She peered into the room. It was Trina’s boudoir. Had to be. There were fresh flowers, unlit candles beside the bucket of iced champagne, crystal glasses, a peignoir set draped across the foot of the white bed, and a box of chocolates on a side table. The exterior walls were made entirely out of glass and faced east, which pleased her. She liked waking to sun.
Don’t love it, she cautioned herself, but it was hard not to be charmed.
“Oh, good grief,” she gasped as Mikolas opened a door to what she had assumed was a powder room. It was actually a small warehouse of prêt-à-porter.
“Did you buy all of Paris for her?” She plucked at the cuff of a one-sleeved evening gown in silver-embroidered lavender. The back wall was covered in shoes. “I hate to tell you this, but my foot is a full size bigger than Trina’s.”
“One of your first tasks will be to go through all of this so the seamstress can alter where necessary. The shoes can be exchanged.” He shrugged one shoulder negligently.
The closet was huge, but way too small with both of them in it.
She tried to disguise her self-consciousness by picking up a shoe. When she saw the designer name, she gently rubbed the shoe on her shirt to erase her fingerprint from the patent leather and carefully replaced it.
“Change for lunch with my grandfather. But don’t take too long.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, poking her head out to watch him cross to a pair of double doors on the other side of her room, not back to the main part of the penthouse.
“My room.” He opened one of the double doors as he reached it, revealing what she thought at first was a private sitting room, but that white daybed had a towel rolled up on the foot of it.
Drawn by curiosity, she crossed to follow him into the bathroom. Except it was more like a high-end spa. There was an enormous round tub set in a bow of glass that arched outward so the illusion for the bather was a soak in midair.
“Wow.” She slowly spun to take in the extravagance, awestruck when she noted the small forest that grew in a rock garden under a skylight. A path of stones led through it to a shower area against the back wall. Nozzles were set into the alcove of tiled walls, ready to spray from every level and direction, including raining from the ceiling.
She clapped her hand over her mouth, laughing.
The masculine side of the room was a double sink and mirror designed along the black-and-white simplistic lines Mikolas seemed to prefer, bracketed by a discreet door to a private toilet stall that also gave access to his bedroom. Her side was a reflection of his, with one sink removed to make way for a makeup bench and a vanity of drawers already filled with unopened cosmetics.
“You live like this,” she murmured, closing the drawer.
“So do you. Now.”
Temporarily, she reminded herself, but it was still like trying to grasp the expanse of the universe. Too much to comprehend.
A white robe that matched the black ones she’d already worn hung on a hook. She flipped the lapel enough to see the monogram, expecting a T and finding an M. She sputtered out another laugh. He was so predictably possessive!
“Can you be ready in twenty minutes?”
“Of course,” she said faintly. “Unless I get lost in the forest on the way back to my room.”
My room. Freudian slip. She dropped her gaze to the mosaic in the floor, then walked through her water closet to her room.
It was only as she stood debating a pleated skirt versus a sleeveless floral print dress that the significance of that shared bathroom struck her: he could walk in on her naked. Anytime.
CHAPTER TEN
VIVEKA WASN’T SURE what she expected Mikolas’s grandfather to look like. A mafia don from an old American movie? Or like many of the other retired Greek men who sat outside village kafenions, maybe wearing a flat cap and a checked shirt, face lined by sun and a hard life in the vineyard or at sea?
Erebus Petrides was the consummate old-world gentleman. He wore a suit as he shared a drink with them before they dined. He had a bushy white mustache and excellent posture despite his stocky weight and the cane he used to walk. He and Mikolas didn’t look much alike, but they definitely had the same hammered silver eyes and their voices were two keys of a similar strong, commanding timbre.