The Secret Beneath the Veil

Damn it, he was self-aware enough to know he used denial as a coping strategy, but there was no point in raking over the coals of what had been done to him. Nothing would change it. Viveka wanted a jocular companion to share opinions and anecdotes with. He was never going to be that person. There was too much gravity and anger in him.

So he had schooled her on what to expect, and it left him sullen through the rest of the day.

She wasn’t much better. In another woman, he would have called her subdued mood passive-aggressive, but he already knew how sensitive Viveka was under all that bravado. His churlish behavior had tamped down her natural cheerfulness. That made him feel even more disgusted with himself.

Then his grandfather asked her to play backgammon and she brightened, disappearing for a couple of hours, coming back to the penthouse only to change for the gym.

Why did that annoy him? He wanted her to be self-sufficient and not look to him to keep her amused. Later that evening, however, when he found her plumping cushions in the lounge, he had to ask, “What are you doing?”

“Tidying up.” She carried a teacup and plate to the dumbwaiter and left it there.

“I pay people to do that.”

“I carry my weight,” she said neutrally.

He pushed his hands into his pockets, watching her click on a lamp and turn off the overhead light, then lift a houseplant—honest to God, she checked a plant to see if it needed water rather than look at him.

“You’re angry with me for what I said this morning.”

“I’m not.” She sounded truthful and folded her arms defensively, but she finally turned and gave him her attention. “I just never wanted to be in this position again.”

The bruised look in her eye made him feel like a heel.

“What position?” he asked warily.

“Being forced on someone who doesn’t really want me around.” Her tight smile came up, brave, but fatalistic.

“It’s not like that,” he ground out. “I told you I want you.” Admitting it still made him feel like he was being hung by his feet over a ledge.

“Physically,” she clarified.

Before the talons of a deeper truth had finished digging into his chest, she looked down, voice so low he almost didn’t hear her.

“So do I. That’s what worries me,” she continued.

“What do you mean?”

She hugged herself, shrugging. Troubled. “Not something worth sharing,” she mumbled.

Share, he wanted to demand, but that would be hypocritical. Regret and apology buzzed around him like biting mosquitoes, annoying him.

It had taken him years to come to this point of being completely sure in himself. A few days with this woman, and he was second-guessing everything he was or had or did.

“Can we just go to bed?” Her doe eyes were so vulnerable, it took a moment for him to comprehend what she was saying. He had thought they were fighting.

“Yes,” he growled, opening his arms. “Come here.”

She pressed into him, her lips touching his throat. He sighed as the turmoil inside him subsided.

* * *

Every night, they made love until Viveka didn’t even remember falling asleep, but she always woke alone.

Was it personal? she couldn’t help wondering. Did Mikolas not see anything in her to like? Or was he simply that removed from the normal needs of humanity that he genuinely didn’t want any closer connections? Did he realize his behavior was hurtful? Did he know and not care?

Whenever she had dreamed of being in an intimate relationship with a man, it had been intimacy across the board, not this heart-wrenching openness during sex and a deliberate distance outside of it. Was she saying too much? Asking too much?

She became hypersensitive to every word she spoke, trying to refrain from getting too personal. The constant weighing and worrying was exhausting.

It was harder when they traveled. At least with his grandfather at the table, the conversation flowed more naturally. As Mikolas dragged her to various events across Europe, she had to find ways to talk to him without putting herself out there too much.

“I might go to the art gallery while you’re in meetings this morning. Unless you want to come? I could wait until this afternoon,” was a typical, neutral approach. She loved spending time with him, but couldn’t say that.