“I make it my business to know people,” Mak said. “I profile them. It makes it easier in this business if I understand human nature. You think you’re so special that I can’t figure you out?”
She turned to him, her heart raging in her chest. “I’m not a list of characteristics. I am a person. I …”
“You are spoiled. Selfish. Characteristics brought on by a life with every amenity you could possibly imagine—and some most people can not—at your fingertips. You feel persecuted while surrounded by luxury, because you know nothing else. Because you don’t know what it is to go without food or shelter. Oh, I think I know you, Eva. Better than you know yourself, quite possibly.”
His assessment made her feel ill. Made her tremble from the inside out. Was it so wrong to want more out of her life than being an object? She wasn’t an artifact, which made being wrapped in silk and put on display boring and unsatisfying.
She sucked in a breath and met Mak’s eyes, ignored the shiver that worked its way through her as she did. “You can continue to think all of that if you wish. Frankly, you underestimating me works to my benefit.”
He chuckled, low and slow. “Perhaps you are simply overestimating yourself.” He moved closer to her and her heart kicked into high gear. He leaned in, his palm pressed flat against the door to her rooms, his face so near hers she could hardly breathe. For one moment, it all stopped. There was only Mak, his face filling her vision, his scent teasing her. “Sleep well, printzyessa.”
He pushed back from the door and turned away from her, walking down the hall, his abandonment leaving her cold. His recent nearness leaving her shaking.
“Bastard,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.
He didn’t turn. He just laughed.
She pushed the door open and closed it firmly behind her. This was a disaster. A nightmare. She’d been downgraded to a maximum-security playpen.
She hated that man. That ridiculous, gorgeous, awful man.
Eva toyed with the idea of climbing out the window. For all of two seconds. She didn’t have anywhere she wanted to be, and frankly, it would be rebellion for rebellion’s sake and that was just stupid.
The casino stuff, that night she’d gotten into one of Kyonos’s most exclusive and racy nightclubs, that had been for the benefit of the press. And even though she’d lost her bodyguard detail, she’d been sure she was safe.
Sneaking out in the dead of night didn’t have the same benefit.
She sank into the sofa that stretched across the entryway to her quarters, which was structured very much like a luxury apartment without a kitchen. It was a way for her to have privacy without actually having it. An illusion of independence.
She closed her eyes, her head resting on a plush white cushion. She could feel the noose tightening around her neck. Duty. Honor. She should care about both of those things more than she did.
She just wanted her own life.
And in her position, wanting that made her selfish, terrible when it would be seen as normal, responsible, for someone else to want to take control of their existence. It was also completely impossible.
CHAPTER THREE
EVA in her fitted black slacks, white blouse and long string of pearls that hung low, knotted beneath her breasts, was a very different Eva from the one he’d encountered the night before. With her glossy brown hair tamed into a sleek bun, her makeup light and subtle, she looked every inch the proper princess.
But he knew better. He could not get the image of her as she had been last night out of his mind. Angry, and more than a little bit hot. She had plagued his dreams. Another strange occurrence. Even in sleep he had control. It had been necessary, for so long, for him to have control in every way. And he had gone into a business that took that and used it, made the most of it.
He couldn’t afford to lose it now.
He had been forced to take to the beach early in the morning, running until his lungs burned and his muscles shook, until he was certain the desire for her had been replaced by utter exhaustion. It was a technique he had used often in the past. It had not worked today.
“Good morning, Mak,” she said, looking up from her breakfast, her tone telling him there was nothing good about seeing him at all. So, she wasn’t so different from last night’s Eva.
“Morning.”
“What’s on my agenda for the day?”
“You are housebound.”
Her head snapped up, her expression fierce. “Is that the way it’s going to be, then?”
“There is a ball coming up at the end of the month.”
“Ah yes, a ball. What is the function of those balls do you suppose? To trot me out before potential suitors.”
“And for women to parade themselves before your brother, right?”
“True. As long as Stavros is single there will be balls. And minor royals gagging to marry a future king.”
“And your brother is as interested in marriage as you are, I take it?”
“Less.” She looked up at him again and for the first time, he saw a vulnerability in her eyes. He also saw her beauty, beauty that was impossible to ignore. “Although he’ll do it. And he’ll do it without argument. That’s how he is. He does what’s best. Feeling … well, feeling never comes into it for Stavros. Is it really house arrest until I’m engaged? Is that my only option?”
“What is it you want, Eva?” He moved to the table and sat across from her. “Beyond creating scandal?”
“Something. Anything. A chance just to be myself for a while. A chance to have some freedom. To live.”
He ignored the slight twinge in his chest. “Your life is different, Eva.”
“Ah yes, I’m a princess. Which, ironically, means I have less control than your average person. Not more.”
“I find it difficult to muster any sympathy for you.”
“So … in lieu of that you plan on watching me eat breakfast?” she asked, finely groomed brow arched. She was stunning. A study in refined beauty. In another life, well, this same life, but a part of it that was so long ago it might as well not have existed, he never would have been able to speak to a woman like her. A woman of her station.
And yet, things had changed. He had found great success. And with every step in his professional life, with every dollar added to his bank account, more had been torn away from his heart, more of the things he loved stripped from him.
Now he was a billionaire. Self-made royalty. The most highly regarded man in his field. And in so many other ways he was bankrupt. He could relate in some ways to her, more strongly than she could imagine.
Still, she was here. She could use her legs, her mouth, her mind. She had so much, and she seemed to appreciate nothing.
“Breakfast, then maybe coffee out on the terrace? Lunch later. A thrilling day for us both.”
She rolled her eyes, the expression making her look like a rebellious teenager. He wasn’t that much older than her. Just nine years. It felt like so much more. “How can you stand this?”
“Simple. I’m getting paid to be here.”
“You don’t need the money.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Then why?”
He shrugged. “I have nothing else to do, and I don’t believe in an idle life. I have built my company from nothing, I have a reputation to protect, and I intend to do it. I see a job through to completion and I don’t intend to stop now.”
“Well, you might have chosen your life, Mak. But I didn’t choose mine.”
He laughed at that. Laughter was a rare thing in his life, yet Eva seemed to make him laugh more easily than most. Unintentionally of course. “I didn’t choose my life, any more than you chose yours. But what I did was make something with it.” No one, not a single person in history, would have chosen the path he’d walked, not knowing where it led. He was certain of that.
“But you said you didn’t have to work … you.”
“I don’t. But I choose to, because I believe in what I do. I started my business for the same reason anyone starts a business. To make money. I did. I kept going, I made more. And now I am here.” He looked around the dining room, bright, with large windows that overlooked a turquoise sea. “I started a job here, and like every job I have ever started, I will see it through to the end. Honor, keeping my word, that’s more important than money. Something I realize you don’t understand.”
“That’s low,” she said, pushing her plate back. “I get that you pride yourself on reading people,” she looked up, her dark eyes blazing, clashing with his, “but you don’t know me. And you won’t until you’re facing a future filled with nothing but endless … endless darkness. An eternity serving other people with no consideration to yourself.”
His stomach tightened. Painfully. It was still so easy to find himself back at Marina’s bedside in his mind. Watching her face, so lovely at one time, contorted with pain, her lips opening for silent screams her damaged mind wouldn’t allow her to articulate. Then sometimes she would scream. Sometimes …
He stood, trying to ignore the raging of his heart. He couldn’t afford an emotional reaction. Not now. Never.
“I will make you a deal, printzyessa. I won’t assume to know you, so long as you don’t presume to know where I’ve been in my life. There are other paths to walk down than the one you speak of. There is darkness you can’t imagine. Darkness no light can cut through.” He breathed in deeply, ignoring the stricken look on her face, finding a foothold in his control and taking it. “Are you through eating?”