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“No, agapi mou,” he said, and he was only distantly aware that he’d called her my love. It hardly seemed important, though some part of him registered it would be. Eventually. He reached over despite himself and wrapped a strand of her black hair around his finger, pleased that it retained a small bit of her warmth. Wishing he could, too. “All you said was mama. Over and over again.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN SHE WOKE UP it was morning, and Nicodemus was gone.
For a moment, Mattie blinked at the side of the bed where he normally sprawled, all of his masculine perfection on mouthwatering display. But then her memory caught up with her in a sickening rush, and so did her headache.
She felt hungover, though she knew she wasn’t. Dreadfully, hideously hungover, from the pounding at her temples to the desert where her mouth should have been. And there was panic like a stomach cramp, deep in her belly, growing more acute by the second.
A shower—long and hot and almost punishing—didn’t help. Neither did sneaking down to the kitchen and fixing herself a huge mug of coffee to stave off the fog in her head. Mattie crept down the long hall that led to Nicodemus’s office and stopped when she heard his voice from within. Powerful, commanding. Certain.
“I’ve already signed the papers,” he was saying, and Mattie imagined boardrooms all over the world filled with corporate disciples in three-piece suits, leaping over each other to do his bidding. “I will be forced to view any further delays or dragging of feet as hostile, am I clear? Endaxi.”
His voice lulled her into a false sense of security, like he could handle anything—even her, and she knew she couldn’t risk that.
She slipped back down the hall and climbed back up to the master bedroom. It took her only a moment to locate her things in the vast walk-in closet, and she pulled the cigarette packet out of the bottom of her purse with a small sigh of relief. The packet had crumpled on the side and the three cigarettes that remained within were bent almost to breaking, but that hardly mattered. She pulled one out, then rummaged around for her lighter.
She didn’t go out on the balcony that wrapped around the master bedroom on three sides. Instead, she retraced her steps through the villa and then continued on into the long wing where all the guest suites were. It was there, at the farthest point of the house, she snuck out onto a little patio, found a small iron bench not directly visible from inside and indulged in her filthiest habit.
Mattie pulled her legs up beneath her and tipped her head back, letting the chilly air and the warm sunlight battle it out. Slowly, surely, she felt better. The cigarette tasted stale, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the taste. It wasn’t even about smoking.
It was, if she was honest with herself, purely about reminding herself that Nicodemus couldn’t control this. Her. That he didn’t know her, no matter what he’d thought he’d heard last night. That she still had whole parts of herself she was keeping at bay, keeping hidden, that he couldn’t reach no matter how many meals they shared or nightmares he soothed away. That he cast the illusion of safety, but it was only that: an illusion.
Because that had to be true, or she was well and truly lost.
And if there was a growing part of her that wanted to simply surrender to him, to lose herself in him, to see if someone as strong and formidable as he was could help her carry the weight of all her secrets—
“Don’t be an idiot, Mattie,” she said out loud.
“I am afraid it is much too late for that.”
She jumped against the iron bench and swiveled to see Nicodemus standing there in the French doors that led to the guest room. Tall, dark. Grim.
And furious.
Mattie looked at the cigarette as if she’d never seen it before, then looked at him. That will be your last cigarette, she remembered him saying so long ago in her father’s library. Her heart was wild against her ribs. But she couldn’t back down. She’d already given too much away.
So she held his dark gaze while she put the cigarette to her mouth again, took a long drag and then blew the smoke out. At him.
For a moment, everything stopped. The world on its axis. The air around them. Everything.
Then Nicodemus threw back his head and laughed.
It was the last thing Mattie expected; it filled the morning with its golden, infectious sound, and maybe that was why she didn’t think to move when he closed the distance between them, rounding the bench to stand in front of her.
And then it was too late. He leaned over her, trapping her against the high back. He plucked the cigarette out of her fingers the way he had once before, and this time he stubbed it out beneath his foot. Then he caught her where she sat with an arm on either side of her, bringing his face dangerously close to hers.
