“They should call it heels over head,” she said, trying to break the spell. “We’re head over heels right now. It means you’re upright.”
He halted their dance, started to say something, but off to her right, Clair said, “Vivi. Let me introduce you properly. My husband, Aleksy Dmitriev.”
* * *
Mikolas pulled himself back from a suffocating place where his emotions had knotted up. She’d been joking with all that talk of love, he knew she had, but even having a falsehood put out there to those vultures had made him uncomfortable.
He had been pleased to feel nothing for Trina. He would have introduced her as his wife and the presumption of affection might have been made, but it wouldn’t have been true. It certainly wouldn’t have been something that could be used to prey on his psyche, not deep down where his soul kept well out of the light.
Viveka was different. Her blasé claim of love between them was an overstatement and he ought to be able to dismiss it. But as much as he wanted to feel nothing toward her, he couldn’t. Everything he’d done since meeting her proved to himself that he felt something.
He tried to ignore how disarmed that made him feel, concentrating instead on finding himself face-to-face with the man who’d been evading him for two years.
Dmitriev looked seriously peeved, mouth flat and the scar on his face standing out white.
It’s the Viveka effect, Mikolas wanted to drawl.
Dmitriev nodded a stiff acknowledgment to Viveka’s warm smile.
“Did you think you were being robbed?” Viveka teased him.
“It crossed my mind.” Dmitriev lifted a cool gaze to Mikolas. When I realized she was with you, he seemed to say.
Mikolas kept a poker face as Viveka finished the introduction, but deep down he waved a flag of triumph over Dmitriev being forced to come to him.
It was only an introduction, he reminded himself. A hook. There was no reeling in this kind of fish without a fight.
“We have to get back to the children,” Clair was saying. “But I wanted to thank you again for your help.”
“My pleasure. I hope we’ll run into each other in future,” Viveka said. Mikolas had to give her credit. She was a natural at this role.
“Perhaps you can add us to your donor list,” Mikolas said. I do my homework, he told Dmitriev with a flick of his gaze. Clair ran a foundation that benefited orphanages across Europe. Mikolas had been waiting for the right opportunity to use this particular door. He had no scruples about walking through it as Viveka’s plus one.
“May I?” Clair brightened. “I would love that!”
Mikolas brought out one of his cards and a pen, scrawling Viveka’s details on the back, mentally noting he should have some cards of her own printed.
“I’d give you one of mine, but I’m out,” Clair said, showing hands that were empty of all but a diamond and platinum wedding band. “I’ve been talking up my fund-raising dinner in Paris all night—oh! Would you happen to be going there at the end of next month? I could put you on that list, too.”
“Please do. I’m sure we can make room,” Mikolas said smoothly. We, our, us. It was a foreign language to him, but surprisingly easy to pick up.
“I’m being shameless, aren’t I?” Clair said to her husband, dipping her chin while lifting eyes filled with playful culpability.
The granite in Dmitriev’s face eased to what might pass for affection, but he sounded sincere as he contradicted her. “You’re passionate. It’s one of your many appealing qualities. Don’t apologize for it.”
He produced one of his own cards and stole the pen Mikolas still held, wordlessly offering both to his wife.
I see what you’re doing, Dmitriev said with a level stare at Mikolas while Clair wrote. Dmitriev was of similar height and build to Mikolas. He was probably the only man in the room whom Mikolas would instinctively respect without testing the man first. He emanated the same air of self-governance that Mikolas enjoyed and had more than demonstrated he couldn’t be manipulated into doing anything he didn’t want to do.
He provoked all of Mikolas’s instincts to dominate, which made getting this man’s contact details that much more significant.
But even though he wasn’t happy to be giving up his direct number, it was clear by Dmitriev’s hard look that it was a choice he made consciously and deliberately—for his wife.
Mikolas might have lost a few notches of regard for the man if his hand hadn’t still been throbbing from connecting with Grigor’s jaw. Which he’d done for Viveka.
It was an uncomfortable moment of realizing it didn’t matter how insulated a man believed himself to be. A woman—one for whom he’d gone heels over head—could completely undermine him.
Which was why Mikolas firmed himself against letting Viveka become anything more than the sexual infatuation she was. The only reason he was bent out of shape was because they hadn’t had sex yet, he told himself. Once he’d had her, and anticipation was no longer clouding his brain, he’d be fine.
“That was what we came for,” he said, after the couple had departed. He indicated the card Viveka was about to drop into her pocketbook. “We can leave now, too.”
* * *
Mikolas made a face at the card the doorman handed him on their way in, explaining he was supposed to call the police in the morning to make a statement. They didn’t speak until they were in the penthouse.
“I’ve wanted Dmitriev’s private number for a while. You did well tonight,” he told her as he moved to pour two glasses at the bar.
“It didn’t feel like I did anything,” she murmured, quietly glowing under his praise. She yearned for approval more than most people did, having been treated as an annoyance for most of her early years.
“It’s easy for you. You don’t mind talking to people,” he remarked, setting aside the bottle and picking up the glasses to come across and offer hers. “Do you take yours with water?”
“I haven’t had ouzo in years,” she murmured, trying to hide her reaction to him by inhaling the licorice aroma off the alcohol. “I shouldn’t have had it when I did. I was far too young. Yiamas.”
Mikolas threw most of his back in one go, eyes never leaving hers.
“What, um...?” Oh, this man easily emptied her brain. “You, um, don’t like talking to people? You said you hated those sorts of parties.”
“I do,” he dismissed.
“Why?”
“Many reasons.” He shrugged, moving to set aside his glass. “My grandfather had a lot to hide when I first came to live with him. I was too young to be confident in my own opinions and didn’t trust anyone with details about myself. As an adult, I’m surrounded by people who are so superficial, crying about ridiculous little trials, I can’t summon any interest in whatever it is they’re saying.”
“Should I be complimented that you talk to me?” she teased.
“I keep trying not to.” Even that was delivered with self-deprecation tilting his mouth.
Her heart panged. She longed to know everything about him.
His gaze fixed on her collarbone. He reached out to take her hair back from her shoulder. “You’ve had one sparkle of glitter here all night,” he said, fingertip grazing the spot.
It was a tiny touch, an inconsequential remark, but it devastated her. Her insides trembled and she went very still, her entire being focused on the