The Secret Beneath the Veil

Mikolas said little else through the rest of their meal, only admonishing her to eat, stating at the end of it, “I want to finish the takeover arrangements. You have free run of the yacht unless you show me you need to be confined to your room.”

“You seriously think I’ll let you keep me like some kind of pirate’s doxy?”

“Since I’m about to stage a raid and appoint myself admiral of Grigor’s corporate fleet, I can’t deny that label, can I? You call yourself whatever you want.”

She glared at his back as he walked away.

He left her to her own devices and there must have been something wrong with her because, despite hating Mikolas for his overabundance of confidence, she was viciously glad he was running Grigor through.

At no point should she consider Mikolas her hero, she cautioned herself. She should have known there’d be a cost to his saving her life. She flashed back to Grigor calling her useless baggage. To Hildy telling her to earn her keep.

She wasn’t even finished repaying Hildy! That hardly put her in a position to show “gratitude” to Mikolas, did it?

Oh, she hated when people thought of her as some sort of nuisance. This was why she had been looking forward to settling Hildy and striking out on her own. She could finally prove to herself and the world that she carried her own weight. She was not a lodestone. She wasn’t.

A rabbit hole of self-pity beckoned. She avoided it by getting her bearings aboard the aptly named Inferno. The top deck was chilly and dark, the early night sky spitting rain into her face as the wind came up. The hot tub looked appealing, steaming and glowing with colored underwater lights. When the porter appeared with towels and a robe, inviting her to use the nearby change room, she was tempted, but explained she was just looking around.

He proceeded to give her a guided tour through the rest of the ship. She didn’t know what the official definition for “ship” was, but this behemoth had to qualify. The upper deck held the bridge along with an outdoor bar and lounge at the stern. A spiral staircase in the middle took them down to the interior of the main deck. Along with Mikolas’s stateroom and her own, there was a formal dining room for twelve, an elegant lounge with a big-screen television and a baby grand piano. Outside, there was a small lifeboat in the bow, in front of Mikolas’s private sundeck, and a huge sunbathing area alongside a pool in the stern.

The extravagance should have filled her with contempt, but instead she was calmed by it, able to pretend this wasn’t a boat. It was a seaside hotel. One that happened to be priced well beyond her reach, but whatever.

It wasn’t as easy to pretend on the lower deck, which was mostly galley, engine room, less extravagant guest and crew quarters. And, oh, yes, another boat, this one a sexy speedboat parked in an internal compartment of the stern.

Her long journey to get to Trina caught up to her at that point. She’d left London the night before and hadn’t slept much while traveling. She went back to her suite and changed into a comfortable pair of pajamas—ridiculously pretty ones in peacock-blue silk. Champagne-colored lace edged the bodice and tickled the tops of her bare feet, adding to the feeling of luxuriating in pure femininity.

She hadn’t won a prize holiday, she reminded herself, trying not to be affected by all this lavish comfort. A gilded cage was still a prison and she would not succumb to Mikolas’s blithe expectation that he could “keep” her. He certainly would not seduce her with his riches and pampering.

I won’t force you and I won’t have to.

She flushed anew, recalling their kiss as she curled up on the end of the love seat rather than crawl into bed. She wanted to be awake if he arrived expecting sex. When it came to making love, she was more about fantasy than reality, going only so far with the few men she’d dated. That kiss with Mikolas had shaken her as much as everything else that had happened today.

Better to think about that than her near-drowning, though.

Her thoughts turned for the millionth time to her mother’s last moments. Somehow she began imagining her mother was on this boat and they were being tossed about in a storm, but she couldn’t find her mother to warn her. It was a dream, she knew it was a dream. She hadn’t been on the other boat when her mother was lost, but she could feel the way the waves were battering this one—