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.