, only to plunge to the hard-packed surface, the agonising crash sending pain shooting through her body.
A cry ripped from her throat, then her head smacked off the unforgiving lake and her last thought—that she’d done the right thing, was glad she’d left without Nic and he was safe back in his cabin—was obliterated as the lights went out.
* * *
He’d had enough. Nic couldn’t take it any more.
The thundering, purposeful stride that had brought him to this place, this woman, took him to the manager’s suite on the other side of the lodge via the snow that swirled in eddies and whorls, whipping at his skin and biting through his clothes.
Nic burst through the door, sending papers flying off the desk. ‘I want a search party out there for the last hour of light. She’s been gone too long.’
‘We don’t have anyone to send—’
‘I’ll go myself. Give me a map of their route and get me a four-by-four. I can ice-drive with the best of them.’
‘I am sure all is well, sir. I—’
‘Do it. Now.’ His lethal voice caromed around the room and he watched the ruddy complexion of the man pale and bead with sweat. And all the while Nic’s guts roiled with worry and dread and an outcome that didn’t bear thinking about.
Nor did the reasons why.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PIA’S TEMPLES THROBBED, pain swirled around her head, but worst of all she was cold. So cold. And she was so tired of being cold.
This couldn’t be real, but it felt so much like reality it was frightening. She kept having brief flickers of déjà-vu as hands grabbed her arm, manacling her at the shoulder and wrist, bruising as they pinned it to the bed.
‘No, no, please—get off me!’
White light flickered in front of her closed eyelids, the black beats in between like snapshots of time replaying in her mind...
Voices. Her mother’s shrill. And Pia knew Mama was on the ledge again, fighting with an opium haze of madness, because her panic slithered through the cracks in Pia’s basement door like curlin
g wisps of smoke, threatening to choke her.
Karl yelled, ‘We’ve gotta run—they’re coming after us.’
Pia’s legs buckled as drawers opened and slammed shut. Drug money. The dealers. Coming after them. Oh, God.
‘It’s her damn fault, that useless kid of yours. No good for nothing. She didn’t take the money.’
No, no! When she’d gone to deliver the money they’d wanted far more than cash from her and she’d run. It wasn’t her fault—it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
‘So we’ll take her to Merisi and he can pay seventeen years of child support so we can disappear.’
Pia froze, ear pressed against the hollow door as the bottom fell out of her world. Child support? She had a daddy?
‘To Zeus? No, Karl, he’ll kill me.’
Her mother’s voice shook. She was terrified.
‘He doesn’t know.’
Kill her? He sounded worse than this nightmare. She’d be trading one hell for another.
Nails black, deeply encrusted with dirt, Pia clawed at the door. Heart thumping frantically. Don’t leave me here, Mama. Take me with you. Please. I’ll be better. I’ll be good—do whatever you want. Just please take me with you.
Then they were in Pia’s room and holding her down, and she was thrashing and twisting and trying to sink her teeth into the arm that was pinning her hard.
‘No, no, no—get off me!’
A big hand slapped across her cheek, setting her skin on fire, but she just got back up and clawed and hissed and screamed for her life.
Until that cold metal pricked her arm and freezing liquid seeped into her veins and peace finally stole her pain.
* * *
Memories, always ready with daggers—as Nic knew—were stabbing her subconscious, making her voice a wavering chord of desperation as she lay half-naked and ghastly pale beneath a blanket on his bed.
He couldn’t keep still—just paced back and forth alongside while her slow, shallow breathing and mumbles and cries gripped him by the throat. He should have searched for her sooner. Another hour lying on the cracked ice of the lake, soaked through to the skin, and she would have been dead. Another hour from now and she would die if they couldn’t warm her up. Hypothermia had set in, and unless she calmed down and allowed the drips...
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