His for a Price

Not when Nicodemus took her hands in his. Certainly not when he recited his own vows in that powerful voice of his that seemed to echo deep in her bones, however unreal the words seemed to her. Not when the priest spoke in English and then in Greek, as if to make certain it took. Not when one of his staff took a series of photographs that Mattie was sure she didn’t want to see. Not when Nicodemus pulled her close to him to press a coolly possessive kiss to her mouth, more matter-of-fact than anything else.

Not that her treacherous body had cared how he kissed her, so long as he did—and she hated that she couldn’t lie to herself about that. That the proof was right there in the rowdy, insistent pounding of her heart and the blistering heat at her core, telling her truths she didn’t want to accept. Especially when he left her there on that achingly lovely terrace to escort the priest and the two witnesses back into the villa, as if it had never crossed his mind that she might consider jumping from that cliff, to swim or to drown or to be swept off to Tripoli with the next tide, to escape him by any means necessary.

It was no more than another nightmare, she thought, and she was well-acquainted with those. That didn’t really happen. But even as she thought it, she looked down at her hand at the heavy set of rings that he’d put there, sliding one on right after the next. A square-cut diamond raised high above two sapphires next to a ring of flatter diamonds around a platinum band. The kind of rings reality show “housewives” wore, she thought uncharitably, though she knew that wasn’t fair. They simply weren’t the sort of hushed, restrained rings her mother had worn all those years ago, the sort Mattie had always imagined she’d wear herself one day.

Not that Nicodemus had asked what she’d wanted. And the rings he’d given her still fit perfectly, she noticed, no matter how she scowled at them.

The October afternoon was cool, or maybe that was her. Mattie had never been one of those wedding-maddened girls, forever imagining her perfect day and flipping through bridal magazines in the absence of a groom, but she’d always imagined that at least one of her parents would be there when it happened. That neither of them was alive to know she was married, much less to have witnessed it, ached—and ached deep.

And while she’d known that this situation with Nicodemus was part of a much wider bid to retain control of the family company and all the high stakes that implied, Mattie really had imagined that Chase might have made it from London to watch her sacrifice herself for his benefit, rather than sending her an underwhelming text with his apologies.

Then again, she and Chase hadn’t been close in a long time. And she’d always known whose fault that was.

It was a good thing she’d frozen solid, she thought then, because if she hadn’t, she might have been tempted to indulge that great, heavy sob building up somewhere inside her. And that might wreck whatever little of herself she had left.

“Reflecting on your good fortune?” Nicodemus asked from behind her, and Mattie congratulated herself on managing, somehow, not to jump at the sound.

“Something like that,” she said, as coolly and unemotionally as she could.

Down below, she heard the roar of a motor before she saw the small boat take off in the direction of the island of Kimolos a few miles away. She frowned when she saw three figures on the deck. The priest and both witnesses, clearly, which meant she was alone here with Nicodemus.

Alone. And married to him. Married.

Mattie turned, very slowly, to face the man who stood behind her, his hands deep in the pockets of the loose-fitting tan trousers he wore. His crisp white shirt highlighted his olive skin, the contrasting beauty of his dark eyes and almost wild hair, and though it didn’t cling to him at all, it still somehow emphasized his powerful chest. He should have looked anything but elegant. But somehow, on him it all worked, and brought out his power and his ruthlessness instead of undermining it.

There was something different about him then, she realized. Something even more dangerous than before. It made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck and down her arms prickle in uncomfortable awareness. It was almost as if—

But then she understood. He’d won. Just as he’d always promised her he would.

Her throat was dry. Too dry.

And Nicodemus Stathis was her husband.

“Come inside,” he said, his gaze as dark as it was patient, and that made something very deep inside her shudder.

“I’m fine right here.”

It was a profoundly stupid thing to say. It made her sound like an infant and she knew it the moment the words passed her lips. Nicodemus’s hard face softened, and that only made everything worse.