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‘Your brother, however, has shares in his flagship company.’
‘How?’
‘I believe there was a poker game involved.’ Because Kozlov wouldneverhave sold anyone such a large stake in the company that was his shining triumph.
‘My brother doesn’t play poker,’ Marit scoffed, as if the idea was farcical. But Lykos had seen with his own eyes just how good a poker player Svardia’s new King was.
‘I could be mistaken,’ he replied in a tone that revealed he didn’t think anything of the sort. ‘Anyway, I return you to your brother unwed, and in exchange I get his shares in Kozlov Industries.’ Those, combined with his own, would finally oust the oligarch from the company he’d founded.
The man’s reputation would never recover.
‘You want to take his company? Kozlov’s?’ she asked astutely. ‘Why?’
He stalked towards the chair she was sitting in, placed his hands on the arms and leaned close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes sparkle. ‘Because he’s a nasty man and I want to take it from him. That, Princess Marit, is all you need to know.’
This close, he could see the curve of her eyelashes, the soft freckles across her nose and cheeks and the way her lips sloped in a straight rather than curved line. They looked as if she’d been nibbling on the fleshy centre.
He pulled himself back, realising that he’d leaned in too far only by the way that the jade shards in her eyes flashed in warning.
Twenty-two. She was only twenty-two.
He turned away, disgusted with himself and the entire situation, spinning on his heel and leaving the room.
Marit blinked and blinked again, trying to clear the afterimage of Lykos left long after he’d gone. The determination that had marked his features as he’d warned her of his intent had been electrifying, but nothing compared to what it had morphed into.
Awareness. She’d felt it—his awareness of her as a woman—and her pulse hadn’t recovered. She hadn’t recovered. It was as if he’d reached out and touched her, and her heart had responded by trying to climb out of her chest.
And Lykos had seen that and left the room.
‘Lykos?’ she called, suddenly feeling a million shades of awkward.
‘I’m calling your brother, then taking a shower,’ she heard him shout from behind a door at the other end of the apartment.
Nomake yourself at home, nohelp yourself to a drink or whatever you need.The toilets are here, here and here, and the exits are...She turned back to the lift.
‘And you need a key for the lift, which I have, so don’t bother.’
She turned to glare in the direction the voice was coming from, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She stood up and started to pace the living area, feeling a restlessness she didn’t want to examine too closely. The idea of Lykos and her brother talking made her chest hurt and she rubbed her sternum a little to ease the tension there.
Aleksander would understand her actions, surely. He’d understand why she’d wanted to marry someone of her choosing. Hehadto. He’d known what it was like for her growing up. When they were younger Aleksander had, like Freya, tried to share some of their parents’ attention with her but it had only made things worse. In her excitement, she’d become overeager, her actions too fast, causing her to spill something, or her words too quick, saying something nonsensical, irritating both her parents. After a while it became so painful for everyone, her siblings stopped and she gave up trying to impress them. Gave up trying to be seen. It had cut her off from the family unit, leaving her sticking out awkwardly at the side. And she’d promised herself never to feel that way again. Marit swallowed the emotions thickening her throat. If Lykos was on the phone with her brother, perhaps she should speak to him and at least get the shouting over and done with.
She followed Lykos’s voice down a white-walled corridor to a rich walnut door at the end. It was slightly ajar and she could just make out what Lykos was saying.
‘Yes, I know. But she’s here now.’
‘And André?’ her brother’s voice asked though the speaker of the phone.
Marit held back a little then, unable to resist, she peered through the crack in the door to see Lykos moving about what must be a bedroom beyond. He was in the process of removing his cufflinks.
‘Won’t be a problem.’
‘You know this for sure?’
Lykos huffed out a laugh. ‘Yes.’
Marit felt her cheeks colour with embarrassment at how easily André had let her go. He’d not even uttered a single word to stop Lykos. It hurt more than it should, digging into an older wound, a deeper one. She looked up to find Lykos shrugging out of his shirt and her breath caught in her lungs.
Her hand flew to her chest as her heart thudded against her ribs, while her eyes traced every single line and plane of Lykos’s body. The muscles on display weren’t puffed from excessive exercise but honed, earned, lithe and powerful. As if Lykos knew how to use what he had rather than just rely on brute force. Even his body hinted at a lethal intelligence that seemed to run contrary to the strange cynical sense of humour she’d seen him display. Broad shoulders tapered into thin hips, the dusting of hair across his pecs seemed a handspan to Marit, her fingers flexing outward as if to test her guesstimate.
